Monday, May 23, 2016

Sneezy, Happy, Nylarathotep, and the Rest of the Seven Dwarfs

I'm pretty healthy for a fat guy.  Drives my wife and the doctors insane.  A little time in the gym at the office, and a few walks faster than our dogs' pace and I'd turn into a pretty healthy somewhat fat guy. 

The one week of the year that always strays from this is the when the stars are right and the pollen mix is just perfect for my sinuses to try and burst out of my face.  It started in the middle of high school, and the last 25 years has been a fruitless mission to try to combat this without becoming a zombie.  The doctor gave me free samples of some miracle drug back in the early 90's, but that got pulled off the market, so it's an experimentation with brand and store name products.

Last week started my week of hell, so that just compounded my normal litany of excuses not paint.    Hard to concentrate when the drugs are making you loopy/jittery, but doing nothing to stop the ectoplasm trying to escape out of my head.

It took a not-medically-recommended cocktail of drugs to be coherent and content at my daughter Maja's "final" 7th birthday party at Knoebels.  Each year we do get fewer guests, as the friends with kids have other obligations, and Maja is slowly building up her school friends, but we may have the lowest of the low-key parties at the park.  Cupcakes, On-site pizza (yum!), a couple bags of chips, juice boxes for the kids, water for the adults, and each kid gets a $20 book of tickets for rides.  No costumed characters, no games, no 97 crock pots full of food.  Just get everyone together to eat and go on a few rides. 

Of course, the latest saga of "ViscountEric is getting old"  is that Maja is now tall enough to go on most rides... without an adult.  My roller coaster riding buddy has gone looking for others to ride with.

Millie just hit 42" to go on her first real roller coaster, the Twister, but the jury is still out for her...
This ride does WHAT?
The other selfish thing about a seven-year olds party.  People stop bringing presents and start bring money/gift cards, so I only had one trip back to the van with our booty and leftover cupcakes. 

Sunday was an extended two-part adventure.  First was a trip down to Easton to help my Mom with her aging back porch.  We'll simply chalk that up to a fruitless disaster that I'll need to venture down  again.    I did grab the fastest breakfast ever at Williams Restaurant, where I got my first job many eons ago.  I barely took a sip of coffee and opened up my copy of Masks when my omelet appeared.   Very little is left from my days of scrubbing casserole dishes and mopping the floors, but it's far better than the last I was there, five or six years ago.

The drama with the porch and an aging, argumentative mother meant my window to stop by one or two Lehigh Valley hobby shops was out the window, as I had to drive across the valley for our game day at Steve's .

Good news for the Cthulhu game:  The investigators have escaped Kenya and will be arriving in Shanghai for next time.       My co-worker had been invited to play but ran way too late.  Nate got to play a new character, "RJ" Cuninghame, Big Game Hunter, who was quite effective against cultists.  Actual play forthcoming.

With a short CoC session, I introduced Spirit of '77 to the group, running Cruiseship of the Damned Again.    I had introduced the narrative "Yes, and" style of play with this week's Cthulhu game, so by the time they were running up and down the hallways in the ship, it might not have been old hat, but it was a comfortable fit.  Vincest Peck discovered the secret of the ship before going down, and Sammy Summers and her new Chinese cheerleader friend Ming Lo may escaped before the end credits rolled.

Last game of the day was Loop Inc, yet another Kickstarter Steve backed, this time from Eagle Games.  It's best described as a mixture or Robo-Rally planning, general resource gathering, with a healthy dose of wibblely-wobbley, timey-whimey stuff. 

When I got home I discovered Maja received one more belated birthday gift from her Uncle Kenny:  Munchkin Oz.  
 
I was going to hold off Munchkin for a little bit later, but she can't wait until her last week of rehearsals/practices can be over and we have time to play it over the weekend.

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