June 1, 2004 - Picnic Party

The day was much chillier than had hoped, which was a disappointment, because there's also a swimming pool at this park, and The Gryphon and I had brought our swimsuits, in hopes of taking a dip. I wish I'd been able to, because I would have eaten far less food that day.

My day actually started out with a simple bridal shower for a friend of ours who is getting married soon. They're having a very small wedding, family only, and then a separate party for their friends. We took her to breakfast at The Cheesecake Factory. We had all pitched in money to get her a gift certificate for a book store, which if you knew her you'd know was a perfect gift.

We all wanted to have some cheesecake, so most of us had a very light breakfast. I, for example, had a cup of soup. Even so, I wasn't able to finish my huge piece of peanut butter chocolate cheesecake, so I had them box half of it up.

I was sensible, at first, with food at the picnic, taking small amounts of the things I wanted to try. Then, some of us took a walk to a pier on the other side of the lake, where I got a great candid shot that, unlike most of my pictures that day, did not involve unflattering shots of people eating.

We came back and there was more hanging around the picnic table. I had a little more to eat.

Then about half of our group trekked off to the shooting range, which might have been interesting to watch but I wasn't particularly keen on being around guns. So The Gryphon and I stayed behind at the picnic table with the other pacifists.

Again, a group of us took a much longer walk, a brisk one. While we didn't make it all the way around the lake, I actually believe we walked further because I think we'd gotten more than half way around when we decided to turn back. I convinced The Gryphon to get a shot of me by the lake, which was unfortunately backlit. I also got a shot of the waterfall at the spillway.

      

It was after this second walk that I really misbehaved, eating a lot of brownies and chips. I soon began to regret it, feeling overstuffed as I used to on Thanksgivings. It didn't help that the people around me were doing likewise.

As I said to The Gryphon later, I've got to eliminate the mindset that when I'm around this particular group of friends, it's fine to overeat. I've got to break free from that pattern, just as I'm beginning to break a similar mindset when I'm around my family.

The particular setup of the picnic area didn't help. Our picnic table was on a concrete slab, in close proximity to a number of similar picnic tables. We had no green space nearby for, say, playing Frisbee or sunning away from the picnic table.

Instead, we sat around the table, sharing stories, mostly from college but also from other times, many of which, for some reason, involved people being naked at inappropriate times and places.

But ultimately, the only one I can blame is myself. Hopefully, I'll remember the bloated, uncomfortable feeling I had by the end of the day and avoid it next time.

As sunset neared, our friends returned from the shooting range. Since the park was going to be closing soon, we packed everything up and got back into our cars. We drove back and hung out at the home of The Cheshire Cat and his wife, The Paper, whom I've nicknamed after a character she resembles in the anime series, Read or Die. One by one throughout the evening, people would fall asleep on the couch and then reluctantly admit they had to head home.

We found out the next day that we were lucky to have chosen Sunday for our picnic, rather than the actual Memorial Day holiday, Monday. That day turned out to be gray and rainy.

On Monday, The Gryphon and I met up with The Cheshire Cat, The Paper, The Dormouse and The White Rabbit to have lunch with a friend of ours, a computer game programmer who was in town for the weekend. I'll call him The Court Wizard, after his perennial honorary title on the staff of the Japanese animation convention, Otakon.

We wanted to socialize a little more before he had to take his plane back west.

We ate at TGI Fridays and talked about his new video game, Psi Ops, which will be in major production soon. We also talked about such things as the Atkins points on the menu, the 80s music on the radio, and of course, random movie quotes like "I want my two dollars."

Afterwards, most of the group was going off to Agent Smith's house to hang out and to view the home improvements he and his wife have made.

The Gryphon and I went, instead, to see Shrek 2, which we'd been planning on doing for awhile. The movie was lots of fun, especially because this time they didn't spend as much time on exposition and introducing characters. Jennifer Saunders from Absolutely Fabulous did a terrific job as the voice of the fairy godmother, and John Cleese was fun as Princess Fiona's father.

Since I work second shift, I was able to do all of this and still make it home in time to do my regular evening's assignments, by the end of which I was more exhausted than I would have predicted. The weekend, though fun, had been a busy one.

Moral:
Weekends you're busy with fun things are the best weekends.