April 17, 2006 - Fun and Games

Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

April 17, 2006 - Fun and Games

View of the Penn State Campus Mall
from the Allen Street Grill

This weekend, The Gryphon and I drove out to Bellefonte to visit my sister and her husband and celebrate their birthdays, both of which took place recently. This was our first chance to get there in person.

I'd told my sister that we'd be there in early afternoon, but I should have known better. My work keeps me up late, so it's hard to get up and take care of everything in order to get there early. After all, it's a good four- to five-hour drive, depending on how many stops you take and how lucky you get with traffic and construction.

This time, we actually got up at 8 a.m., but between finishing up things around the apartment and getting breakfast, we didn't get on the road until 1 a.m.. My predictions of arriving early were doomed. Still, we made incredibly good kind, thanks to The Gryphon looking up the most direct route on the map, instead of using directions we'd previously been given. We got there by about 3:15 p.m.

My sister was outside watering flowers. She greeted us with a big smile. It's always good to see her. As soon as we got inside, she asked if I could tell she'd gained some weight since her wedding last year. I told her I couldn't; she still looks great. But we've both gone up a bit and are trying to lose about 5 pounds so we can fit into the clothes we bought last summer.

We were going to take my sister and her husband out to dinner to celebrate their birthdays, but it was still a bit early, so we sat around their rented home talking about things. My sister and I talked a lot about dog obedience training, because we've both been learning that lately. We especially talked about it while we walked them around the block. Since my sister was working on "heel" with her dog, Emma, I made Una heel, as well.

Emma is definitely doing a lot better. I remember when we watched her last year during my sister and her husband's honeymoon. She pulled me all over the place. Now, she's much calmer, and though she needs frequent correction, she definitely knows what "heel" means.

We compared the techniques our instructors used and talked about how our dogs were doing with what they had learned. Una seemed to be doing a lot better around Emma than usual. When they get together, they usually get really hyper and run around a lot, barking at the windows and jumping on people who enter the room. This time, they were both much better. Not perfect yet but certainly improved. It was nice.

Around 4 or 4:30, my sister and I got changed to go out. She put on a red sparkly skirt that reminded me of a belly dancing costume. She admitted that when she bought it, she thought about me and my belly dancing. I wore a black skirt with an '80s pattern that I'd found at a consignment store. We had The Gryphon take a picture.

I returned the favor, taking a picture of him, all ready to go.

My sister's husband drove because the back seat of my car is covered in Una hair. I've been meaning to get some sort of a seat cover so that, after I clean the upholstery, I could place that on there and Una could sit on it. That way when we have other passengers, it would be a simple matter of removing it.

We told them we'd go wherever they wanted, so we ate in downtown State College at the Allen Street Grill. I used to go there a lot with my grad school friends for drinks. We decided to share an appetizer sampler plate and then ordered dinner. I agreed to be the designated driver, since the birthday boy, my sister's husband, wanted to get a beer. So I got a Diet Coke and the others ordered either wine or beer.

For the main course, I had pan-seared tuna steak with rice and sweet-peas. It was delicious, but I couldn't finish it all, so I had half boxed up. This gave me some license to have dessert: one scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a coffee.

It was a great dinner and what's more, they seated us in the balcony area in the front, and we could see out onto the people walking along College Avenue and on the Penn State Campus Mall. Of course, it was quiet that weekend, since students were away for Easter.

I took some shots of my sister, who looked really pretty in the gentle late afternoon light.

She took the camera, then, and got some shots of me and a really silly one of her husband.

We ate a leisurely dinner and then walked back to the parking garage and made our way back to Bellefonte. On the way, we stopped at a bottle shop and picked up a sampler of J. Dundee beers.

My sister and I walked the dogs again and talked more about our pets. Now that I've got a kitty, we've got a lot to share about pet rearing.

The Gryphon and I had brought along possible entertainment, including some DVDs from Blockbuster Online (Crash and I Married a Strange Person) and The Gryphon's Sony PlayStation 2. First, we wanted them to get a chance to try Dance Dance Revolution. The Gryphon and my sister's husband set it up.

Unfortunately, The Gryphon and I were in the process of demonstrating the game when the vibrations of our movement knocked the glass bowl off the top of the TV, and the bowl smashed on the wooden floor. I took the dogs upstairs so they'd be out of danger while the others cleaned up the mess. I felt really bad about the accident. I was there when my sister bought that bowl, which had painted fish on it, at a yard sale several years ago.

After the glass was cleaned up, we started over again. The Gryphon and I demonstrated, and then my sister and her husband got a chance to try. Seeing it through their eyes, I remembered how much harder it had been on New Year's Eve when I first tried it. It gets much easier with practice. The two of them seemed to be having a good time, laughing when they made mistakes, and they went through several songs before ceding the floor.

The Gryphon and I did several songs, too, before putting the game away.

Then he got out Katamari Damacy II, the cute Japanese game where you roll up balls of objects and try to meet various challenges. We all took turns trying this one and had fun with it.

When we tired of this one, The Gryphon and my sister's husband played a racing game which allows you to crash cars. My sister and I weren't really interested in this, so she got out her game Taboo, and we went back and forth trying to give each other clues to guess the words. You have to get them to guess a word or a famous person's name without using certain words. For example, if you're trying to get someone to guess Matt Damon, you can't say Good Will Hunting or Ben Affleck.

My sister and I had a blast. We were either on the same wavelength or just having a great string of luck. We were really good at guessing them. I discovered it wasn't hard to give the clues, either. I just used the technique I'd learned at improv class, where you just start saying whatever comes to you. This was easy as long as it didn't include any words on the card.

Of course, sometimes it was a lot easier when we could make a personal connection. I had to get my sister to guess "cup cakes," and I said, "You had these at your wedding."

"Flowers?"

"You eat them."

"Cupcakes!"

"Right!"

We laughed our butts off, getting very silly in our clues. These game cards were all about six or seven years ago, gauging from the stars who were mentioned and the fact that they didn't have recent information. So when I had to get her to guess Gwyneth Paltrow, I could say, "She has a daughter named Apple. She's married to the lead singer from Cold Play." Neither of these facts were on the card.

We didn't actually keep score, because it was just the two of us. It was sort of like just reading off the questions from Trivial Pursuit cards. We got through a huge number of cards before giving up.

The guys, meanwhile, had moved onto a golf game, which features anime-style characters. We teased them a little about this, but they were having fun.

I'm actually glad that we spent the evening the way we did. Usually, when we all watch a movie together, one or more of us falls asleep on the couch. It was better to have a more interactive form of amusement.

We actually all stayed up pretty late. It was about 1 a.m. before we let the dogs out one last time and made our ways to bed.