Visiting Leslie

And now that I've ranted...

I went to see Leslie last weekend. I left Thursday morning. I'm not going to document every minute, but a few things we did include:

Tennis: The first day there, we went to get her a tennis racket. We wanted to play together. So after going to the Asian Farmer's Market for some Thai noodle ingredients, Guava juice, and moshi, we went to Toys R Us. No luck. The biggest rackets were the Dora and Diego models, much too small for use. So we meandered over to Target and found one for less than $20, a chipper blue one.

(She opted not to get the bright frilly pink one, to her credit. ^_~)

So Saturday we were ready to play. It went pretty well; we didn't actually serve or anything, just batted the ball around for a while. She was pretty good, and I wasn't too rusty, so we had a few good volleys. It was her first time since playing at a friend's house long ago.

(And we played again on Monday.)

Swimming: Her complex has a swimming pool; why not? After playing tennis on Saturday, we switched into our swimsuits and went out there. As we arrived, the sidewalk started to sing with rain. Cue people fleeing from their chairs from what turned out to be a five minute shower. We waited it out and had the pool to ourselves for a while, which we used to good effect, splashing, dunking, lifting, and twirling about. It was nice.

Picnic: On Friday we went to Ijams. It's a nature center just east of Knoxville. It was a morning activity. We'd gotten a lemon rosemary chicken, roasted garlic bread, boursin cheese, strawberries, and a few other items. (We'd hoped for Dr. Brown's cherry soda, but to no avail; I had Black Cherry IBC, and I believe she had Key Lime.) After spending the rest of the morning walking around the nature paths they have, we found a quiet shady place, spread a sheet on a picnic table, and feasted. It was scrumptious, glorious, delicious... and the bugs wanted some, but we managed well enough. After this we sat in the grass (again with the sheet) and read poetry. Some of it was excellent, some of it was laughable like "O Luxury," and some of it we couldn't say right, like Chaucer's.

Finally, around mid-afternoon, we left, but not without some gifts. Namely, the 15 or so awkward chigger bites up and down her legs and torso. Ow. >_< (I only had a couple.)

D&D: So Friday evening Derek wanted to run a session of roleplaying. Robbie and Patrick came by, Becky came out, and I got wrangled into NPCing an elven Sorceror for the fighter-type do-good Ogre Robbie played. Leslie, knowing she'd have to work most Fridays, opted out of doing more than relaxing or watching.

We had the quest set up and ended up getting off at a dead-end stop in a zombie village, which we're now travelling through nervously, having already had a fateful engagement with some of them. (The others waded around and did a variety of melee, while I stood back and alternately cast such classics as "Magic Missile" and snuck up closer to be relatively useless with the bow.) It ended about then. Pretty fun. ^_^

(Non-sequitor) During the character creation we finished up a game of Scrabble we'd started earlier. It was an epic game. She had created the point-garnering word "Festive" and thwarted my being able to play all seven letters. In return I got some huge letter bonuses and finally got into the lead. However, as the game wore on my advantage again declined, and she ended up the victor... by no more than a few points. (I believe we were both around 300?)

Also, Saturday we played Neverwinter Nights multiplayer, in a campaign that involved escorting a caravan through a dangerous desert. I played my wizard, Periwinkle Pendragon, along with the Bard (Becky), Barbarian (I think) (Derek), and Rogue (Leslie).

Lightning: After playing tennis on Monday, we were going to play Frisbee. Dark clouds were coming, but the radar looked hopeful (the only likely blotch was too far south and moving east at the moment we checked), so we walked about 5 minutes to the nearest park.

A few tosses and comments about the wind later, there is a sudden crash above. There is a sort of simultaneous discoloration, bright crackling white and blue and yellow, and the heavens reverberate so much that I reel. Leslie and I look at each other. We should head back.

It starts sprinkling on the way, and by the time we're inside, a good shower starts.

And we also had a lot of lightning and storming on the way back from Leslie's family's house on Sunday. Was inconvenient. Wait! That's something else.

Visiting Leslie's Family: This happened all day Sunday. It was fun. Her mom's a nice woman and an excellent cook. (I've met her before.) Her dad is friendly enough, and though his cooking went untested, I trust his is at least as good, since he's been a chef in the past. And her brother is cool. Has a potty mouth at the moment, but he was good to play with. I beat him some in Battlefront, he beat me always in Soul Caliber II, it was a pretty good time. Seeing photos, plants, remnants of an insect collection, going on a drive around town and then a brief walk in a wood, all these things were really refreshing.

Food: Leslie cooked twice. I helped, chopping up things and lending moral support. (In some places there wasn't too much I could do, not having a formal recipe on hand.) The first was Thai noodles. The second was a kind of casserole with shell macaroni, spaghetti sauce, and sausage covered with cheese. Both were excellent.

Movies: We watched a 1960's version of Romeo and Juliet, the ballet. It was wonderful, without as much of the gratuitous ballet dancing that sometimes happens. It was as complex as it needed to be, sometimes rambunctious, sometimes sorrowful, and ... my, my. Look up Margot Fonteyn. And Rudolph Nureyev. They were the best dancers I've ever seen, which isn't saying much, but which Leslie might say isn't too far off the mark.

Then one night we watched "Dead End Drive-In". It was one of those futuristic apocalypse in Australia kind of stories, involving massive numbers of unemployed and spikes in crimes. The protagonist, an unemployed, goes to the cinema with his girlfriend in his brother's vintage Chevy. It ends up getting two of its wheels taken and they find out they're in a concentration camp where they're given free movies and drugs, but not allowed to leave. The girlfriend enjoys it there, and this causes a rift, but the hero, undaunted by repeated setbacks, continues his struggle against apathy. It was a decent movie, and though it had some flaws, they did represent fights realistically, and it was really a good concept they worked around.

Finally, we saw a classic Peter Sellers movie, "The Mouse that Roared," centered around a small European Duchy of Fenthick, which declares war on America intending to lose. They send their 30-man army across the Atlantic with an inept commander, and end up... well, it's pretty funny, and more than pretty fun.

Quack: We did more, and a lot can't be said, because a visit cannot be fully qualified in words, even if it lasted for a few minutes. It was good to see her, to be able to relax around her. That should say loads. ^_^