Days of Summer Backlog >> 6/25/16 (Return to Boffing and the Graduation of an Old Friend)

a.     Saturday:

                                                 i.     Bagels! Get banner paper to give to Monica for her graduation later in the evening, to cover the blank walls of her new life out of the house J

                                               ii.     Boffing! Red Mage (/Alex, my chess buddy) is actually running things. Doing a great job as far as I can tell, keeping everything organized without pissing anyone off. There are some new recruits as well as some old faces. We do Valhalla, then Clans, then Sprout. Highlight of the day is almost (read: actually) winning Sprout. To win Sprout, you have to kill everyone on the field. Thing was, when I’d slain the 10 people actually playing Sprout, more contestants who had just been watching kept jumping in. I’d put to rest about 5 of them, when this little dude came up (I thought the last). So I lay down my monster spear and advance on him with my sword. At this point, veteran fighter Sovvos whirls out onto the field with two daggers. Bereft of one of my legs, I cannot hustle back and reclaim my spear. So I one-leggedly trip backwards, killing Sovvos, but landing flat on my back (since if I dodge backwards onto my dead leg I have to fall over). At this point, the bold little feller stabs me in the chest :D

                                              iii.     Great game of CTF to finish. Then get picked up, shower, make some little posters for Monica as part of my gift, and head to the graduation, a bit breathless.

                                              iv.     Graduation is great. I manage to throttle my social speed back to “Bham chill”. Which means I actually can take the time to talk to each long-forgotten friend comfortably. I realized I’d been bouncing around frenetically ever since school ended, not really believing that when I settled down that I would return to solidity.

                                               v.     Hang out a lot with Grace, but also talk with Sean, Heidi, Henry Banks, Ken, … , Monica’s boyfriend Demyan, and Monica’s friends from Whatcom Rihanna and Dory. Rihanna has a bit of a crazy life—she’s co-raising a child with a best friend-but-no longer-significant other, working long hours at WalMart... crazy story.

                                              vi.     At the end, give Monica my banner paper. Think she liked it. She wants to organize some hangouts with me and Demyan this summer—we’ll see what happens with that.

                                            vii.     Return home, take a walk with Mom, read some Street Fighting Mathematics (which is disappointingly basic) and hit the hay. Get to chat with folks a bit about the road trip goofballs’ take on the Alex thing—they agree it’s a blatant oversimplification.