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Kwea and I have just arrived home after spending the day at Look Park in Northampton, MA with family, friends, and a number of fellow hatrackers. Although the day started out clear, it quickly became a deluge. Have you ever tried to light a fire in a grill in the rain? Not an easy feat I assure you, but Kwea dutifully got drenched, along with a few others who were not afraid of a little rain... or thunder and lightning! Kwea's parents arrived later in the afternoon and brought clear skies up with them from Rhode Island..along with Kwea's dog Penney. (she had lots of fun because she had so many other "kids" to play with..she thinks that she is human, although she is part yellow lab and part rotweiler)
I am now tired and damp, but I have lots of new memories and I now have faces to put with names! Kama , I am so glad that you could visit with us while you are here. Smiles and safe journeys to you! We will have to get together again sometime ... indoors ... once we figure out how to manipulate the weather so that traveling will be nice and easy!
Thank you to all who came and enjoyed the day... our total count; including Penney, was 28 people(29 if you consider that my best friend Joy is 6 months pregnant... and little Ethan let his presence be known to me ... he kicked me!) who braved the wind, rain, thunder, and lightning!! I'll let Kwea post to tell you more details about what went on today and who all was there.
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Why certainly! Never let it be said that I am not a good hostess. Anytime you want to visit and have a cup, I'll be glad to provide you with my special personal cashe of cocoa, the good stuff! Posts: 325 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Cocoa is one of those things to which the phrase "it's all good" truly applies.
However, if by "the good stuff" you mean something European, South American, or made by a small boutique-type operation here in the states, I promise to savor it and offer all manner of homage to your hostessing abilities.
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Bob, Now that I think of it, I believe it was you who called the rains down upon us with your Noah Pun Smackdown Thread.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Well, that was a lot of fun. We had a blast, although I wasn't sure if things were going to work out well at the beginning. Something about 3 hours of rain, so much rain at times that I wasn't sure if the fire would stay lit. Look Park, where we had the picnic, won't allow charcoal for cooking. You have to use wood, which they provide in large dumps throughout the park.
Have you ever tried to light a fire in the rain? It wasn't easy...
Thanks go out to everyone who braved the weather and helped me cook, clean, or make/break camp. Liz brought a screen tent and a tarp, and we set that up (well, they did...I was cooking by then) over the table to have a staging point for the food to keep it dry.
Also, everyone pitched in and helped get going once the rain broke, about 3:00 pm . We had set up food and chairs under a nearby covered bridge, and everyone got to know each other, or to reacquaint themselves. When we saw the rain stop everyone helped set up the food and moved coolers and equipment to the fire, which made my job as "Drenched Cook" a lot easier.
It was a blast meeting new people from Hatrack, and seeing some old friends again.
Of course, then I got back here to read that I had lost a friend I never really had a chance to get to know at all.
Well, at least I got to fence a bit with Suneun, after Jamie taught me a bit. I have always wanted to learn that, but I never had the opportunity. Now, thanks to Jamie, Nate, and Suneun, I have done it, if not well...
I hope everyone had as good a time as I did today!
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Bob, you were a topic of conversation at the picnic, and your trip to Boston was the catalyst that helped a lot of us meet IRL for the first time.
Also, Jenni did mean the good stuff....that Ghirabelli stuff, and Godiva.
I take good care of her, as she does me...
Sorry you couldn't be there IRL, but you were there in spirit.
What do I need, two Hatrackers to meet me, and I am real, correct? Well, not only did I meet eight Hatrackers(I think), but I found out that Bok played baseball with my cousin, and his lovely fiancee is friends with my coworkers' daughter.
It was so wonderful to meet everyone. Thank you so much, Kwea and Jenni, for hosting the event, and for hauling the wet screen house home.
It really was very Ark-like, being huddled together under a covered bridge for hours, watching Kwea barbecue in the pouring rain.
Thanks to the Boston-Providence-New Hampshuh group for coming out this way. I hope we can do it again another time. I think we could have it at Sarah's apartment. Wouldn't that be a good idea, Sarah? I could bring my camp stove.
[ August 21, 2004, 10:58 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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"Well, at least I got to fence a bit with Suneun, after Jamie taught me a bit."
Hmm. I see. So Liz leaves, and the fun begins, is that it? Fencing? Food eaten near the fire? Next I will hear that Mike did a cool handstand, and Suneun ate those Portabella mushrooms after all.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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No handstand. Just Suneun posing on top of Mike's shoulders, standing.
And no mushrooms, but she ate a sausage.... She isn't a vegitarian...lol...I don't know where a I got that idea...but I am using the mushrooms with steak tomorrow for dinner...thanks!
And Nate fishing for the kickball in the river...
My friend Jeff making Nate squeal like a stuck pig while fencing...while Jamie laughed at him...
My parents and sister, brother in law and 1 year old niece come and bring twice the food (and 6 packs of buns) we already had....and I had bought for 30-40..
And the "fun of packing a wet, muddy tent into a bag as it got dark.
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Fencing is a fun, if silly, sport. Something tells me there may soon be a link to some video of Jatraqueros poking each other with pointy pieces of metal.
You people are fun. Let's go get rained on again some time.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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So...we made it through Massachusetts and Vermont without issue. We cross the bridge into New Hampshire and make pit stop in at the Shell station for a few gallons of gas and some hot chocolate. I also, being a girl, had to wee.
I leave Nathan to pump the gas and go into the store. As I'm filling up the hot chocolate cup, Nathan comes up behind me and says, "I locked your keys in your car."
"You what?"
"I locked your keys in your car."
"Which door did you lock?" We had a 75% chance of only ONE door being locked, as only the driver's side door locks all four doors.
"Your door."
That'd be the driver's side door.
I ask, "Did it ding at you?"
"Yeah, I wondered why. I thought your headlights might be on."
"That ding tells you that the keys are still in the ignition."
"Oh."
Poor Nathan had no idea that when I'm really pissed, I do NOT want to be touched. So he tried to hug me to apologize and I snapped at him about not being touched. After five minutes, I was okay, and I bought him a coke while we waited for the tow truck guy to unlock the car.
(This is after a local cop couldn't slim jim into the car).
It was a nice hour and a half detour.
So, next time you talk to Nathan, mention something about him proving my idiot-proof car wrong. Posts: 14745 | Registered: Dec 1999
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Bok's right. In my sleep-deprived state, I left in the public folder name.
here is the corrected url. As my desktop is 4 feet away from me on the other side of this warm blanket, I will not be editing my original post tonight.
Mack: Total suck. Our mishaps were confined to missing the Mass Pike. Twice. We ended up meandering back through US-20 East, which was fairly amusing as we read out store names ("Co-Ed Billiards," "Kappy's Liquors"). By the way, there are nine Dunkin Donuts between Look Park and Mike's house on the route we took.
Edit: The word "jamie" was weirding me out so I kept looking at it wondering if it was spelled correctly and if I'm allowed to call her jamie. Then the word lost all meaning so I was totally lost. So back to Mack. Can I start calling her Mack the?
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Co-Ed Billiards rocks...even if they do let women in these days...
What is the world coming to these days?
There are some really weird store names here in MA. What do you expect when the state makes the business owners call liquor stores "package stores", as if that fools anyone....well, anyone but me..
For the first two years I lived in MA I thought all those "Package Stores" were competitors of Mailbox Etc's....until I went into one to mail a package...
Does that link work for eveyone by me? The new link, that is....because I am getting an error message when I try to play it, but my Real Player works fine on every other clip.....
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Heh. That sucks, Jamie. I've locked my mom's keys in her car several times, but have never done it in my car because it has this nice feature where it won't even lock with the keys in the ignition. But I'm still screwed if I ever put them down on the seat and forget about it.
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
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At least Kappy's doesn't say "Package Store" on the sign. I never understood why it was such a big deal to say liquor if you are allowed to drink it...
SO, other than Mack and Nate, did everyone get home OK? Any problems?
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Kwea, Call me, and I will come and pick up the screen house. If you want, I can take it to JCP(in the parking lot, so you don't have to lug it again), as it is school shopping time for the kids anyway.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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well, it's taken me this long to recover...actually I'm just falling apart in my old age! After the back ache from picnic lugging, I now have a sprained knee...that just happens every so often( it's a lot easier to do without much cartilage in there!) I had so much fun, and I loved the pics!
I too have locked the keys in a car... once...my best friend's mom's van... outside of the emergency room entrance...with the car running....LONG story! Joy, who showed up later with my friend Crystal, and I were with her mom and sister shopping and her sister sprained her ankle stepping off of a curb.. so badly the docs thought it might be broken. A rookie cop came to jimmy the door.. and dropped the jimmy inside the door(we still have that handy little tool!) , so he had to call another cop to come unlock the door!
There are 4 Drunkin Donuts in West Springfield! 1 at each of our rotaries (that reads traffic circles to normal people ) They are less than a half mile apart!
What we want is a Crispy Creme!
And to go way back to almost the beginning of the post... I have Godiva and Ghiardelli hot cocoa as well as some swiss hot cocoa that my mom's friend brought back for me. I have also had German, and Belgian cocoa in the past! I am a connoisseur of cocoa! Posts: 325 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Liz: I slacked off this weekend, and never washed them...really, I tried yesterday, and found out I don't have any outside spickets! I wash my car at a car wash, so I never noticed that last year when we moved in.
I am planning on washing it down at a friends house tommorrow, which will allow it to dry this weekend before I repack it. Would that work for you, or do you need it right away?
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I have a long and illustrious history of locking my keys in my car. I think the most memorable was the time I locked my 18 month old daughter in. She was just a little too young to understand my frantic instructions. Fortunately it was not a hot sunny day.
The other time I remember I had been grocery shopping and came out to find the car locked. While this happens fairly often, I was quite pregnant at the time and had both of the other kids with me. Not a happy pooka.
An interesting taste treat (for a Mormon, at least) is cocoa blended with Postum and cream. I forget now if I would have been having Postum if I were having chocolate. Seems like I disavowed it at one point. The Postum and Chocolate drinking probably took place about 1994.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Kwea, More important than cleaning it is airing it out. Do not worry, I have spigots here, and I am in no hurry for it. Perhaps, just maybe, we should meet for a bite to eat somewhere(and maybe a beer). Or even better, go to Rythm and Roots, and I will get it from you there. ha ha.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Although the day started out clear, it quickly became a deluge. Have you ever tried to light a fire in a grill in the rain? Not an easy feat I assure you, but Kwea dutifully got drenched, along with a few others who were not afraid of a little rain... or thunder and lightning! Kwea's parents arrived later in the afternoon and brought clear skies up with them from Rhode Island..along with Kwea's dog Penney. ![[The Wave]](graemlins/thewave.gif)
(she had lots of fun because she had so many other "kids" to play with..she thinks that she is human, although she is part yellow lab and part rotweiler)![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Kama , I am so glad that you could visit with us while you are here. Smiles and safe journeys to you! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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( I worship the God of Cocoa!)
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