There was a fun conclusion to the evening, which turned very rapidly into morning.

I dragged the laptop out to the common rooom to at least do a bit of chatting until my battery died, as I didn't want to mess with the power cords last night. But the WiFi connection was abominable. Granted, this is only my second WiFi experience, but the version in the AmeriSuites was so superior that having to go outside to get a 100 percent signal seemed a bit silly. What's the use of a conference hotel—which is what this place often functions as—without WiFi that also functions in the room?

Anyway, I chatted with Rodney and kept half an eye on the end of whatever they were watching, something about magicians called The Prestige, when my battery finally died. I think it was about 12:30. I settled down to cross stitch when Sarah (18) emerged with a game called Encore. She woke up Neil and Colin, a couple of years younger than her, and proposed they play against some of the adults they'd corralled, Jake, Amy, and Caran. This is a game where you are given a word ("red" or "girlfriend") or sometimes a category (a song with boys' names from A through G) and you have to sing at least six words or more of a song lyric containing that word. James, John, Daniel and I were supposed to be kibitzing, but we eventually were fully involved.

I mean, how could we resist when one of the words was "him" and James and I were both bursting with Rupert Holmes' lyrics?

We played two games and beat the I-pod crowd both times. :-)

About this time you would figure it was bedtime, since it was about quarter to two, but John said the Perseids were supposed to be at their peak in a few minutes, so the bunch of us, clad in shorts or light clothing in forty degree temps, tramped outside to the grassy area between the hotel room buildings and the lodge. It was better out in there rather than in the courtyard of the building, but the security lights around the courtyard still made seeing difficult. If you used your arm to block them out, all the main constellations could be seen quite clearly and then the lesser stars tiny faint pinpricks. The Big Dipper blazed overhead and there was a larger light that Jake identified as Saturn, plus a fast-blinking reddish star that no one could identify. It's hard to find anyplace to star watch any longer. We used to be able to see the constellations, at least, off our deck, but neighbors insist on keeping their porch lights on all night. The last time we had a good star-watching experience was when Hale-Bopp zipped by. We went out to Kennesaw National Battlefield Park, where we found at least a hundred other people stargazing as well.

By then it was time for bed. The bed was still uncomfortable, but the climate was better; we opened the windows!

Labels: games, weekend

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:26:00 AM

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