A good place to be on a windy Sunday

[mousme]

So it was fearsclave's birthday yesterday, as previously mentioned, and the festivities were held on Sunday up at the Fearsranch near Alexandria.

I got there later in the morning than I anticipated, mostly due to my waking up an hour later than I intended. Oops. So when I got there, fearsclave and The Wuh-Mun (otherwise known as his fiancée Carolyn) weren't at home. I'm not sure if he forgot that he'd told me to come by at any time during the morning, or if he just figured that I'd be coming later, or what.

So I hied myself over to the neighbours, looking4wings and Fearsclave Sr., fearsclave's stepmother and father, respectively. I landed on their doorstep, woebegone and bedraggled and kind of damp from the rain, and they kindly took me in and fed me tea and oatmeal with golden syrup. I played with their dog and cuddled their cats, and had a nice quiet morning with them both.

When noon rolled around I toddled over to the Fearsranch, where the inhabitants had returned after going out to brunch. We started setting up for the party: I blew up ballons and inexpertly affixed them to the window as well as the lamp hanging over the kitchen table, while fearsclave hacked up a very impressive salmon he caught a while back, and the Wuh-Mun dashed around with the vacuum cleaner.

Fearsclave Sr. showed up about two hours after I did, and we sat down with wine and had a nice chat while the Wuh-Mun prepared the salmon and set out munchy stuff on the table. looking4wings sadly wasn't feeling well by that point, and so was unable to make it to the festivities, but I think the Wuh-Mun made her up a plate afterward. Carolyn's mother showed up around 3pm and took Carolyn into town to get the entrée, which was escargots au gratin (if nothing else, driving for two and a half hours was worth it for that).

Around 5pm, fearsclave's brother arrived with his wife and their three children, Gabenally (or Gabe and Ally, if you don't use the nickname that so many use for them) and Jono, the youngest.

Chaos ensued. Three children under the age of ten pretty much guarantees a lively atmosphere, and Jono by himself is a chaos engine. He doesn't speak yet, but communicates in grunts and squeals and shrieks. As fearsclave put it, he's sort of the embodiment of the force of entrop: nothing was safe from him the entire night, although there were something like seven adults to keep an eye on him.

After helping out his nephew Gabe with a video game for a while (some of the text was a bit tricky to read), fearsclave took me out to the yard to practice throwing tomahawks at targets. I wasn't especially good at it at first, but after a while I got the hang of it. Tomahawks make a very satisfying "Thok!" sound when they hit a piece of lumber, for the record. Yes, we took photos. ;)

After getting over my initial reserve with children (I like kids, really, but at a distance and when they belong to somebody else), I got along quite well with five-year-old Ally. She has an imagination similar to mine at that age. When I found her in the living room, she had come up with a game that involved keeping a balloon in the air at all times, lest it come into contact with the floor, which was in reality hot lava. The sofa and the small rug were two lava-proof boats from which we couldn't deviate, lest we too fall in the lava.

Gabe protested that there was no such thing as a lava-proof boat, to which I felt honour-bound to protest. "Of course there is! Haven't you watched Star Wars?" I was very gratified when he conceded my point.

Very quickly, Fearsclave Sr. ended up in the lava, and became a Lava Monster. This was cause for some concern, especially as Gabe stepped in the lava soon after and was, by his description, subsequently sucked into a black hole. It later spat him out so he could rejoin the game, but for a while it looked like the lava monster might prevail.

Of course, Jono decided that the living room was the Place to Be, and Ally couldn't convince him to stay within the safety of the two boats. So we devised a sort of under-lava SCUBA gear for him, which protected him from the heat.

Fearsclave Sr. eventually cried uncle and went to join the adults in the kitchen, so we devised another way to entertain ourselves with the lava, by going fishing for lava fish. Lava fish are great, because they're already cooked when you pull them out. There were lava octopuses, too, but they were a bitch to catch because of the fiery tentacles. Ally was worried at first about how to catch them, since we had no rods, but I reassured her that I was positive her uncle fearsclave, must have lava rods somewhere. He's all about the gear and the interesting widgets, and she agreed wholeheartedly with me. We threw back all the fish we caught: some of them were too small, and others too big (and thus too tough to eat). Maybe next time we'll get one the right size. Stay tuned.

When Ally was too tired for lava fishing, we turned to lava photography, and she spent a happy twenty minutes snapping pictures of the lava flora as well. All in all, we had a good time.

After dinner (and after conquering the lava), we settled down in the living room, some of the guests (Carolyn's sister and her husband popped in briefly for a visit) having departed already, and fearsclave's brother pulled out Carolyn's guitar. He used to be in a band back in the day, and so we spent a fun hour or so trying to figure out old songs and singing along with the guitar.

Eventually, after a few more Jono-related mishaps, the in-laws too called it a night, and I was left with fearsclave and Carolyn and a pot of tea before I hit the road to head home. Quiet conversation and tea, and the unveiling of a new Scotch (of which I didn't partake, since I was about to drive home), and more good conversation.

So, yes. In spite of the fact that I got home at a truly ungodly hour, I counted the day well-spent.

Comments

[whiskeygirl8.livejournal.com]

My very favorite part of this was reading about the lava. That was really cool.

And, like I told fearsclave (not in the mood for html), this makes me miss you guys a ton.