Good Times

Every now and then you have one of those days that's just really, really fun. Today, I'm happy to say, was one of those days. I started with a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs with pineapple juice (mmm). Most of the rest of the day revolved around the big house barbecue (ostensibly organized to celebrate a couple of recent birthdays, but mostly we just thought it would be fun). For some reason (because I'm the token American, I guess) I was put in charge of the cooking. Not only is it always nice to be recognized as an expert in any capacity, but it meant I didn't have to do any dishes. I did have a bit of a challenge trying to talk the Europeans in the house out of overthinking their burgers (Eggs and chili in the meat?!? I mean, really...), but in the end, everyone seemed very happy with the outcome. Afterwards, a few of us inadvertently invented a profoundly stupid - but fun - new game that was sort of a mix between jai alai and tennis, played with empty plastic drinking glasses and a squash ball. Apparently the meat had dulled our creativity, because the only name we could think of for it was "cupball." Whatever you want to call it, turns out I'm a natural! I'm also a cool hand at the card game we played after wearing ourselves out at cupball (I'd tell you its name, but no one seemed to able to agree on what it was called). Finally, I did get some actual work done; the manuscript for my research project is now 164 (out of a maximum of 10,000) words long. It's not much, I'll agree, but it's a start, and that feels great. As this "goes to press" I'm listening to an excellent baseball game between Seattle and Colorado, in which the Mariners have a shot at tying Oakland for the AL West lead (fingers crossed...it just went to extra innings). Even the weather has been great. Why can't every day be like this?