Saturday marked one week together and lent the whole weekend a special kind of euphoria. I remember thinking to myself that we'd spent a week together, everyone was comfortable around everyone else, it felt like we'd known each other for years and saw each other every day, and we still had another full week to hang out together. One thing I forgot to mention about Saturday evening is that while Mori, Jana, Tannen and I were at the ball Brian drove up to SF and joined the group watching anime. Brian is another friend from high school and the only one who spent any time with us who graduated in '00 instead of '99, making him the same year as Jana and Jarihn. When we got back from the ball and walked into Mikel's apartment, I must confess I didn't recognize him, sitting on the floor in front of the TV. It wasn't until he got up and said hello that I remembered Mikel saying he'd probably be joining us. Brian was our token "California Surfer Dude."
On Sunday we woke up late, as usual, and putzed around for a while before driving back down to Mikel's parent's house in San Jose. I don't think Mikel's roommate Mishka(sp?) liked having us there very much. She was sitting at her computer watching a DVD with the earphones on, and it's absolutely amazing because Mikel has a tiny apartment which was absolutely crammed full of people and no one ever saw her walk up to the computer or walk away from it. You just kinda turned around and she was there. It was really disconcerting. On the drive down Jarihn and I wound up in Brian's car so of course we beat everyone else back to Mikel's house by almost 20 minutes. He doesn't drive like a maniac, but boy oh boy does he speed. We were once more in need of food so we ordered some pizzas from the place down the street and then Mikel and Brian took one of the walkie-talkies and walked over to pick them up while the rest of us checked our emails, made sure the internet hadn't fallen apart in our absence and… well, actually, that was just Tannen, Jarihn, and myself. I really have no clue what everyone else was up to. While I was checking my email Mikel got a random IM from someone on her list who's screen name I didn't recognize. In Spanish. I didn't want to be rude so I replied that Mikel wasn't there and a friend was using her computer. I took one year of Spanish in high school so my Spanish is really rusty and limited and it isn't my first or even second choice of languages to communicate in, but I knew Mikel had spent a summer down in Chili so I didn't know if the person who just messaged me spoke English or not. The friend kept talking to me in Spanish for a while before we got around to introducing ourselves: "Jennifer, y tu?" "Guerin." "Guerin? OMG! You're not dead! How on earth have you been? Where have you been? Are you home for the summer?" "Jennifer Cavanagh?" So I radioed Mikel and got permission to invite him over (poor Jarihn wasn't sure he wanted me inviting more friends from high school over as this was supposed to be an internet social, not a reunion but one of my many flaws is that I tend to do what I want whatever other prefer).
It was right around then that Cindra put in an appearance. After picking Jana and Mori up on the previous Saturday, and before they got Jarihn from the airport, Cindra left with her family for a week at Disney World, and she only got home the day before. At this point, everyone had met Cindra except Jarihn and Tannen, and she had a way of coming up in conversation a lot. In the middle of our camping trip when Cindra was once more the topic of conversation, Jarihn suddenly interrupted and declared "I don't know if I believe in this 'Cindra' person!" Yes, he even used finger quotes. He finally met her when she waltzed into the computer room upstairs to give me the postcards she'd collected around the Epcot(sp?) Center. I told her the happy news, that Guerin was not only alive, but he was on his way over, and at Brian's request he'd even be in uniform. Her initial burst of incredulity over, Cindra suddenly realized that she hadn't gotten anything for Mikel, Brian, or Guerin. Cindra isn't one to let such niggling details break her stride so she set about making gifts for each other them. For Mikel Cindra stapled an outline of Mickey's head on a folded piece of paper and wrote "Mickey says 'Hi!'" on it. Only she ran out of staples about 5 staples in and had to draw the rest of them on. For Brian she made an outline of Mickey using a whole punch, and for Guerin she wadded tape up into the appropriate shape. Isn't she a sweetie?
Brian and Mikel returned with a lot of pizza and we sat down to watch the rest of Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea which Jarihn kindly restarted at the beginning for us. Guerin arrived halfway through and wouldn't you know it the daft bugger had grown again! Up through our junior year of high school he was the same height as me, then suddenly senior year he was 6' and now he's 6'4"! Not everyone wanted to watch more Escaflowne and they went to play cards instead. I just don't understand them. No such thing as too much anime. The card game and movie over DK pulled out her big surprise (which I had guessed the identity of when she first mentioned it): the Vegas video. We wound up fast forwarding through most of it because we couldn't hear the dialogue and watching others play a full game of Phase 10 isn't as fun as it sounds. Watching DK do a booty dance for the camera was pretty funny though.
Brian had to go home so he could get some sleep before going to work and the rest of us broke out Cranium and formed three almost even teams: Vel, Jarihn, and I were on one; Jana, Mikel, and Guerin were on the second; DK, Cindra, Mori, and Tannen on the third. I think my team won. It was absolutely hilarious watching Guerin try to act out a mermaid. Jarihn actually read the rules and informed us that we'd been playing the game wrong for 6 months now but we decided to keep playing the way we had been as the game was half over. Guerin eventually managed to coax his jacket and hat off of Cindra (who looked absolutely adorable in the oversized uniform) and went home, leaving the rest of us to set up our sleeping areas and conk out. But it was still awfully early and Guerin had left Fight Club which I had never seen and Vel had never finished, so we decided to put it on. Velchan fell asleep halfway through but the rest of us made it to the end . I kept trying to incite Mori and Jarihn to go at it, since that seemed to be what the movie was saying every guy wanted to do, but they just laughed at me *pouts* Meanies.
Off to sleep: I was on the sofa with Mori on the floor in front of me, Jarihn a bit farther over, Jana at their feet, and DK was in the dinning room. Mikel and Tannen had claimed the beds upstairs before we started the last movie. Mori was the first one to try and go to sleep but Jana kept tickling his feet, pointing out that with such a tempting target right in her face, how could she possibly resist? I understood exactly how hard it is to exert self-control in such situations, and pointed out that there was enough room between Mori and Jarihn for her to drag her sleeping bag between them. Jana's a pretty bright cookie and understood instantly that what I was really saying was "If you sleep here you can tickle both of them, not just Mori," and lost no time moving. I like Jana *weg*
Monday, the 13th, was another friend from high school, Sheng's birthday and so she joined us for an afternoon of Mikel's favorite activity: Miniature Golfing. Getting a group as large as ours up in the morning is a trial so we wisely decided to meet at 1:30pm and the appointed time rolled around to find Sheng and Sheng alone at Golfland. Anna Marie, yet another girl we went to high school with was the next on the scene followed by the main freak party and Guerin who arrived at the same time we did. Now we were just waiting for Erin (even yet another friend from high school) and we were good to go. Except several of us had not yet eaten breakfast and were a bit hungry so Vel drove Mori, Jarihn, and myself down the street to burger king for lunch where Jarihn discovered that the mozzarella sticks are a rip off and don't taste very good either. Vel wouldn't let us leave until we finished all of her fries (she can't throw away food that she's paid for), and so Erin managed to show up before we got back.
Golfland offers group discounts with a days notice but the nice guy behind the counter decided to extend us one anyway as we were a party of 17 (DK's cousins came, too). Half of us went to the south course and from what I've gathered they just golfed as a big group without paying attention to little annoyances like score or rules. The rest of us went to the north course and split into two groups - Jarihn, Velchan and I in the first group and Jana, Tannen, and Mikel in the second. We were behind a father and his son who were moving along just fine, but they were behind a party of about 7 who took forever and a day at each hole. The father and son would be sitting, waiting for them to finish, and then Jarihn, Vel and I would be waiting and only half the time did they manage to get off of a hole before Tannen, Mikel and Jana were waiting as well. Needless to say the group on the South course finished before we did. Funny golfing moments included Vel, Jarihn and I all getting the maximum of 6 strokes on the first ant hill only to have Mikel and Tannen get a hole in one and Jana managing in two strokes. I swear they cheated. On the other hand, I was slightly mollified when Jana was the only one to knock her ball into the water trap. Now, Golfland wasn't laid out too well because they put one of the holes where the idea is to hit it as hard as possible and jump it off a ramp like in skeetball, right on the edge of the park, beside a chain link fence that doesn't quite reach the ground. Tannen demonstrated the folly of this construction by managing to ricochet his ball under the fence and down the hill. Oops.
Rather than play the 18th hole Jarihn, Vel, Jana and I decided to hold onto our balls and play the southside of the park. Everyone else wanted to go out for food but we'd been to Burger King and weren't hungry yet. Mori also decided he'd rather play another 18 even if it meant repeating the course they'd already played. Tannen was nice enough to give him his golf ball and club so that he could.
When the other group they left Jarihn a few game tokens so we decided to rest in the shade for a while (read "rest in the arcade so Jarihn could demonstrate his mad pinball skills"). He did a whole lot better than I would have, but that's hardly surprising. All of his tokens gone we returned to the golf course and discovered that of all the things Mori might be good at, miniature golf is not one of them. At one hole where you're supposed to hit the golf ball under a lighthouse Mori managed to knock it into the rocks around it at least 4 times. Apparently Mori's golf-skills (or lack there of) are contagious, or maybe she was just laughing too hard to swing straight, but Jana's game rapidly deteriorated and she became almost as bad as Mori. I decided to take a page from Tannen's book and took a million and a half pictures (almost 24 exposures) of us while golfing. At one point I took a cute picture of Jarihn hiding in the shade of a bush, and apparently when he saw the flash go off he was started, surprised, and felt the need to punish me. Not knowing this, I turned to talk to Jana. When I turned back to start walking to the next hole, Jarihn's golf club was pointed right at me, at eye level. Fortunately I noticed this before I finished my first step 'cause it was only about half a foot from my face and scared me half to death. Punk. For me I'd have to say the highlight of the day was on about the 10th hole on the south side. You're supposed to hit the ball off a little ramp, over a water trap, and onto the upper purple (you can't really call it a green when it's purple), where the cup is. Jarihn putted first on this hole and managed to do just that, landing near the cup. I went to try and gave the ball a good hard thwack, ricocheting it off the backboard and up into the air. It bounced off the edge of the golf purple, about 10 feet up into the air, sailing back just a little so that it bounced on the cement edge of the water trap at just the perfect speed and angle to get a hole in one. Okay, okay, it didn't go in the cup, but it would have been darn funny if it had. It did land on the purple though, within a foot of the cup, so I was happy. I got a standing ovation for my efforts.
We met up with everyone back at Mikel's house, after running over to
my house to steal the DVD player. Jarihn immediately put in Six String
Samuri which is an incredibly weird movie, but we were only
halfway through when DK finally managed to drag all of us (except Cindra
who went to work and Mori who went with her) to a park to play soccer. Only
we didn't play soccer, we just stood around in a circle and kicked the
ball back and forth. It took them a while to get this started however and
Jana and I spotted a playground off to one side and took off running towards it. We went down the slides, played on the swings, and then found this
weird little toy that occupied most of our time. It was kinda like the
log roll competitions where two guys stand on a log in the water and try to
roll each other off except it had bars on either side so you could hold
on. We both sat on it and then rocked back and forth. Tres cool. While we
were goofing off on that we heard a little girl who couldn't have been
more than three singing selections from Handle's Messiah while her mother pushed
her on the swings. It was really cute.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say most of the people in the soccer circle didn't spend a lot of time playing soccer as children, which seems odd to me 'cause it's the sport I played for the longest. Almost everyone I knew played soccer at some point… But I digress. Anna was probably the funniest as she has no coordination whatsoever. Jarihn says he's no good at soccer and didn't know what he was doing, but he fakes it really well. The only shoes I had with me were flip-flops so I kicked them off and played barefoot. It quickly got too dark to play and DK, Jana, and Brian wandered off to play tennis while Mikel tried to read in the dark and the rest of us stood around, trying to pretend we were having fun. I was about to organize another expedition to the playground when it was decided we could go home, so home we went.
We finished Six String Samuri which I still think is too weird for words, but funny, and Jarihn finally, with over a week of trying, managed to get a >game of Pinochle going. Jana and I kicked his and Tannen's butts. Go us. Of course if we'd actually played the game to the end it might have turned out differently, but that's beside the point. Hey, Jarihoo, my mother is happy that you taught me how to play. Too bad we still only have enough people for cribbage *grins*