So we picked today, April 1, and I arranged for Beth to take Clara overnight last night. I also planned to have today be one of my days off calorie counting, and last night I prepped everything for spinach sausage loaf this morning (cooked the sausage and spinach and set the loaves out to rise).
This morning I got up to bake the spinach sausage loaf and clean up around the apartment, but before I even got going Kale emailed saying he was sick and wouldn't make it. At first I was pretty angry and disappointed about this, because it appeared we would no longer have four players for tichu (Jack needed to study). Given how far in advance we planned this, that was pretty frustrating.
But then Dad called for unrelated reasons, and the phone call somewhat cheered me up. First, Dad (who didn't even know I was having a bad day at that point) ended up telling me about an insanely bad day he had in January involving his mom having a stroke, his assistant downloading a virus on a work computer, a terrible wind storm that nearly broke some office windows, and a power outage at home. Compared to that combination of events, me not getting to play tichu didn't seem like a very big deal.
Dad had to leave soon to take a call with an analyst. I told him about how my day was already frustrating because my plans were falling apart, and as I was telling him the analyst called the other line. So he told me he had to go but before he got off the phone he tried to give me one of his encouraging "this is just how odds work and some days are good and some are bad" spiels, and instead he just said very very quickly something like "ThisisjustthewayoddsareandthemorerandomvariablesouhavethemorelikelythiscouldhappenitsrandomvariablesIgottagoI'llcallyouback." That attempt at a truncated speech really made me laugh.
Meanwhile Jack helped me a lot with cleaning up the apartment, even covering things I didn't remind him about, including my least favorite job: cleaning the toilet. It really does make me feel loved when he helps me out so much.
I was just taking the spinach sausage loaf out of the oven and Jack was just coming back to the apartment from taking out the trash when both Erin and Henry arrived. Jack went into the bedroom to study while Erin, Henry, and I sat at the dining room table and had spinach sausage loaf and chips and dip and Erin's oreo chocolate cupcakes. Henry, Erin, and Jack (mostly Henry and Erin) also split a bottle of wine Andrew had gotten me a couple weeks ago (forgetting I am not drinking while pregnant). I was glad to have that to offer them.
Eventually Jack came out and suggested we go ahead and play a quick game of Tichu just to 500 together, so we moved to the coffee table to do just that. The guys trounced the girls quickly so he set up another game, this time to 1000, which we haven't done in awhile. We ended up playing for hours and having a great time, laughing a lot and getting pretty into the game, which ended up being pretty close. In fact at one point we were tied 850-850. The guys won in the end but Erin and I were still at 905, which isn't bad at all.
 |
| Erin and Henry passionately discussing ion torrent vs Illumina (DNA sequencers). |
There were several times when people had unexpected bombs and everyone yelled "ohhhhhh!" But there was also one time I played a bomb and Jack and Erin yelled and Henry didn't, and then he immediately was like "I didn't 'oh'!" and that cracked me up for some reason. He also kept saying "April Fool's!" every time he'd pretend to bomb or think about calling Tichu or anything else, and we all laughed a little harder with each iteration, because he's such a dork. At one point Jack started to say pass and decided halfway through the word that he was actually going to call Tichu, so it ended up being " PaaaassssssnooooooTICHUUUUUU!" and we all, including Jack, laughed pretty hard at that transition.
 |
| Discussing how Jack switched from passing to calling Tichu. |
It ended up being a very enjoyable day. I enjoyed listening to my music playlists and not Clara's youtube videos in an attempt to distract her. I enjoyed being able to play the game without interruption or little hands trying to take cards. And I was glad Jack played with us, because I enjoy spending leisure time with him. The food was great, the weather was nice, and the whole thing was very relaxed.
No comments:
Post a Comment