2.3.19 - Henry and Kale's (last?) visit

Kale is moving to Boston at the end of this month to start his postdoc at Harvard. It's unlikely he'll be back in California anytime soon, especially since he and his wife will still be long distance and spend more of their time and money traveling to see each other than traveling back to CA. So we planned one last day long Tichu nacho potluck.

They agreed to get here earlier than usual (9 am) so we could fit in Tichu before Jack had to go to work. Jack took the girls to Beth's for a couple hours and I tried a new recipe for gluten free pancakes that are almost pure banana and peanut butter. They turned out really well! Didn't hurt to add chocolate chips.

While I was making them Henry and Kale arrived (Jack was still out picking up a few things). They brought everything for nachos (chips, cheese, ground beef, bacon, guac, sour cream) and some breakfast things (eggs, chai, grapes, small cheeses) and even some dessert (gluten free ice cream cake and cupcakes). There was definitely way more than enough food. We made the pancakes and chai and talked about Jack's nursing exam saga and other things. Not long after Jack got back we played Tichu, and it was a great game. Lots of bombs, broken Tichus, and yelling. At one point Jack broke his own rule by wishing for an ace, and Kale immediately started laughing because he didn't have one. Jack yelled "Nooo!" and then said "I'm glad you're moving!" and everyone laughed pretty hard. Henry did have an ace and it definitely lost them the hand that he had to play it early. Painful.

We finished with about half an hour before Jack would need to leave to pick up the kids, so we played a speed version of the game Jack and Kale basically made up where if you break a Tichu the other team gets your points and one person on each team has to call Tichu every hand. It was an interesting dynamic and it took only three rounds (we were playing only to 500). Kale and I won.

Jack left to get the kids and Kale started making the nachos, and we basically spent the rest of the day just visiting. That's about 1pm to 11:30pm. Jack worked and we saw him on his lunch and again when he got off work, and in between we fed the kids and hung out with them and just talked about everything: politics, of course, and Card's Against Humanity's poll: Pulse of the Nation, family histories and transcending dysfunction, being friends with people who have kids when you don't and vice versa, Scott Pilgrim, and details of Kale's move.

When the girls first got home they were suspicious of Kale. Clara stood outside the front door and said "No Kale!" but she warmed up in a minute. Jane stayed in my lap for the first while and then got over it when there was food. Jane is ambivalent to Henry too, but Clara really likes to see Henry. At one point she noticed Henry wears glasses and she wanted them, so I gave her the kiddie sunglasses and then she handed out sunglasses to Kale and me too, so we were all sitting inside wearing sunglasses while chatting and she was so excited she sat next to Henry on the couch and just stimmed. Everyone thought it was pretty cute.

Way later, as I was getting both of them ready for bed, Clara got back on the couch and cuddled with Henry. She asked me to bring her the "orange blanket" (the Maurader's map blanket) and her cup, and she was very comfortable. I almost didn't want to make her go to bed just so she could stay there, but it was getting kind of late.

Even as we were all getting visibly tired we kept talking, and at 10:40pm Henry said they should leave by 11pm. They still didn't until like 11:30pm, haha.

It was a great visit. Hopefully it wasn't the end of an era (the Tichu nacho potluck era), but even if it was, it was a great era.