A Weekend with Cigars and Gondolas

Friday night me and Clint went to the cigar dinner. I had intended to take several pictures (I especially wanted to get our entire group sitting around the table--there was eight of us total), but once we were there, I completely forgot about my camera. By the end of the evening, I wound up with only about four pictures. This was my first time attending a cigar dinner, and although I wouldn't describe it as "crazy fun," it was really pleasant. The dinner was at a country club, and the atmosphere was very similar to that of a wedding reception. For the first hour, the guys went outside to smoke a cigar, and me and Angie sat at our table and chatted over a glass of wine. We must have talked for about an hour straight, which is pretty rare for us. It was sort of refreshing. Later our group reconvened for dinner (I'm only using the word "convened" because we just had that word during our school's spelling bee yesterday, and it sounds so sophisticated). Dinner consisted of prime rib and chicken marcello. After dinner, there was a raffle for door prizes, and Clint won a large pewter/cedar ash tray. I don't imagine I'll ever display it in my house, but it is very pretty. Later we all went outside and socialized for the rest of the evening. We wound up getting home from the dinner after midnight.

On Saturday evening, we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday by having an Italian-themed birthday dinner. Teri (my mother in law) assigned us all characters, and we were all supposed to role play that character. In theory it was a cute idea, but I don't do a good job playing "pretend" as an adult. It makes me feel silly. Maybe that's the reason I could never be in plays as a child. I must have the crummiest imagination. At any rate, Clint was "Leonardo," a mob boss, Elijah was an explorer named Marco, Trinity was Sofia, an Italian pop-star, I was an actress named Maria, Teri was Rosa, an Italian mama/cook, and Carey was Alfonso, a hairdresser. That second pic I posted is me with "Alfy" (as we called him). He had the most colorful, funny personality all night. Oh yeah, I forgot about Lucas...he was a gondola driver (is that what they're called?). We played two games that night: the first one was a paper gondola race (I got a little competitive with that one), and the second one was this game where you had to try to figure out the meaning of Italian phrases. It was a really fun evening, despite my reluctance to get into my character.