Last weekend

As I said, last weekend was great, aside from having my leg bound in an itchy, Fiberglas prison for four more weeks.

Saturday I attended what threatens to be the last Pie Night. The term Pie Night was coined by Justin "Wicked Good Bee-ah" Stover, my freshman year roommate from Maine (Official State Motto - "Holy porkchop, it went in the puckerbrush!"). Justin has a gift for giving things stupid nicknames that stick. Pie Night is one such example. My sophomore year I decided I wanted to be the disgusting roommate, so I kicked Justin out and moved in with my cousin Chris ("The Dish" to those of you in the blogosphere). Chris's mom makes the best homemade pizza in the world, and every couple of weeks, a group of us would go over to Chris's house to have homemade pizza and watch movies, usually based on a theme (e.g., movies Chris's girlfriend likes). Since pizzas are pies, Justin called the semi-monthly event Pie Night, and the name stuck.

Saturday's Pie Night was stellar. The TV is in the basement, and I didn't feel like scooting down the stairs on my butt like a worm-ridden dog, so I sat at the table upstairs and played games with Racie, the Andrews, and Zach. This is one of my all-time favorite things to do. When I was in England feeling homesick, I was missing playing games with my friends.

For my birthday last year, Christine's parents and brother got me "Betrayal at House on the Hill," the greatest board game ever made. We played a couple rounds of what Andrew's girlfriend Mary dubbed "Hell Game," and then we played "Ex Libris," a game I picked up in Oxford. If you've played "Balderdash" or the Dictionary Game, the premise will be familiar. All players receive a sheet of paper, and the reader draws a card from the box. The card has the title of a book, the author, date and summary, which the reader reads (thus earning the title of reader). Then the reader flips a coin (in England I got a pentagonal coin with a book on the tails side, which seemed appropriate). If the coin lands on heads, all players create a plausible first line for the book, while the reader writes the actual first line from the card. If it is tails, the last line is used. Once everyone has finished, the reader reads (again) all the lines, and the rest of the players pick which line they think is the real one. Players receive one point for guessing the correct line and one point for every vote their made-up line gets, and the reader gets two points if no one guesses the correct line. You could play this game with a stack of books and a notebook, and if you read a lot or have friends who are English majors, I suggest that you do.

The rest of the weekend I spent with family. Chris leaves for grad school in Toronto tomorrow, so we had a farewell drink on Sunday.

Vive la Pie Night!