For the past month, I have blogged more about wine, wine tasting and wine related, than anything else. A casual visitor to the site would simply wonder about my obsessiveness.

Sometimes, I wonder myself, where does this obsessiveness (read: passion) for wines stem from? Do I blame my father for introducing me to this fascinating world of wines? A long long while ago, (1960's to be exxact), my father and his friend (as doctors in Europe), drove around in Europe (France, in particular), wine tasting. As kids we (my sister and me) grew up listening to stories about the same and seeing picture slides of his trip. For whatever reason, this seemingly simple pasttime back home, has left a very lasting impression on me. I want to do the same. I want to spend some time 'bumming around' in France. Travelling down rural areas, through vineyards, smelling the air, feeling the soils, tasting the grapes that all go into making some great wines. I know this will happen, it is just a matter of time.

Back to reality, back home, I have also come to realize, that it is the first sight, the first sniff, the first swirl, and the first sip that makes me smile. It is connection of what I have read and what I am tasting, that makes me forget all worries, all concerns. It is those few minutes, when it is the wine and me and nothing else that matters. I have pretty much found myself tune out to all chatter around me. Few days ago, as I tasted the Chateauneuf, Arun (at Bermans) was explaining something to me, as I swirled, sniffed and sipped the wine, there are distinct gaps in my understanding of what he was saying. This was weird, hope I am forgiven. I am not ignoring, it is just that with all my senses, I am essentially somewhere else. After these first sniff(s), swirl(s), and sip(s), it is pretty much downhill from then on. It usually takes a truly exceptional wine, that I proceed to pour out a glass. Note, exceptional has nothing to do with cost of the bottle, but for some blooming reason, they are pretty darn interrelated.

As I write this, I am enjoying a rather spritzy portugese white wine Casal Garcia Vinho Verde. At $8 a bottle it is a decent dry, citrusy, and crisp wine. I should have opened this on a warm summer day with a fruit salad. But, today, I just wanted something light, airy and this delivers.

Besides, it is the evening to break open the Settlers of Catan or Ingeniuos or something or the other to celebrate the fall back of the clocks!

I love to play card games
I enjoy good alcohol
I have also had alcohol while playing card games

What I have never done (well, until now), is play card games involving drinking. The record has been broken! Second day into the event in the evening, the powers that be and the hotel organized the simple affair with pizza (yuck), chicken fingers and bottomless cases of Heineken, Bud Light, Miller Light, Beringers White Zinfandel and some other beers and wine. As we lounged after the long day of running around, giving directions and being 'on' constantly, this was the time to let the hair down and relax and enjoy each others company. The average age for this group is about 25 years! And one of them just turned 21!

The suspects


So, one person was sent off to look for a pack of cards. I hadn't the faintest idea of what I was getting into. This is what we played:

First Game: Kings Cup
The rules: A empty glass is placed in the center of the table and all players sit in a circle around it. This is the Kings Cup. All cards are shuffled and spread out face down around the empty glass. All players in turn pick a random card and turn it over. Based on what the face value of the card the following actions need to be done.

Ace: Waterfall. When this card is drawn, the all players starting from the players left (including the player) starts drinking in succession, that is each person waits for the player on their right to start and does not stop until the player on the right stops drinking. This is lots of drinking.
2: Is for You. The player who draws this card picks someone in the circle to drink.
3: For Me. The player who draws this card, drinks.
4: Touch the floor: All players must touch the floor, the last one drinks
5: Guys drink: All guys drink
6: Chicks drink: All the girls drink
7: Raise hand to heavens: Everyone must raise hand to the heavens, the last one drinks
8: [Best one] The player decides on a rule and implements it anytime, and other players have to watch and follow suit, the last on drinks. (The only rule that got made was: Thumb on the table. This meant whenever the player who decided the rule, invoked it, the others had to follow suit...needless to say, who remembers when you are all tipsy and there is lots of nudging going on to remind people).
9: Bust a Rhyme, The player starts a rhyme, and player on the left must add a new sentence that rhymes.
10: Category: The player who pulls the card, decides on a category, such as car models, dog breeds, name of people/places etc) and then each player in the circle starting from the left of the player, has to give and example of the category such as for the category car models it could be Toyota, Mercedes etc etc. If the player cannot come up with an example, stalls or mentions something duplicate, the waterfall of categories stops and the player drinks.
Jack: Back, person to the left to player drinks.
Queen: Question. The player drawing this card, picks another player and asks a question (any random question). The recipient player turns someone else (who has not been asked) to ask a question to another player. This goes around, until either the player cannot remember to ask the question, or answers the question instead of asking forward, or asks a person already asked.
King: The player that draws the King, pours (any amount) some of the drink into the center glass. Each time the king is drawn, the drawing player will add to the center glass.... So depending on the crowd and what the mix of drinks that are going around, the center glass can be a serious drink. The last person to draw a king (one deck = the fourth king), then that player has to drink from the center glass.

Second Game: Up the river & down the river. This one has a very high get-drunk and buzzed factor.
This game involved a full deck of cards and about 11 people. It is usually played with 6 people per deck, but we were too many people and not enough cards. So we played a drastically modified version.  We played with the following rules:
1. Everyone sits in a circle including the dealer.
2. The dealer in turn asks each player in turn: "Red card? or Black?". The player has to guess if the card to dealt will be from the red or black suit. If the player guesses correctly, then player asks anyone in the circle to drink and if the guess is wrong the player drinks.
3. Round 2 dealer asks: "Over or Under?". The player has to guess if the card value to be dealt will be over or under the first card dealt to the player. Again if guessed correctly, player asks anyone in the circle to drink, otherwise drinks themselves.
(Of course, nothing stops the other players simply drinking).
4. In the next round the dealer asks: "Inside or Outside?". The player has to guess whether the next card to be dealt will be within the two cards already dealt or outside the two cards. If it is value is same as either or both cards, then it is considered inside. The drinks go up in this round. If the player guesses correctly, then player can asks any two other players to drink (player can also ask just one other player to take two drinks.... nasty!).
5. Onto the next round, Eight cards a placed face down. Each is earmarked as (a) Give one (b) Take one (c) Give two (D) Take two.... you get the picture..... until the last two cards are Give four and Take four. Two other cards placed face down are marked as Drink Half and the other Drink Full. (Dang!) Each card is flipped over, and all players who have the same card face value, have to follow the earmarked instructions. So for example, if the face up card was earmarked Give Three, then the player with the same face value can dole out other players three drink requests. All three could be to the same player or split up with other players.

The third game.... by now, I must have had a whole bottle of wine and was a bit tipsy, but no buzzing in the head and that's when my super boss joins the party and introduces a vegetable game (nothing to do with cards). In this game, each player had to pick a vegetable that would be the players' given name. One player starts (funnily it is my boss) and the idea is to repeat your given vegetable name twice and pick some other name from the circle and repeat their name twice. Sounds easy? well, it ain't, because rule two is that you cannot show your teeth. So I could say "Corn Corn, Zuchinni Zuchini" (I was corn). The player named Zucchini would then have to respond with "Zucchini, Zucchini, <some other veg> <other veg>" And so on and so forth. Why is this game ludicrously funny? It is because, remember we have already played two drinking games, so everyone is already mostly drunk and on top of that the only way to really talk without showing teeth is to wrap the lips over the teeth.... and that alone maketh for jocularity.

And.... so on and so on.... by 10:30PM.... I was ready to call it day and head back to my room.

My neighbor and I chat over the phone as much as we chat whilst hanging out in the yard or in each others houses, which is to say that we chat quite a bit. So, yesterday, we got chatting about Christmas trees. She wanted to get one next weekend, a real one from Mahoney's. Fresh from my own tree lighting and decorating ceremony, I couldn't believe she wanted to go another holiday week with no tree. I convinced her that we could go get the tree and I could help setting it up.

So, this morning, we drove to Mahoney's. I have never ridden in a Toyota RAV4, and I think I like it, despite my disgust for all SUV's/Van's. My own car a Toyota Corolla (top of the line, when I bought it, brand new in 1998), is growing old, but it is excellent car. At Mahoney's, this was my first real Christmas tree buying experience. My fake Imperial Conifer was ordered online and shipped to me. We walked around tall ones, short ones, fat ones, slim ones, full ones and sparse ones....trees that is! We liked some and found some just plain weird. It felt like picking kitties (well not really, but close), we saw so many, and then picked the one just right for the house, not too fat, not too thin, not too tall, not too short. Almost like the tree destined to be at their house. Once purchased, the tree handlers, picked the tree, put them on a 'shaker' (for the lack of the technical machine name), which shakes the trees. This is serious vibrations that shake out all the loose stuff. From the 'shaker' to the 'bundler' (no technical term here), at which, one guy, simply pulled the tree by the stump, through a hole, the hole was surrounded by the white mesh packaging. This has the effect of pulling all the branches together in the direction towards the tree-tip and covering it with the white mesh to hold it all in place. The mesh is simply cut and tied at the tree-tip. From 'bundler' to 'stump-refresher' (not a technical term, but who cares, except the stump-refresher himself!). The Stump-refresher simply is a guy with a chain saw, who chops about a inch or two of the stump, to make it ready for the tree stand with water at home. From 'stump-refresher' to 'car-loader' who simply loaded up the tree on the roof rack of the car and tied it down. Now, if we can only take a 'car-unloader' with us. But, wait, that was me. I had volunteered to do this! Drive back was uneventful, and the tree was less than 20lb., so I could easily haul it over the shoulder, up 10 steps to the house and set it down in the tree. Yeah! Second (after mine) tree in place!

After the all the tree business done, I had just enough time to hop into the shower and head to Doug's to play some board games.

What did I play?

Cairo: Someone please restore my gray cells please. This game was a tad absurd. It had a board (duh!) with a river and pyramid sites. The idea was to man your ship up and down the river and at your turn, roll a die, and flick (yes, I said it flick) with a 'specific' (based on the die number, 1-thumb, 2-fore finger....) finger a little block from the top of the ship onto the board. Of course, if the block flew off into space or outside the board, then it is out of the game (man, what an easy way to lose game pieces), if it lands into designated pyramid sites, then you can build pyramids. And it goes on to flicking to demolish opponents pyramids and whatever...., by now my brain is dead. The common consensus was to have alcohol involved!

Ingenious: Loved it, came last in the four player game, but loved it. What was weird was that, I think I own the game, and it is languishing somewhere in my closet. And another thing, it can be played by one! Awesome, this is good. I say that, because, most of the time, when I play Settlers of Catan (or Caftan, Catnap, Satan, Cat an, or Catton, according Microsoft Word 2003 spell check), I set the board on my round dinning table and play for 3 people. It gets confusing sometimes, but I resolve it by always acting in the best interest of the hand currently held. Of course, the game takes probably 3 times. But, then I have nowhere to be! So, it is useful to find a board game that I like and can play on my own. I must find this and drag it out from the closet.

Citadels: Few weeks back, I started to play this at Jess/Amy's place but had to leave this game midway (because I was doing an airport pick up). I remember liking it and not remembering what it was called. I think I bought the game (when I was told the name) and its expansion. Julia, Jason, Amy and me played this one and Amy and I tied at the bottom score.

So, in terms of winning, I didn't, in terms of having fun, I did. So, it was a great evening.

Spent the evening with friends watching them play Cleopatra and playing 1/2 a game (don't remember what it was called). I liked Cleopatra, especially collecting the talents and more so the corruption coins. It was weird just watching the game. I would rather be playing. But, I did not make in time for the instructions. Ah well! next time.

After Cleopatra was done, I joined in for another game, (for the life of me, cannot remember what it was). If you are reading this, and know what this game is, do let me know. The game dealt with each player (in our case 7) picking from a set of card, one whose identity you were going to be for the round. The identities were Assassin, Thief, Bishop, Merchant, King etc etc. Each of the identity had the order in which the players played. Assasin (1), Thief (2) etc etc. The person who picked Assasin goes first and names a identity to kill. If you are the one called, then at your turn, you miss the turn. If you are the thief, then you collect gold coins from the person you named to steal from. In your turn, you can use the coins to pick cards to build, and build with the coins you have. I forget who wins, but then I couldn't stay till the end, so no clue what is criteria is to win. This is sloppy. Why am I being sloppy?

This evening, it was great to be there, but felt I needed to be somewhere else. Sorry, Jess/Amy, it was just weird.

For the game party I made Chicken and Mushroom puff pastry. The receipe was okay, nothing too spectacular, and I think the receipe called for too much corn starch. Note to self, next time put less. There was plenty to eat and drink and all of it very tasty.

I almost did not go, what a wimp. But I did, so I am not a wimp. :) I had a blast, it was fun playing Wise and Otherwise. And then Caylus.

Wise and Otherwise: This game involves completing obscure phrases and having people vote for your pharse. More the votes, more the points you get and first person to get to 20 points wins. It is pretty funny what people come up with to complete a phrase. Some of the weird, funny and insightful ones were:

A nose does not know..... what smells beyond the door

For every fool that has a stick..... a wise man has a gun

For every fool that has a stick..... there is no firewood

He who does not work in summer.... steals

A dogs god is a.... master of the universe

PS: I came in close second.

Caylus: A game of strategy to help build a castle on on the way build production houses, stone houses and others. Me and creatively building things do just fine and dandy. I came in close second, but according to the players, if I had played the last hand a bit defensively, I may have won. Oh well, considering the number of rules that the game had, I think it was great fun. I did love the game.

How time flies with good games and great company! I could not believe it was 5 hours since I stepped into the play zone. It was incredibly fun and relaxed. Must do more of these board game nights, simply because the fun-factor is really high.