Couch Burning

It’s great to be back home and having good times with friends once again. Last night there was a good old-fashioned couch burning at Hoort’s place.

Guam or Dean could probably tell you more about the history of this couch. Apparently its been in the Calvin family for about 9 years or so now, and has a lot of memories attached to it. But its also getting old and needed to be put out of its misery. As we watched that couch go up in flames, we felt the last of our youth burning away with it.

But it wasn’t just about couch burning. We had a great game of frisbee golf first. I’ve decided not to keep track of my score, but I have a feeling I was near the back of the pack. The amazing Mr. Guam put away another win.

Word is gradually getting around that I’m engaged, and so I was asked to tell my story. (Such as it is. I’m going to have to come up with a new story so that I have something better to tell). Also some people wanted to see pictures. I didn’t have pictures with me at the time, but pictures of Shoko can be seen on-line here and here. Neither of them are very good actually, because she has her eyes closed.

(Now that I have acess to a scanner, I guess I'm no longer limited to digital pictures other people take. I'll try and make it a point to scan in more pictures sometime soon. Although even on those pictures Shoko has her eyes closed a lot. I think she must just blink a lot at the wrong times).

We tried out Hoort’s throwing knives for a while, which I think could easily have provided hours of amusement had we not stopped for dinner. I also had the distinction of losing a knife on the first throw. I stepped up, threw the knife as hard as I could at the target, and it sank right into the ground. After all the knives had been thrown, nobody could find mine. We all remember it disappearing into the dirt a few feet away from me, but despite endless searching (and Hoort even getting out the gardening tools to dig with) we couldn’t retrieve the knife.

Hell of a first throw, huh? Pasta suspects that my knife was actually picked up by another person in the confusion, and it was a different knife that got lost. And I like this theory a bit because it lets me off the hook for losing Hoort’s knife. On the other hand, I do kind of like the idea of having so powerful a throw as to bury the knife deep into the dirt.

The couch, when we finally put it on the fire, really went up in flames a lot quicker than I think any of us expected. There were a couple minutes when it looked like the neighboring trees were going to catch fire, and Hoort brought out the garden hose just in case. And then, as quickly as it had flared up, the flames subsided.

Afterwards a night of good discussion and reminiscing. In addition to losing Hoort’s knife, I also had the distinction of being the last guest to leave. I was just saying to Hoort, “Well, now that Dean and Jess have left, if I’m not careful I’ll be the proverbial last guest who has to be kicked out of the house.”
“You already are,” Hoort said. “Guam and Yoshi, the only ones left, are staying the night.”

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The Peanuts are a Japanese twin sister singing group. They are Ito Emi (Ito Hideyo) and Ito Yumi (Ito Tsukiko). The twins were born in Nagoya on April 1, 1941.
They are very well known from their appearances in Mothra and Godzilla movies of the 1960s, in which they appeared as fairies called shobijin (small beauties) who had telepathic communication with Mothra. (A bit cheesy perhaps, but one of my favorite Japanese groups. I'm listening to their CD as I write this).

Link of the Day
Star Democrats and the Prolongation of the Iraq War