Weekend report
May. 7th, 2007 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fr_defenestratoShort version: Camping was great; Cheese Lord concert was very good; I am tired.
Long version: Grabbed my rental car at Reagan Thursday night, loaded up back at the Irv, and drove without stopping to Blue Rocks Family Campground in Lenhartsville, Pa. Arrived minutes after 1 a.m. and called Joe who, with Hugh, drove down from the campsite to fetch me and my stuff. Stayed up talking to Joe and Hugh and Rob Lynch (new to me) and they crashed one by one until Joe and I turned in circa 2:30. Joe's pop-up camper is really pretty nice... sleeps three comfortably.
Friday morning the world is a beautiful place. In fact, the weather was never less than spectacular the whole weekend... mid-40s at night, mid-70s midday, dry, sometimes breezy but never windy... just wonderful. Joe's brother Rob (Rob Leiss, not Rob Lynch) and Harry put up horseshoe stakes and dumped a few bags of sand around them. I threw a lot of horseshoes over the weekend, at one point getting a crucial game-winning ringer, but mostly pretty inconsistent and often sucky at it, not able to find a sure technique.
Played some poker Friday afternoon; Joe spotted me $20 as the $70-odd cash I had brought was mostly consumed by camping and food costs. Won one hand of 727 but otherwise just watched my $20 of chips get whittled down little by little, and then I was out. A quick nap.
Hugh cooks all weekend, as usual, producing three multi-course meals a day; all are pretty much based around large amounts of meat—the boys actually call this semiannual camping trip "Meatfest"—so I limit my intake, focusing on the potatoes, corn on the cob, stuff like that. At some point on Saturday I offer to captain at least one meal at a future, maybe giving the boys some shrimp and lots of veggies... Hugh's kitchen setup is pretty effective, allowing for pretty much any stovetop cooking... pasta and sauces aren't out of the question.
Friday night, Venture Brothers on Joe's DVD projector... I had never seen any, but it seems a must-own... Also a tour of a couple nifty single malt Scotch whiskeys, courtesy of Rob Lynch. I sing a couple songs whilst folks sit around the campfire: We Have Fed Our Seas and my own Three-Minute Godfather (which given my drunken state takes at least 4 1/2 minutes).
Saturday I drive into Lenhartsville for cigarettes and ice. The six other guys settle down to play Rail Baron (along the lines of Axis and Allies but each player tries to take over the railroad industry in the U.S. by monopolizing lines, price gouging... not exactly my sort of game, so I bum a Pa. map from Rob Leiss, figure out that some of my paternal grandmother's family, whom we visited frequently when I was a kid, still live about 25 miles from where I am camping. I decide to take a ride, west on 78 and south on 183 to Bernville... I try to find my Aunt Arlene's house purely from (very hazy) memory and drive around about 45 minutes doing that. It turns out I got pretty close, and indeed the very next street I would have explore was the correct street; but to save time I called 4-1-1 and got her street address. Anyway, she wasn't home. I called my mom, who said Aunt Arlene attends church on Saturday instead of Sunday. Mom suggested I visit my dad's cousin Bonnie in Mohnton, SW of Reading; but Mom was in the car and didn't have Bonnie's number handy... I drove to Reading anyway, determined to visit the Pagoda, which I adored as a kid but haven't been able to visit properly in decades... and AGAIN, it was closed, even though the posted hours promised it should be open. I did get some nice exterior pics so maybe I'll post here...
While at the Pagoda I called 4-1-1 again and tried to get a number or address for Bonnie, but her number was unlisted. Aborted trip to Mohnton—a real shame in that her son, Rick, is a peer of mine and we spent just a short time in our teens as really good friends, since which time I haven't had any contact with him at all.
Instead I drive back up 222 to 183, through Bernville again—my Aunt Arlene is still not home—and back toward the campground, taking all small, local roads through Centreport and Hamburg... the road I follow through Hamburg turns out to be the very road through Lenhartsville on which sits the general store where I had bought smokes and ice that morning, so I easily find my way back to camp.
Hugh prevails on me to help with dinner; I tell him cooking steaks is really not what I had in mind, but I do sous-chef for him. Tonight's corn on the cob is MUCH better than last nights since I wrap it in foil and put it on a rack pretty close to the smouldering campfire for 10-15 minutes.
The other guy I met for the first time this weekend is Dave, a public school teacher (of English and Spanish, currently to 7th graders) pretty local to Blue Rocks. He is certainly a Pa. country boy type, baseball cap, flannels, beard, etc. but we bond re this and that throughout the weekend. At one point I use the word "befouled" and he immediately quotes a line from The Crucible with "befouled" in it... so we talk Arthur Miller for a while. He's cute and low-key and wry. I like him a bunch. But it is clear ain't nobody in this camp but me likes him some dick (but his own) so the whole weekend is a platonic male bonding session. Which for the most part works out just fine. I am comfortable enough to talk to these guys in a bunch about "my ex-boyfriend" and there's no hint of friction or jitters among them. It's almost enough to make me update my own personal Hitchhiker's Guide to "People mostly suck."
Speaking almost of which, Saturday night is Red Dwarf episodes, which I can't get into. More single malts from Rob, who brought a full dozen bottles (not a dozen full bottles) with varying amounts (the most, apparently, of his very fine personal single malt bar). I crash fairly early. Joe wakes me up at 8:30; everybody else is already up and packing. I get my shit together and haul out by 10, home by 1:15, showered and dressed in black for the Cheese Lords concert.
Which went well. Last concert, in Baltimore, was so wrenchingly bad (on listening to the recording a week later) that we had, as a band, what you might call a "come to Jeebus" moment where we decided we needed to hire somebody to kick our collective ass and make us worthy of a $15,000 fee (which is what we've been offered for one show this fall). So we have all been working hard and focusing on making the music actually musical, rather than just the right notes. So it turned out well. The Rachmaninoff "Lord's Prayer" with which we ended the show was dead on, to the point where I actually had a hard time singing the last notes... I got close to choked up about the performance.
The Annunciation Church threw us a reception, but I spent a half hour or so playing the wonderful baby grand in the front of the church... it's so infrequently I get to play a really nice piano, I tend to take advantage of those opportunities. Thence to Reagan to drop off the rental; Lord Fomo followed me and drove me back to the Cactus Cantina where most of the Lords were just finishing dinner and sipping swirly frozen margaritas. Figured out three of us—Fomo, Dan the Elder, and I—had all three parts covered of "Fugue for Tinhorns," the opening number of Guys and Dolls. Fomo was also the bass in the barbershop quartet in The Music Man so we had some material to dust off.
Headed home about 10 and crashed almost immediately. It was STILL tough getting up this morning... not just the waking part but also the getting vertical part. I was bone-tired from hiking in hilly Pa. terrain, throwing hundreds of horseshoes, and singing a concert on top of it all. I need another good night's sleep tonight...
Long version: Grabbed my rental car at Reagan Thursday night, loaded up back at the Irv, and drove without stopping to Blue Rocks Family Campground in Lenhartsville, Pa. Arrived minutes after 1 a.m. and called Joe who, with Hugh, drove down from the campsite to fetch me and my stuff. Stayed up talking to Joe and Hugh and Rob Lynch (new to me) and they crashed one by one until Joe and I turned in circa 2:30. Joe's pop-up camper is really pretty nice... sleeps three comfortably.
Friday morning the world is a beautiful place. In fact, the weather was never less than spectacular the whole weekend... mid-40s at night, mid-70s midday, dry, sometimes breezy but never windy... just wonderful. Joe's brother Rob (Rob Leiss, not Rob Lynch) and Harry put up horseshoe stakes and dumped a few bags of sand around them. I threw a lot of horseshoes over the weekend, at one point getting a crucial game-winning ringer, but mostly pretty inconsistent and often sucky at it, not able to find a sure technique.
Played some poker Friday afternoon; Joe spotted me $20 as the $70-odd cash I had brought was mostly consumed by camping and food costs. Won one hand of 727 but otherwise just watched my $20 of chips get whittled down little by little, and then I was out. A quick nap.
Hugh cooks all weekend, as usual, producing three multi-course meals a day; all are pretty much based around large amounts of meat—the boys actually call this semiannual camping trip "Meatfest"—so I limit my intake, focusing on the potatoes, corn on the cob, stuff like that. At some point on Saturday I offer to captain at least one meal at a future, maybe giving the boys some shrimp and lots of veggies... Hugh's kitchen setup is pretty effective, allowing for pretty much any stovetop cooking... pasta and sauces aren't out of the question.
Friday night, Venture Brothers on Joe's DVD projector... I had never seen any, but it seems a must-own... Also a tour of a couple nifty single malt Scotch whiskeys, courtesy of Rob Lynch. I sing a couple songs whilst folks sit around the campfire: We Have Fed Our Seas and my own Three-Minute Godfather (which given my drunken state takes at least 4 1/2 minutes).
Saturday I drive into Lenhartsville for cigarettes and ice. The six other guys settle down to play Rail Baron (along the lines of Axis and Allies but each player tries to take over the railroad industry in the U.S. by monopolizing lines, price gouging... not exactly my sort of game, so I bum a Pa. map from Rob Leiss, figure out that some of my paternal grandmother's family, whom we visited frequently when I was a kid, still live about 25 miles from where I am camping. I decide to take a ride, west on 78 and south on 183 to Bernville... I try to find my Aunt Arlene's house purely from (very hazy) memory and drive around about 45 minutes doing that. It turns out I got pretty close, and indeed the very next street I would have explore was the correct street; but to save time I called 4-1-1 and got her street address. Anyway, she wasn't home. I called my mom, who said Aunt Arlene attends church on Saturday instead of Sunday. Mom suggested I visit my dad's cousin Bonnie in Mohnton, SW of Reading; but Mom was in the car and didn't have Bonnie's number handy... I drove to Reading anyway, determined to visit the Pagoda, which I adored as a kid but haven't been able to visit properly in decades... and AGAIN, it was closed, even though the posted hours promised it should be open. I did get some nice exterior pics so maybe I'll post here...
While at the Pagoda I called 4-1-1 again and tried to get a number or address for Bonnie, but her number was unlisted. Aborted trip to Mohnton—a real shame in that her son, Rick, is a peer of mine and we spent just a short time in our teens as really good friends, since which time I haven't had any contact with him at all.
Instead I drive back up 222 to 183, through Bernville again—my Aunt Arlene is still not home—and back toward the campground, taking all small, local roads through Centreport and Hamburg... the road I follow through Hamburg turns out to be the very road through Lenhartsville on which sits the general store where I had bought smokes and ice that morning, so I easily find my way back to camp.
Hugh prevails on me to help with dinner; I tell him cooking steaks is really not what I had in mind, but I do sous-chef for him. Tonight's corn on the cob is MUCH better than last nights since I wrap it in foil and put it on a rack pretty close to the smouldering campfire for 10-15 minutes.
The other guy I met for the first time this weekend is Dave, a public school teacher (of English and Spanish, currently to 7th graders) pretty local to Blue Rocks. He is certainly a Pa. country boy type, baseball cap, flannels, beard, etc. but we bond re this and that throughout the weekend. At one point I use the word "befouled" and he immediately quotes a line from The Crucible with "befouled" in it... so we talk Arthur Miller for a while. He's cute and low-key and wry. I like him a bunch. But it is clear ain't nobody in this camp but me likes him some dick (but his own) so the whole weekend is a platonic male bonding session. Which for the most part works out just fine. I am comfortable enough to talk to these guys in a bunch about "my ex-boyfriend" and there's no hint of friction or jitters among them. It's almost enough to make me update my own personal Hitchhiker's Guide to "People mostly suck."
Speaking almost of which, Saturday night is Red Dwarf episodes, which I can't get into. More single malts from Rob, who brought a full dozen bottles (not a dozen full bottles) with varying amounts (the most, apparently, of his very fine personal single malt bar). I crash fairly early. Joe wakes me up at 8:30; everybody else is already up and packing. I get my shit together and haul out by 10, home by 1:15, showered and dressed in black for the Cheese Lords concert.
Which went well. Last concert, in Baltimore, was so wrenchingly bad (on listening to the recording a week later) that we had, as a band, what you might call a "come to Jeebus" moment where we decided we needed to hire somebody to kick our collective ass and make us worthy of a $15,000 fee (which is what we've been offered for one show this fall). So we have all been working hard and focusing on making the music actually musical, rather than just the right notes. So it turned out well. The Rachmaninoff "Lord's Prayer" with which we ended the show was dead on, to the point where I actually had a hard time singing the last notes... I got close to choked up about the performance.
The Annunciation Church threw us a reception, but I spent a half hour or so playing the wonderful baby grand in the front of the church... it's so infrequently I get to play a really nice piano, I tend to take advantage of those opportunities. Thence to Reagan to drop off the rental; Lord Fomo followed me and drove me back to the Cactus Cantina where most of the Lords were just finishing dinner and sipping swirly frozen margaritas. Figured out three of us—Fomo, Dan the Elder, and I—had all three parts covered of "Fugue for Tinhorns," the opening number of Guys and Dolls. Fomo was also the bass in the barbershop quartet in The Music Man so we had some material to dust off.
Headed home about 10 and crashed almost immediately. It was STILL tough getting up this morning... not just the waking part but also the getting vertical part. I was bone-tired from hiking in hilly Pa. terrain, throwing hundreds of horseshoes, and singing a concert on top of it all. I need another good night's sleep tonight...
