Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2011-03-23 12:02 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2011-03-23 12:02 pm
New Year's Eve (only nearly four months late!)
Against certain parts of my better judgment, I had added someone I used to know in 1999/2000 on Facebook. Since then, she'd got ... well, her husband and my evil-ex were friends. There was a certain amount of Christian conservatism going on there. When Mama and I stopped by when I was visiting home some years back, we'd both been quietly horrified. I stopped talking with her after she sent me the email forward about Christians wanting school prayer being OMG SO HORRIBLY OPPRESSED. So the YOU CAN DEFEAT SATAN BY READING YOUR BIBLE!!! Facebook status meme should not have been that much of a surprise. I swore to post something frivolous and/or openly pagan for every scary-conservative thing she posted.
My aunt had asked if I wanted to go to a New Year's game party; she'd been invited +1, and usually her +1 would have been Guide Dog Uncle, but he was off skiing or otherwise not interested, so I was next up. I thought it could be fun, and went.
I was very glad that I did. There were a lot of people there, many of whom I'd met at the craft-and-chat session. First up was a round or two of Bananagrams. This was excellent fun. Then Balderdash, which we played by house rules -- no real scoring, a category of the player's choice, and there were votes for hilarious as well as presumed-factual.
For those not familiar with the game: there is a large deck of cards suggesting famous people, laws, movie titles, words, and initials of organizations or other things. The player picks one (or has one picked, depending) and shares the prompt with the crowd. The crowd writes down (either BS or real) answers: why is this person famous, what does that word mean, what is the full law that we just heard the beginning and location of, what is the plot of this movie, what is the name of the entity with those initials. The player reads the submissions and the real one, and the crowd votes for what they think the real one is (or the one they think funniest).
Somehow something involving the rear end of a rabbit got to be a thing, so there were all sorts of rear-end jokes, and then there was a crack about the rear end of a VW rabbit, and then --
The word to be defined was 'Fartlek', which, since it was in a game not known for its actual crude words, couldn't have meant what it sounded like in English. There was a general titter, and we got down to it. The person reading the submissions out loud for this round was a woman of great dignity and impeccable timing. There were many interesting definitions. Then: "Fartlek. The stain on the back of the underwear" -- and she paused, as the group roared with laughter, and the guy across the table said "This has to be a woman's submission, or somebody who does the laundry" and then she finished -- "Similar to pisvlek, the stain on the front." And that brought the house down. My aunt was laughing hardest of all. There was nothing like coherent conversation for a full five minutes.
I was amazingly grateful to Hari, my Dutch-speaking classmate from 2002, who had generously shared 'pisvlek' and its definition with the entire cross-cultural communications class.
When we could all speak again, she shared the rest of them, and there was voting, and there was the actual answer: "an old-fashioned running exercise". Twitter, later, informed me that it was Swedish, and meant "speed play". Thank you, Fish!
The rest of the game was still excellent, and hilarious, but that had been the high point of hilarity, and nothing else quite matched up.
There was an attempt to do some game of speed charades, which involved a film-clapper device and four cards, and one was to act out the thing before the card was made to disappear. But there were technical difficulties, and that broke up around midnight when there was champagne to be had and counting down to be done. As one does, I greeted Twitter from my phone. The party house was more of a dead spot than my own apartment, and I got bits and snatches of Twitter. Somewhat frustrating.
The party dissolved shortly after, quite a success.
My aunt had asked if I wanted to go to a New Year's game party; she'd been invited +1, and usually her +1 would have been Guide Dog Uncle, but he was off skiing or otherwise not interested, so I was next up. I thought it could be fun, and went.
I was very glad that I did. There were a lot of people there, many of whom I'd met at the craft-and-chat session. First up was a round or two of Bananagrams. This was excellent fun. Then Balderdash, which we played by house rules -- no real scoring, a category of the player's choice, and there were votes for hilarious as well as presumed-factual.
For those not familiar with the game: there is a large deck of cards suggesting famous people, laws, movie titles, words, and initials of organizations or other things. The player picks one (or has one picked, depending) and shares the prompt with the crowd. The crowd writes down (either BS or real) answers: why is this person famous, what does that word mean, what is the full law that we just heard the beginning and location of, what is the plot of this movie, what is the name of the entity with those initials. The player reads the submissions and the real one, and the crowd votes for what they think the real one is (or the one they think funniest).
Somehow something involving the rear end of a rabbit got to be a thing, so there were all sorts of rear-end jokes, and then there was a crack about the rear end of a VW rabbit, and then --
The word to be defined was 'Fartlek', which, since it was in a game not known for its actual crude words, couldn't have meant what it sounded like in English. There was a general titter, and we got down to it. The person reading the submissions out loud for this round was a woman of great dignity and impeccable timing. There were many interesting definitions. Then: "Fartlek. The stain on the back of the underwear" -- and she paused, as the group roared with laughter, and the guy across the table said "This has to be a woman's submission, or somebody who does the laundry" and then she finished -- "Similar to pisvlek, the stain on the front." And that brought the house down. My aunt was laughing hardest of all. There was nothing like coherent conversation for a full five minutes.
I was amazingly grateful to Hari, my Dutch-speaking classmate from 2002, who had generously shared 'pisvlek' and its definition with the entire cross-cultural communications class.
When we could all speak again, she shared the rest of them, and there was voting, and there was the actual answer: "an old-fashioned running exercise". Twitter, later, informed me that it was Swedish, and meant "speed play". Thank you, Fish!
The rest of the game was still excellent, and hilarious, but that had been the high point of hilarity, and nothing else quite matched up.
There was an attempt to do some game of speed charades, which involved a film-clapper device and four cards, and one was to act out the thing before the card was made to disappear. But there were technical difficulties, and that broke up around midnight when there was champagne to be had and counting down to be done. As one does, I greeted Twitter from my phone. The party house was more of a dead spot than my own apartment, and I got bits and snatches of Twitter. Somewhat frustrating.
The party dissolved shortly after, quite a success.