Yesterday I went to an SCA games night. I was of half a mind not to go at all, but in the end I decided to go. So I grabbed my coat, hat, and book and rushed out the door. I got up to the light to cross the street to the bus stop and hit the button, sure that I was in plenty of time. Waited, but the light didn't change. Hit it again, and mere seconds before the light turned, the bus passed through the intersection. Expletive that. It must have been 5 minutes early, and the next bus wasn't for 20 minutes. I went home and complained to my landlady, who sympathized, and then I went back to the bus stop and made sure I didn't miss the next one. It was not early, even slightly late. It was cold and rainy. Laurabelle was not happy.
I wanted to catch another bus that would take me about 10 blocks to the street where I wanted to be. As Bus #1 was stopped at an intersection, with a red light, Bus #2 drove by in front, stopped briefly, and departed. Expletive that again. Saturday evening, next bus probably in 20-30 minutes. I didn't even want to know. I walked the 10 blocks, mostly uneventfully, except that twice I passed creepy groups of male-ish people. First group, unloading a car on the sidewalk, ignored me. Second group on a streetcorner, who looked like they were doing a drug deal or something, waited until the walk light turned red and then crossed in the other direction. I was very relieved.
Of course, once I got to the party, I got to complain, which almost made it all right. And Dieter/Jeff and Liam/Bill had a verbal tussle about which one of them would give me a ride home, which was flattering and made me feel less like I was imposing on either of them.
I played lots of games, some chance and some skill, and lost all of them but the the most purely chance, a game called Skittles which is more or less like bowling with tops. I improved a lot at darts (I think only a couple of throws missed the board this time). I learned to play Backgammon and had fun harrassing Dieter even though I lost by a mile. I also played Mah Jongg and didn't completely lose, because I made a lot of points in the last round and managed to tie with Dieter.
After everyone was too tired to play Mah Jongg, we all migrated upstairs and chatted about bad movies and physics professors' magnetic attraction to blackboards. I learned about the Spherical Cow Joke which is impossible to understand and think funny unless one has taken 3-4 years of college physics, which is almost enough to make me want to put in those years. (I mean, I like physics anyway.) I feel like there's a secret society, the membership of which is barred to me. Okay, so I know there are things I can't understand at the moment, without studying a lot more, but generally people don't rub my face in it. Not that they were trying.
At least I'm not one of the poor people who don't even know there is a Spherical Cow Joke. Poor souls. Yeah, that's it.