The Picture Game

Despite a rainy, cool weekend in the Big City, I had a blast from start to finish.

The fun started when I went over to a friend's house to cook pasta. How gay does that sound? Christian was making pasta dishes to take to the progressive dinner later that evening. I assumed he'd boil some pasta, throw in some canned sauce and viola! Wrong! Christian calls himself a food whore. We (he) made four kinds of pasta, and four kinds of sauce from scratch, including a 'yellow' sauce made with bell peppers, sun dried tomatoes, and mushrooms. He used nearly a bottle of wine for all the sauces. Fresh herbs, fresh ingredients, fancy olives and cheeses. The only thing I did was help slice veggies for the vegetarian lasagna. The fun part basically involved Christian giving a cooking lesson as he prepared the feast. I sampled a bit, which was a good thing, because by the time we ate the pasta course 4 hours later...well...it just wasn't as fresh tasting.

Onto the progressive dinner...

In case you don't know, a progressive dinner involves starting at one house for one course and traveling to the next location, and the next, and then to the last place. We did appetizers, soup/salad, main course, and dessert. It was during all this, Sarah and I had a lot of our fun conversations.

Oh, did I mention there was a drag show before the main course. The hostess for that stop is great friends with a lot of 'peformers', so she's got tons of dresses, gowns, feathers, wigs, glitter, etc etc. I called her apt, "Where bad drag goes to die."

For example...

BTW...see that leg and those hands...that's ME on the extreme left in the photo on the right!

Oh...here's a group picture of some peeps. Sarah's the foxy redhead, next to some hot stud, and then on the end is the guy we cruised all night.

Onto the picture game! A few people in the group seem to think they've invented the PG, but something tells me no, someone already made it up. The concept: everyone clears the room...someone sets a timer on the camera(s)...the 'counter' counts down and everyone runs into the room and poses. It can cause great laughter, funny poses, and often minor injuries.

Here are a few examples from Saturday evening. (you've probably noticed we had a red and black theme night).

After all the eating, dragging, and photo taking, a few of us went out to a few bars for drinks and dancing. It a great ending to a great evening. The one drawback, is that I missed hanging out with Thom, the guy I used to date. He's friends with most of the people who take part in the progressive dinner, but decided to not participate. I just thought he'd want to go out later since he loves to dance. Oh well, I understand I guess...he didn't feel like going out. This was the first weekend I went to the Big City and didn't stay with him. Instead I stayed with a friend who invited me up a few weeks ago. I did see Thom at church and lunch Sunday, so we got to talk a little.

Speaking of Sunday, the church service was hands down the best one. Rev. Carol talked about temptation and not acting on it, and how it comes to us in moments of great strength and moments of great weakness. She also shared a personal story about how she and her partner tried to have a second child. Medical conditions and age didn't help their case. She joked she'd never wanted to give birth, because some genes don't need to be passed on. She also wanted to try since her partner was no longer able to do so. She talked about the frustration, the waiting, the pressure, the very trying time. Then time ran out for her. The last time she tried and learned she wasn't pregnant, she was so distraught and broken spirited. Being 'a woman of God', she turned to her faith and remember the story of the disciples out on the water when a storm comes up. It's the o yea of little faith part. She said I realized God wouldn't send me out to the middle of a lake with a storm brewing and leave me to drown. I was crying, because of the similar situation with my sister and little Zachy. (still nothing new on that front btw.)

Alright...that's a wrap on the weekend.

PS If you look closely, you can find me in at least two of the pics.