Week Thirteen: Dungeons & Dragons...At Home

Yes, I got Amy to give Dungeons & Dragons another try. In fact, it was a negotiation, as last week's event, included the kids (and that was the deal, if Amy would give DnD another go, then we could have kids along for her event).

So, a couple days before the game, I created a 2nd Edition character and came up with a simple little adventure scenario. I went with 2nd Edition, because it has a lot less rules and jargon than 4th Edition (which is what we played at the convention back in January and Amy really didn't like).

The adventure was basically Amy's character waking up on a beach with amnesia. I emphasized survival instincts, which Amy did well at. She found some food, made a fire, took shelter and hunted. The early part of the game, she wasn't entirely sure what to do or what she could do, but I left it open on purpose.

After she got a little more adjusted, I moved the plot along and she found herself in the midst of a couple of tribes, elves and goblins. She ended up helping the elves get back an ancient, magical sceptre, from the goblins, in exchange for killing a large monster that was antagonizing the goblins.

It wasn't anything fancy, but I felt, at times, Amy was playing and having some fun without thinking about it. This was much more of the experience I was hoping she had and I should have known it would have been better to start with a more one-on-one experience, tailored and focused on her, than to toss her to the gaming dogs and have her feel lost for four hours.

Things I Learned:

• Group activities that are too far out of one's comfort zone may be better done in moderation and/or in a smaller, more intimate way, first.


• Amy can endure a game of Dungeons & Dragons, but she still doesn't like it.


• No more forcing Amy to play Dungeons & Dragons!

Week Twelve: Maple Syrup Days

On Sunday, March 18th, we headed up to LaGrange, IN to check out their Maple Syrup Days festival. http://www.backroads.org/travel-blog/2012/03/12/celebrate-maple-syrup-days-this-weekend/. Dan had talked about wanting to do some Maple tree tapping/syrup making for one of his P-52 weeks... but wasn't able to find anywhere around here that did anything like that. Well, one of my friends asked me a day or two prior to this if we were going to this (assuming that I already knew about it). So of course I asked what it was and if it was worth going to. She said that you could take a wagon ride out into the woods and see them tap the trees and watch a demonstration on how to make syrup, and eat lots of pancakes and sausage with maple syrup. I thought that this sounded perfect... but I also thought that it was something that the kids would enjoy, so we decided to take them along.

When we woke up that morning the weather was a bit less than ideal... especially since it was raining. But we got ourselves around and headed up to LaGrange...in a less than direct route (completely my fault). Eventually we got there and the weather was still cold and rainy and to make matters even worse, when I opened the trunk I realized that we didn't have the stroller with us. So I pulled out the baby sling (feeling very grateful for at least having that) and we headed up the drive to the park. Of course we only had one umbrella and I was getting frustrated trying to stay under it, so Colin and I headed off in the rain! When we got up to the park they were just starting a puppet show, so we sat down under a tent canopy and tried to dry off a bit while watching the puppet show. It was kinda funny... and a lot stupid, but Katie seemed to enjoy it and it gave me a chance to relax a bit from the drive and the rain. After that we headed over to the maple shop to see what they had to sell. Shockingly they had maple syrup (note the sarcasm), but they also had maple syrup suckers. Then we headed over to the Syrup house where we saw a demonstration on how they make syrup. This of course was when Katie decided that she had to go potty and Dan decided not to sit with us, so Colin and I headed off with Katie in search of a bathroom. About 20 minutes later we returned with empty bladders and were able to catch the tail end of the demonstration... and ran into our neighbors, the Neebes'. From there we headed over to the main building for a lunch of pacakes, sausage and lots of Maple Syrup... made right there a week or two earlier. Once we were all stuffed we headed outside where we were told we could find the wagon for a ride through the woods to see the trees that were tapped. We didn't have to wait long and Katie was able to do a leaf rubbing craft while we waited. But this time the rain had finally let up and the sun was even starting to come out a bit. The wagon ride wasn't very long, but it was neat to see all the trees with sap buckets hanging on them! Once we were done with the wagon ride we went back in the shop to buy some syrup and suckers (and I also managed to get an order for a baby sling thanks to Colin's modeling job), then we headed for home.

Since it was still pretty early in the day we decided to make a short pit stop at my parents house. They didn't know we were coming and I didn't even know if they would be home, but we took a chance and stopped. Thankfully my mom was home and my Dad returned home a little while later! After visiting for a couple hours it was time for us to head back home.

Week Eleven: Wings & Darts

This week, I decided to take some of Amy's advice, and do something less "cerebral". The plan, chicken wings for dinner and darts. I got my mom booked for babysitting duties a week in advance, so after turning the kids over to "grammy", Amy and I left for our night out.

One of the best places in Fort Wayne for chicken wings is Peanuts, although I hadn't been there in years. Back before I met Amy, Peanuts was a common gig for BroomPenny (the rock band I played in for a few years) and then RuleSeven (the rock band my friends played in after BroomPenny, but I still hung out with). I had been there with some friends a few years after all the band stuff, and while they still had awesome wings, Friday nights turned from live music to poker tourneys. I had read, recently, Peanuts had new management and were going back to live music, so added incentive to check it out.

All of this is well and good, except for when Amy and I arrive, around 7pm, the place was empty. For a moment, I considered leaving, but we sat down, ordered some wings, fried onions, fries and beer. It was well worth it. The wings were awesome and it was nice to be able to hear each other during dinner.

From there, we were off to Checkerz, one of my favorite places to play darts, but like Peanuts, I hadn't been there in years. I was worried the bar would be way different, so I was optimistic when we pulled into the parking lot and I saw a couple of dart boards through an open door.

Unfortunately, those were the only two dart boards and they weren't really set up for us to play without moving a lot of tables. So, feeling bad to just come in and leave, we ordered beers and hung out for a bit. There was a band setting up (even though I saw online there was supposed to be a band playing from 7:30 to 9:30) and college gymnastics on the TV near us. I could only take so much and started to feel the night turning south, so we needed to get out of there.

Luckily, I did have a Plan B. A place called Break & Run on the west side of town, boasting 33 pool tables and 22 dart boards. We gave it a go and ended the night playing darts!

Amy hadn't thrown darts in a long time and her arm was kind of sore, but she was a good sport (and hopefully had fun). We talked a lot about stuff going on with each other. I figured we would eventually play some pool, as all the tables were free (there was a $3.00 cover and a 1 drink minimum), but we didn't need any other games.

Things I Learned:

• Always have a Plan B!


• Local businesses can change drastically in five years. The clientele at Checkerz went from a biker bar with hard rock bands to someplace my grandparents would go to for a cocktail and dinner.


• Break & Run was pretty sweet. Its the only real pool and dart hall I know of in Fort Wayne.

Week Ten: Wine Tasting

For this weeks P-52 night we went to a wine tasting class through IPFW. I found the class in their continuing ed catalog. It was titled "So You Like Sweet Wines, Now What?". This seemed right up my alley. Dan and I did some wine tasting back before we were married. We would go out to Virginia to visit Dan's Dad and visit some of the local wineries out there. I have such fond memories of those times and was wondering how this would compare to those tasting experiences. This of course was a "class" as well as a tasting, so I really didn't know what to expect going into it. But it sounded like something different and fun!

The class was at an art gallery downtown and was put on by a couple that used to write wine reviews for the Journal Gazette. There were about 20 people in the class and it was a very mixed bag of people. The couple putting on the class were great though. They both had a great sense of humor and were very approachable. We tasted 6 different wines (1 oz pours) and they ranged from sweet and carbonated to dry and red. I of course liked the sweet ones best... and as expected, Dan liked the dry red ones better. I think the class actually exceeded my expectations and really brought back so many of those fond memories of wine tasting back early on in our relationship.

After the class we decided to go next door to JK O'Donolleys for some munchies and some more alcohol (wine for me and beer for Dan). Neither of us had been to JKO's, but we've both been wanting to check it out. Again, it exceeded my expectations. It was fun trying out some of the Irish fare and talking about our thoughts on the wine class. We both agreed that we need to start opening some of those bottles that we picked up at the wineries years ago and just try to start having a glass of wine at dinner more often! I look forward to the next time we are able to go to a winery together again for some more wine tasting. I'm hoping that maybe at some point we can take the kids along for a little day trip with a picnic at the winery.

Overall I would say that this date night was one of my favorites so far. We had a fun activity that allowed us to interact and share our opinions and experiences with each other and also gave us a lot to talk about over drinks and food after!

Week Nine: Creative Writing

Its been a while since my last P52-planned night. Part of the reason was Valentine's Day and taking the option to skip my week since we did have a night planned of dinner and a movie. The spirit of P52 is to spend more time together, so with Valentine's Day being on my week, I had no issue taking the freebie!

My Creative Writing night was originally scheduled for Wednesday, February 29th, but two things fell through. First, my mom was not available to babysit, as I had thought it would be more fun to go out to a coffee house or other lounge-type place to do the writing. The backup plan was to stay home, which would have been fine, but the second issue, was Amy not feeling well and not in the mood to "relax". Now let me say, my version of relaxing, is not really the same way Amy relaxes, and based on her prior P52's, her relaxing seems a lot more like work to me. So, I completely understood and I postponed our Creative Writing night until Friday.

After we put the kids to bed, we brewed our favorite beverages and sat opposite of each other in the living room, both with our new Lenovo X120e's on our laps (Yup, I didn't use a typewriter...).

I started the evening by reading Stephen King's essay, "Imagery and the Third Eye". I had read it a few days prior and I found it very helpful advice and I thought it set the tone nicely. I was concerned Amy would get bored hearing me read (I do have a monotonous, sleep-inducing voice, most of the time), but at the end, she seemed to enjoy it well enough.

The next phase of our evening entailed a timed writing exercise from Natalie Goldman's "Wild Mind". I have been reading this book for a couple weeks and really enjoyed her previous book, "Writing Down the Bones", so it made sense to me to try one of the writing exercises. We did one of the first one, where you keep writing for 15 minutes with "I Remember", take a 10 minute break and then write another 15 minutes with "I Don't Remember".

We didn't have to share what we both wrote, but we both did a little. Both of us had written a little about how we used to weigh less and we agreed the "I Don't Remember" portion ended up bringing up more negative feelings. Amy mentioned afterwards, that it reminded her how much she used to enjoy journaling. I believe most of her exercise was journaling. Mine was some journaling sprinkled with some general observational stuff (like writing about the sights and sounds occurring during a dark and windy evening, as we had) and then a little humor (I don't remember ever wearing a speedo, nor wanting to.) as a change of pace.

We both did a great job of writing the entire time. I was concerned that one or both of use would putz out. Oddly, when the timed alarm on my phone went off, it kind of felt short and we both felt like we could write more.

The final exercise was something I had thought about earlier in the week, but was inspired by Brian Kiteley's "3AM Epiphany". I did thumb through a few of them to give Amy an idea of what we were about to partake in. I think she was the most nervous about creating a short story, with little direction, off the top of her head.

The exercise was simple: Write a "first kiss" story, but from the perspective of the opposite gender. 500 Words.

Before either of us started writing, we talked a bit about our own first kisses (not with each other, by the way) and then a little bit about mindsets of the genders. Truthfully, I could have sat there talking to Amy all night and not began writing anything, but I wanted us to get something done.

Just before we were going to write, Amy mentioned she didn't know what 500 words would be like, i.e. how many pages. Having been nanoing for three years, I know exactly what 500 words is, as well as 1,667! So, I explained it to her, as basically two full pages, double-spaced, but then walked her through installing WriteMonkey, which is my favorite little minimal writing program. Its not the same as a typewriter, but it has the same concepts of what make a typewriter my favorite writing tool.

At that point, we were off. We both wrote for a while, then printed out hard copies and finally shared, critiqued and discussed. I found Amy had a solid story and we could both see how her "male" perspective had a lot of the female element in it. We had a good talk and then went on to mine. I felt like I had to major accomplishments, 1) Amy liked it and she was surprised by my story and 2) it had some solid conflicts to keep Amy reading and a different outcome than she expected.

I have to believe that these past three years of writing have honed my skills. Now, I'm not saying I'm a Hemmingway or King, but I'm a heck of a lot better with writing fiction than I used to be. So, wins all around!

By the time we were done (which we could have continued talking and maybe even do another exercise), it was close to midnight and I wanted to get to bed (I had my writing group in the morning).

Things I Learned:

• Anyone can write, whether that is in a journal or a short story. But, its a lot more fun when you share, critique and talk about everything else that may not have made it into the story.


• Yet another great example of having an enjoyable evening with my spouse, at home and no money. And I do think it was better to have kept this at home, as a public venue could have had too many distractions or been too loud to really have the intimate back and forth we enjoyed in the living room.


• I still need to plan ahead better on the babysitting front!


• I don't HAVE to use a typewriter to write. Sometimes I trick myself into believing I do.