Higgins Olympians

And I'm sure this is starting to sound pretty tedious and mundane to many of you, but Chris and I were out again last night at Bingas playing Trivia. This time we had his two college-aged daughters and one of their cousins with us; the girls watched the Olympics (and occasionally chimed in on a pop culture or entertainment question), while Chris and I (and eventually my brother Erik, who drove up from Boston after a day of business meetings there) played the quiz. It was a relatively easy quiz too -- we only missed one question in four rounds, and were 10 for 10 (20 points) in the second bonus round...but without Erik's help we were only 8/20 in the picture round, and completely tanked the half-time "identify the mystery celebrity" question. Who the hell is Chris Tucker anyway?

Missed the first question of the final round as well, but pulled it out at the very end to squeak into second place by a point with a score of 106. The first place team (whose name I will not repeat) managed to score 124 though -- a pretty humbling margin of victory over the rest of us (and tying the record my brothers and I set back in June). Still, we were able to sneak "into the money" again this week to win the prize we really wanted (Bingas ball caps and tee shirts for the girls), while the winners went home with more tickets to the same ball game we won tickets to last week.

Picking a good team name each week is a unique challenge all its own. My all-time favorite is still Carpe Scrotum, (and I still sometimes play under that name when I'm playing by myself without teammates), but generally we try to pick something fresh every week, just to keep the opposition guessing and a little off-balance. I'd originally suggested "The Bi-Coastal Beach Babes...with Bums" but eventually we rejected the double-entendre ("that was no babe; that was my daughter") for the more mundane "Higgins Olympians." Not that there was anything especially Olympian about our team...with the exception, perhaps, of my uncanny resemblance to the Greek (or was he Roman?) God Bacchus...

Also had Parker here visiting with me this past weekend, which was a real treat as well...at least for me. She's still pretty frightened of the wheelchair, and I'm still not quick enough to get her outdoors when she needs to go...so a lot of the weekend was spent dealing with those issues. It's funny, how we have so many of the same problems...including the neuropathic pain in our legs and the occasional scramble to answer the call of nature...but having lost probably 20% of her body weight on her new kelp and kibble diet, she's looking pretty durn frisky for a 13 (going on 14) year old pup. See what I have to look forward to? She's off again now with her other set of petsitters, while the ones who've been hosting her take a little vacation time in Canada. Meanwhile, I can't open the door of my apartment now without briefly experiencing this gut feeling that she's there now waiting for me, sleeping comfortably on her little pillow at the foot of my bed.

Parker and a lobster-themed mailbox at Higgins Beach, August 10, 2008

I'm also starting to count down the days now until I'm back in the pulpit again...Sunday September 7th for our annual Ingathering Water Ceremony, and then my first real sermon since last Easter on September 14th. "Progress, Not Perfection." I can sure think of plenty of things I can say on THAT theme. But I'll try to save a few of them for the 21st as well....