You Think You Know a Person . . .

Alright folks, it's time to reveal our deep, dark secret. Where exactly HAVE Jesse and Caitlin been spiriting off to the past few Thursday nights? What DOES that leather pouch clutched in Jesse's enthusiastic fist contain? Just HOW BIG of dorks are we?

Well, you probably already knew the answer to that last one, but as for the others . . .

Deep, dark confession here . . . .

Jesse and I have joined . . . a weekly D&D group. Now, wait!! For those of you with especially dirty minds (Lois!) D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons - aka juuuuuuuust about the nerdiest past time that furtively pimpled, creative prepubescent minds could come up with. (Except for dressing as wizards and sword-playing with sticks in the front yard - which we are now that much closer to doing at some point, I'm not going to lie.) Oh, and our group is made up of college professors, work place professionals, food activists, public education teachers, and graduate students.

There! It is finally out! Phew! No more hiding in the shadows - I have been playing as a giant air-being named Kronos, who has a big spiked-chain-on-a-stick that he whirls around and kills werewolves with. Jesse is an elven tracker (think Legolas!) who's race is suffering from a mysterios Elf disease called 'the Gloaming'. We travel with a motley band consisting of a druid, a drunken monk, and a human - going on quests, rescuing kidnapped cousins . . . whoo hoo!

Now, I should attempt to clear something up here for those who are as clueless about D&D as I was only a few short weeks ago. Basically, you and the DM (Dungeon Master!) come up with a character that fits within the 'world' that the DM has created/thought up/etc. The character has back history (family, homeland, a certain race), characteristics depending on their race or orientation (bravery, fighting skills, sneakiness, healing powers), and their own agenda that the rest of the characters may or may not be aware of. Once the character is thought up, the group is given a 'quest' by the DM and the members of the group basically start telling a story, describing how their characters would proceed through the quest. Periodically, the DM says, "nope, that character wouldn't do that" or "suddenly a landslide buries Kronos!" and then inevitably the characters would work together with their different abilities to dig out Kronos, see through dirt, call up a windstorm to clear the dirt, heal Kronos with potions, something like that. It's fun because everyone takes a turn to tell part of the story - and the Thursday night group in general is pretty goofy so we have a good time.

So, there! Our secret is out. On Thursday nights we go to our friend Paul's house (met him and his husband through the CSA, also a board member of Syracuse chapter of Slow Food) and Jesse brings his leather pouch of special D&D dice. As I have been informed, it is NOT kosher to roll another man's die. I have not yet made the final step of purchasing my own multifaceted tumbling harbingers of chance, but I'm guessing it will be any day now . . . .

PS: The pictures are from our 2nd Anniversary weekend!