30 before 30 - #1!

1. Host mah jongg night.

2. Make jam.

3. Host brunch. (Done!)

4. Go for a picnic.

5. Go grocery shopping on my bike.

6. Finish my year-end photo albums.

7. Take Fred to Lost Lake.

8. Rearrange the backyard.

9. Eat at the Space Needle.

10. Stay in bed all day.  (Done!)

11. <edited for privacy.>

12. Have a really girly slumber party.

13. Play a round of mini-golf.

14. Get the craft room sorted and gorgeousified.

15. Go for a weekend in the San Juans.

16. Have an individual date with each NGS.

17. Go for a hike.

18. Plan and cook a week’s worth of dinners.

19. Go to Portland to see old friends.

20. Perfect a signature recipe (one slightly more nutritional than Bundt cake.)

21. Go to the drive-in movies.

22. Get a mani-pedi every month. (Done for Jan and Feb!)

23. Go ice skating. (Done!  Colorado with the parentals!)

24. Find the perfect shade of lipstick.

25. Host a big tea party in the back yard.

26. Make a quilt top.

27. Take six dance classes of any kind. (Two down.  Love the Little Red Hen.)

28. Ride on a Ferris wheel.

29. Organize our finances and filing system.

        30. Plan an awesome 30^th birthday party.

Y'all, number one has been kicked outta the club!  I hosted a mah jongg night last night and it was super fun.  In all fairness, I forgot to take a picture of the ladies playing mah jongg because I was too busy disjointedly describing the rules, trying to referee the snagging of tiles, and making sure that people said the right things.  For those of you who don't know mah jongg, its basically a tile rummy game, with a lot of extra rules and traditions sprinkled in.  My favorite part (besides my friends being totally hilarious) is the tactile and beautiful nature of the game itself.  It comes in a super fun box like this:

 

Which has a bunch of shallow shelves like so:

 

And the tiles look something like this:

 

Which can be confusing but is also fun.


Mah jongg has a lot of really arcane rules which were roughly followed at varying hilarious levels.  Saying "hop toi" when you go around the corner of the wall shortly moved from a quiet "hop toi" to a gleeful "BOK CHOI!"  Laying down a chow was shortly called out as "chow chow CHOW MEIN!"  And the circles suit shall never be circles again, from here on out it is known as egg rolls.  Whether or not this link between Chinese food and mah jongg was necessary or politically correct is dubious, but if it makes the rules easier to follow, I'm all for it.


We played two games of mah jongg and downgraded to Apples to Apples and Rack-O.  The team playing AtoA:

 

Paula and Libby are very serious people.

Rack-o is a card game that has been enjoyed by my mother's family for fifty years, most of the enjoyment of which is that everyone says "nice rack!" at the end of the game.  Here is Molly, showing off her winning rack.

Nice rack, man.


As always, the evening devolved until Paula captured a pic like this:

That's me drinking in the background of a photo of her beer.  Ah, good times.  I hereby declare game night a rousing success.  Thanks to all my ladies for helping me kick #1 outta bed for eating crackers.