Well, my wife, daughter, and I plan to attend for a little while early on. See you Saturday!
Right now, we’ve got somewhere around a dozen definites, plus a few maybes. Once I’m home tonight and can check my email there, I may even post a list. In the meantime, this bumps the thread one more time. 
Jess, the thought of you in a cavewoman costume…well, Mrs. F. would hit me over the head with a club if she saw that thought balloon!
Anyway, sorry you can’t make it; it was fun hanging out with you in Norfolk/VaBeach a couple months back. Guess we’ll just have to have another Norfolk get-together soon!
Anyhow, we’ve got a pretty good bunch of people coming. In addition to yours truly and Mrs. Firefly, of course, we have:
Phil and Peta
Sqrl and DCNewsman
Montfort
AWB & Mrs. AWB, and their baby girl
Wendell Wagner
Polycarp and Skulldigger
Smooth Operator
Last I checked, weirddave and Falcon were in the ‘maybe’ category. Anyone else, email me for directions. Seeya Saturday! 
RTF,
You can move me from the “maybe” catagory to the “I’m coming” catagory. See y’all tomorrow!
Y’all can put me on the list. I told Mrs. O about the Lunch Bunch today and she wants to meet SqrlCub and talk banjos and get in on the cribbage action we’re all drooling over.
We’re gonna find a sitter for the Tzeroling (we got friends that owe us favors) and git on down there to make a big mess. RTF, if you’d be so kind as to make with the directions ASAP we’ll grace y’all’s shindig with our fine presences.
…check your email, Olentzero - directions should be waiting there for you.
See y’all in a few hours!
Thanks a bunch, Rufus. Can’t wait!
Just got home, and I had a great time. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Firefly for the fine job of hosting.
I’ll let someone else post the minutes, but Falcon, WeirdDave, Olentzero and I all left at the same time. I noticed how clear the night was, and being out in the middle of nowhere – actually, the on the coast of nowhere – we spent about ten minutes stargazing (“Hey, is that Taurus?”) before forming a caravan toward our homes.
No minutes here, I’m too tired. Just an entheusiastic word of thanks to RTF and his wife for hosting a great get together. Can’t wait to see y’all again soon!
One more thing. I did take some pictures, and I plan on getting them developed ASAP. Falcon, being her usual gracious self, said she would post them, but I realize she’s gonna be WAY too busy the next week or so to bother her, so I’m gonna TRY to do it myself. After I fuck it all up, I’m sure she can fix the mess after she’s in her new place. Highlights to look for:
Olentzero twists his arm 720 degrees!
Sqrlcub can bend his tongue in 5 different directions at once! ( Now why is dcnewsman smiling?? )
Montfort stabs weirddave!
Polycarp blesses the masses!
And much, much more! Stay tuned!
Trust me, nobody can twist their arm in a 720. Unless all their ligaments are snapped. I can only do a 360.
Thanks, everyone, for coming all the way out to the far-flung exurb of Chesapeake Beach and making our party such a great time!
We had a fair crowd - next time I host one of these, it’s going to be in the summer, so the party can spread out onto the deck! (The deck served as the smoking lounge, actually, which weirddave, Poly, and Barb all took advantage of. But it was a bit nippy for hanging out there for longer than it took to smoke a cigarette, or (in my case) flip burgers.)
Here’s what I think is a complete list of attendees:
Tony (AWB), his wife Valerie, and 7-month old daughter Courtney
SqrlCub and DCNewsman
Bishop and Mrs. Polycarp
SmoothOperator
weirddave
Olentzero
Falcon
Montfort
Wendell Wagner
and RT and Mrs. Firefly.
Tony and Valerie’s baby girl is cute as all get out. He showed us some pictures of her, taken by a professional photographer. Tony, I envision a number of scenes like this in about 14 years: “Courtney, be home by 10 tonight, or…(ominous chord)…I show your boyfriend your baby pictures!” Sorry you guys had to leave so early.
Olentzero can not only do weird things with his arms (and fingers too), but can speak Swedish. Needless to say, he wants to practice on Anniz when she eventually visits these shores. When that day comes, I think Montfort’s going to make sure he’s constantly standing directly between Anniz and Olentzero if they’re in the same room! (Who can blame him?)
Amazingly enough, it took hours for us to get around to teasing Falcon about how long it takes her to ‘change’; for some reason, after two months, the joke’s starting to wear thin with her. (Don’t ask me why; everyone else still thought it was hilarious!) I reminded her that she’d said in a thread here that she’d be disappointed if I ever stopped giving her a hard time about her ‘changing.’ She immediately retracted that statement. 
Most of us didn’t come in costume, but weirddave showed up with a bloody knife stuck in his chest, and Polycarp showed up as Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. Dave immediately asked Poly to administer last rites. Poly wasn’t the only one who came dressed as his username; Skulldigger did the same.
Mrs. Firefly and SmoothOperator found that they were kindred spirits in a whole host of ways, while Wendell Wagner and I compared the pluses and minuses of working for government instead of academia. Meanwhile, my main achievement of the night was the cooking of two pumpkin pies that were in the oven literally for hours, smelled absolutely wonderful, and never quite got done.
Around 11:30pm, many of the guests left; here, I managed to unload some boxes on Falcon that Jacki and I had had since we’d moved up to the D.C. area, two years ago. Glad you can use them, Amy! Every now and then, being a pack-rat pays off. Sqrl and DCNewsman stayed around for another hour or so, along with Smoothie and the Polycarps, who were staying the night after having driven up from Raleigh. Somebody (Sqrl, IIRC) complimented Jacki on her cheerfulness in the face of having her house invaded by a horde of Dopers; she replied that none of them seemed any weirder than me. (To quote Satan, “Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!”)
The next morning, Smoothie, Poly, Barb, Jacki, and I sat around, drank lots of coffee, ate bagels, and pleasantly whiled away most of the morning in comfortable conversation before the Raleigh contingent decided it was time to drive home. A big thanks from Jacki and me to all three of you for traveling all this way to come see us - you’re welcome anytime, and we hope to see you again soon!
Damn . . . all I can do is a 360 degree twist.
RT, you and Jackie rock. I had a great time. First I got to ride up there with Polycarp and Skulldigger who are hysterically funny. I sat in the suicide seat. Then I met weirddave, Olentzero, Wendell and Montfort. Falcon, SqrlCub and DC newsman were also there and I got to renew that aquaintance. (At least until they started talking football and sports) When sports became the main topic, a small group gathered in the kitchen to discuss other things.
Manny posters were discussed. Absences were noted. The food was good, the company and music excellent, (except Olentzero took exception to some old LPs of Jackie’s…I won’t tell who it was, but I want blackmail money). Jackie was amazingly tolerant of having her house invaded by a bunch of crazed dopers. We all went to bed late(separately your pervs), we woke up early, gabbed some more, listened to various music, solved world problems and most importantly…played with Charlotte & Wilbur (Rimskey hid upstairs most of the time). Reluctantly we left and again had a great drive home.
I’m ready to do it again.
It was Leif Garrett. Ghodawmighty, what a ghastly pic that thing was… shudder I’m just glad I wasn’t old enough to be into the music scene of the 70s.
I wanna thank RTF and Mrs. RTF for a great time! It was fun finally meeting everyone from around this neck of the woods, even though most of my pathetically desperate attempts to get a laugh failed. Except for 'being able to go up to an old Jewish man to say “Gimme a little tongue.” ’ According to SqrlCub, however, I wasn’t asking the right people.
Much fun was had listening to music, ranging from Weird Al to the Rutles to several other things in the background, none of which was the soundtrack to Rocky Horror Picture Show, which Montfort and I emphatically rejected.
RTF entertained with excellent burgers and some juggling, which attracted Wilbur the Kitty’s attention - he only wanted RTF to drop something so he could chase it. Wendell Wagner made a valiant attempt at duplicating RTF’s feat but did about as well as I would have if I’d tried, which is why I stuck to squishing the foam-rubber Lilly capsules.
All in all a great time; next fest we have I say anyone who plays an instrument should bring it so maybe we can jam a bit, and someone needs to break out the cribbage board. A long-standing cribbage rivalry between Dopers is just what this board needs!
Olentzero reminds me that I forgot to mention the cats! All three of the Firefly felines eventually made appearances - six month old kittens Charlotte and Wilbur (enthusiastically checking everyone out), and (much more hesitantly) Rimsky, our big tabby. (Yes, we used to have a Korsakov; 'nother story.) I think Rimsky may not have shown his face until the party was down to Sqrl, DC, Smoothie, Poly, Barb, Jacki, and me; DC was actually able to briefly make friends with Rimsky.
I was ready to bring out the cribbage boards if the action ever slowed, or if anyone requested it; but it didn’t, and no one did. There might’ve been more of a push for it if Phil and Leigh-Anne had been there, but alas, they got sick and had to stay home.
Too bad in another respect - Phil and I had briefly discussed the idea of his bringing a telescope out here, and as Montfort already mentioned, the sky was crystal-clear and very dark. It’s amazing how much better the stargazing is when (a) you’re 25 miles past the Beltway, in the only direction where development practically stops at the Beltway; and (b) half your sky is over the Chesapeake Bay, which means no lights.
Maybe the Friday lunch bunch would be a good place for the cribbage rivalry. Once the Metro gets out to Suitland, I can probably join in pretty frequently.
Woohoo. DC and I had a great time. Smoothie can be my new fag hag if she would be so kind. Now all you have to do is send me tons of presents and profess your love for squirrels and cats. Hey, you are already half way there. heheheh j/k kind of.
When the sports topics came up I had to sing “On the Good Ship, Lollipop” repeatedly to ensure that I wouldn’t learn anything about sports through osmosis. I still think those types of team sports are yucky. That was right before I ran into the kitchen with Smoothie and Mrs. RT (Jackie).
Again, it was a whole lot of fun. And, I hope I am as cool as RT when I finally grow up.
HUGS!
Sqrl
Damn! I wish I could have been there. I should have given you all my work number so you could have conference-called me at IKEA.
Next time, I am soooo already there. I am dying to meet all of you! Maybe we can get together after New Year’s, since Christmas is so busy.
Definitely had a good time…everyone was great, we got to see a small section of the Raleigh contingent, and tease Falcon some more. But alas, there were no name tags, so PLdennison and Peta couldn’t attend by proxy.
And RT, Sqrl had his cribbage board and deck of cards in the car.
FYI for Nacho and others:
Next DC Dopefest of sorts will be December 10th at my new apartment. Baltimore plays the early game, Washington the late game. Olent has offered to bring the cribbage board for those who don’t like football.
RT - thanks SO much for the boxes and for having all us crazy people over. I had a wonderful time! And I finally got to meet Olentzero! (He’s not just a figment of the imagination anymore. ;))