At long last (assuming my connection holds out long enough for me to post them), the notes:
12:30–I arrived at the Ditch, to find Cheffie, Chef Jr, Lucky, and Tommy the Cat already in attendance. I was duly introduced as the official Recorder of Embarassing Quotes. Tommy is looking for a house in the area–he and Mrs. Cat moved to Dallas last year. Cheffie noted that a house a few doors down from his own was for sale, not neglecting to point out that the relevant realtor was the inspiration for his “Isn’t that Balance in drag?” thread. It’s quite a nice neighborhood, and a nice house as well, with the additional bonus of having a police officer living a few doors away. Tommy had an appointment to go look at another house at 4:00 (thus cluing us in to the maximum possible duration of the gathering), but would later get directions from Cheffie (and Mapsco) to the house in question.
12:40–<Insert fanfare-trumpeter smiley> Grace arrives! (And only 10 minutes late, too!) A few minutes later, Dobbinaire shows up and displays the remarkable faculty Dopers seem to have for spotting one another–or maybe it was just the fact that we were occupying the entire bar area of the restaurant at the time. Regardless, a brief discussion of the organizational thread confirmed that we weren’t expecting anyone else, so we claimed a table. On the subject of attendance, Lucky admitted to having once organized a Dopefest, then missed it himself.
12:50–Frequency of Dopefests discussed; DFWers will gather at the drop of anything even vaguely resembling an occasion. The running commentary in the back of my mind supplied a HHGTTG paraphrase: “When a goat with two heads was born at midnight, they had a Dopefest. When a perfectly ordinary cat or dog was born in the middle of the afternoon, they had a Dopefest.” Not yet knowing the precise tolerance of our new friends for my bizarre non-sequiturs, I refrained from speaking it aloud.
Palmyra discussed in her absence–it was suggested (to general agreement) that she mostly shows up and monitors the threads so she’ll know what we’re saying about her. Well, I’m not tellin’, so there 
(We did explain the whole “So, when does the skeleton blow his load?” bit to the newbies, along with psiekier’s Bruce Campbell obsession.)
General discussion of the food–in response to requests for recommendations, Cheffie (as usual) recommended pretty much everything. From there, he proceeded to diss other restauraunts: “Apparently, El Fenix is Spanish for ‘empty spice rack’”. He noted, however, that he generally doesn’t care about the spicy-hotness of food, leading me into a brief digression on the cooking of a college GF (the oven really wasn’t necessary; the capsicum should surely have cooked it enough–I called her lamb dishes “spontaneous comba-a-astion”).
Camp activities discussed–the practice of snipe hunting (or rather, persuading gullible young lads into snipe hunting) was recommended to Lucky.
Chef Jr was struck by an inspiration concerning Ocarina of Time, and shared it with his father, who agreed that it should work, and that they would try it later. He also managed to firmly direct the conversation at my end of the table toward video games, which Lucky and I discussed at length (particularly the Final Fantasy series–he’s playing VI, I’m playing IX, and we’re both looking forward to the movie next month) while Tommy tried to keep his eyes from glazing, I think.
1:30–Grace told us of the Houseguest from Hell, a particularly annoying and durable specimen from the description. I had weird images of Kirstie Alley (with ragged hair and smeared makeup) superimposed on Grace: “Houseguests…They’re not people…they’re cockroaches…Lock your doors and windows…don’t let them in…” (Name the movie!) Apparently, the guest’s most persistent and egregious offense (besides not going away) lay in always asking what was in whatever meals Grace prepared.
Quote from Cheffie: “Don’t look a roast horse in the mouth.”
This lead to Cheffie talking about his sociopathic roomie (a chap prone to such activities as swapping bicycle wheels with the first appropriately sized bike he found when he had a flat), who was also a houseguest at Chez Chef for a while. Cheffie related such interesting incidents as finding an FBI agent’s business card on his door (the agent wanted to talk to him about the roomie), walking into an apartment full of smoke generated by the roomie cooking fog fluid in Cheffie’s best ladle, and the incident that resulted in Mrs. Chef’s ultimatum–the Martian Zebra Couch Affair (houseguest left a pair of damp black socks across the green fabric, resulting in permanent stripes). Fortunately, Cheffie never had to deliver the ultimatum–when he went to talk to the guy, he was informed that the houseguest was moving out (he had found a job and an apartment).
A phone call for Grace leads to teasing accusations that she’s trying to steal a coworker’s BF–of course, all she actually does is “be Grace” at him over the phone, but we all know that’s enough :D.
Quote Out of Context:
Cheffie–“Oh, and he also claimed not to be from Earth.”
(Dob seemed to be keeping fairly quiet, adjusting to the weird whirlwind of conversation.)
Conversational lulls and multiple conversational groups at Dopefests discussed. At larger gatherings, it’s impossible to hear everything that’s going on, since we almost never manage to get all but one Doper to shut up at the same time. That only happens by accident, usually when someone is saying something along the lines of the fragmentary George Carlin quote supplied by Cheffie: “…have my balls laminated…”
~2:00–<We pause for wee paws; everyone’s observing a squirrel out on the patio> Jim’s raccoon antics at our first Ditch gathering recalled. Animal discussions naturally bringing up animals on roads, we talked a bit about collisions with deer–Grace recounted a time when a deer ran into the side of her car while it was in motion; afterwards it did the William Shatner stumble off the road. I describe a similar encounter with a kamikaze coyote that charged headlong into the side of my old Bronco.
Tommy, through mental processes as foreign to me as high fashion, decided that this was an appropriate time to comment, “I used to work at a restaurant…”
Me: “Why does the name ‘Road Kill Café’ spring to mind?”
I don’t think he ever managed to tell us what his former employment at an eatery had to do with anything.
At the other end of the table–
Cheffie: “Was not!”
Grace: “Was so!”
Cheffie: “Was not!”
Grace: “Was so!”
Cheffie: “Was not!”
Grace: “Was so!”
Chef Jr: “Break it up, you two.”
(Could one of you fill in what you two were “arguing” about? I missed it.)
Somewhere in there, Dopefests past, who attended them, and what manner of silliness occurred was recounted. The gathering at Goldfinger’s when Mia Bella performed is still our largest, with about 15 Doper’s in attendance.
Here endeth the notes–it was about time for Cheffie to whisk Lucky back to the bookstore, lest the protective father become unduly concerned about “those internet people” doing unfortunate things to his son. Tommy got his directions, and we all parted company.
In retrospect, I don’t think we talked enough–my fingers aren’t as tired as usual.
