All right, here are the notes at last–sorry I’m late, I had to work today (that’s “work” not “go to work”, which would have lead to much earlier posting). As always, feel free to correct anything herein, or to add anything I’ve overlooked.
6:05–I arrived at The Ditch; JimB and Palmyra were already there. Jim already had a beer, and Palmyra is still underage, so I couldn’t buy them birthday beers (maybe next time, or next year) while we waited.
6:10–SkySlash and Adam Yax arrive (about time you guys made it to one of these–now if we can just get Farris and Lynn to show up). I predicted that the rest would arrive in 20 minutes (WAG).
6:15–Grace calls; they’re on the way, should be there in 15 minutes. I take a bow…and am ignored.
6:20–What is that velvet painting over the table?! Elvis? Jesus? Joe Montana? A horrible freak of nature? (The last has my vote.)
6:22–OK, so neither Grace nor I can predict Dallas traffic; the rest of the crew arrive: Zyada, Grace, Aglarond, Chef Troy and his family, and ExTank (the Munificent–thanks for dinner, man).
6:30–ExTank ™ is getting ribbed about some earlier occurrence. Your ace reporter investigates, and the following sordid tale comes out:
Grace was telling everyone about her hubby putting gasoline in a diesel car, and the resulting trip to the mechanic. She said that she was so mad at her hubby that she slept…<all dirty minds unanimously thought “…with the mechanic.”>…upstairs alone. Being Dopers, everyone immediately completed the sentence their way for Grace’s benefit. ExTank ™ had missed a few laps in the conversation and innocently offered the comment “I can’t say anything; I did that once.” All together now! “You slept with the mechanic?!”
6:35–The wine at the fair was discussed. I’m glad I missed it–wine poured straight from the box into the plastic cup, yum!
6:40–We leave the wine to discuss the food. I’ll leave the others to discuss corny dogs and crabcakes. Pix will apparently be forthcoming. I won’t be looking at them–yuk.
6:45–ExTank ™, apparently a bit behind in the conversation (or suffering from a pathological case of non sequiturs) denies any knowledge of having ever slept with a mechanic, but admits that it’s possible. Grace distributes Halloween bundles; everyone checks them for ticking, then opens them to find Halloween candles or little stuffed black cats. (Thanks, Grace–I like the candle scent!) Aglarond the catkicker (I missed this story) naturally got one of the cats. I was going to light my candle with one of my little party tricks, but someone handed me a lighter.
Most-piercing-laugh contest begun, with Grace and Zyada in a dead heat (we couldn’t get Palmyra to join in); JimB to expose himself to inspire contestants.
6:50–Cat stories: Chef Troy once had a cat that learned to open his front door–it once let him in when he’d locked himself out. On another occasion, it let a somewhat confused homeless guy in. (Note to forward cat stories to Opal. Had to explain who Opal was, and why greetings to her appear in so many totally unrelated lists.) Much surprise was expressed over cats opening doors–until I noted that a buddy of mine in college had a snake that could open his front door.
Chef Troy reported his grandmother’s opinion on cats: “When they sit with one leg straight up, pretending to lick their asses, they’re really talking to the mothership on a hidden transmitter.”
Grace won the MPL contest.
7:00–ExTank ™ asked how we all found the Dope boards. I missed many of the answers, but I caught variations on “Read the column in the Met, saw the URL”, “found it on AOL”, “once read the column, then typed in the URL just to see if there was a site”, “found it while searching for the answer to a specific question”, and my own “bored and typing in random URLs lead me there”.
7:10–A blur of segues and half-heard conversation led us through a strange period of talk about computer naming conventions, “Eek! The Cat”, football vs hockey, and some other things I’m sure I missed.
7:25–Prompted by Adam’s questions about the little vial of white powder I had left out on the table, I demonstrated my flashfinger trick. Predictably enough, given the proportion of pyros at the table, producing a firecracker flash-and-bang by snapping my fingers made quite an impression. The waitress was present (she had just provided ExTank ™ with extra napkins to wipe away sweat and tears–he was eating the Chef Troy-recommended “federale special”); I taught her the trick (no comment, Ag), and she went off to show the rest of the staff. Adam and Grace tried to do it, too, but couldn’t quite manage it.
7:35–Palmyra got fried ice cream and a Doper (read “horrible”) rendition of “Happy Birthday”. She shared the fried ice cream–we all got a spoon. What a gal!
7:45–Grace finally made the flash trick work; soon after, Chef and Adam managed it as well. Adam needed more igniter to make it work for some reason. <shrugs>
7:50–Chef Troy holds forth on the inadequacies of the Olive Garden. No one really seems to disagree.
8:00–Chef explains the Iron Chef show to those unfamiliar with it. I commented that I had seen the most disgusting alleged food ever perpetrated on the show (soft roe ice cream).
8:05–Aglarond’s claim to fame is apparently the fact that he’s never failed to post to a bathroom thread. His “I hope I don’t work with any Dopers” overflowing toilet post was evidently read by the instructor of the training class he was in at the time–“So it was you!”
8:15–More guesses on the velvet thing–Zyada says that it’s the love child of Elvis and Jimi Hendrix. Aglarond and ExTank ™ jointly suggested “Kramer’s head on Jabba’s body”. Chef thought it looked like Schneider from “One Day at a Time” (huh?).
8:25–We took more photos–Aglarond, JimB, and ExTank ™ put on these truly ghastly pastel sequined sombreros that were hanging next to the Velvet from Hell and posed, then we all trooped outside to the patio for another photo op. I was going to time another explosion for the photo, but some technical confusion on the waitress’s part delayed things long enough for the stuff to start stinging my fingertips, so I just triggered it (too close to SkySlash for his comfort, evidently). Further photos were taken of Jim communing with nature…well, of Jim annoying a raccoon that joined us on the patio.
8:35–Grace left. Before the rest of us followed, a fire truck and various other emergency vehicles flashed by, prompting the comment (from Sky, I think) “She’s only been gone a few minutes, and she’s already causing trouble.”
8:40–We all finally departed, no doubt inspiring much relief in the other patrons.
I had a great time, folks, as always. I was very pleased to meet several Dopers for the first time, and I hope to see them all again in the future. (Hopefully, we haven’t frightened Palmyra off. 
)
x o x o [blows hugs and kisses]