Digging through my draft box- I found an unsent blog from June (goes to show how often I recycle)
It would be a shame to throw it away unread…
Nothing like the present to discuss the past.
Sometime ago in June I had my East West games as part of my ongoing fundraising for crohns. My race was pushed to December, and I was hoping that this event would get me very close to the mark.
Planning took most of my spare time for a long while , lucky the open university was on strike at the same time.
I needed an “impartial” area to host the games, cleveland has a very nice park, on the ocean (this lake should be an ocean), part sand, part grass. The park had a pavilion to rent, and for a while I was thinking of renting it, but after a tour of the grounds, it was clear that it was not a good idea. Why? you ask, well, bugs. Not like my usual rental car, but annoying flying little things that stick to you. So I passed on the pavilion option and went with the usual picnic tables. The risk of rain was the only thing I was fearing.
Getting people there was risk number 2. I posted in several meet up groups. The adventure group, the 20s-30s, singles, new in town. I asked few bars to bring teams, nudged the people at work, and emailed everyone I knew in the area.
Since there were games involved, I had to bring some. I went rummaging and got a single golf club, bocce ball, trivia, croquette, few odd size balls for dodge ball. But more was needed.
I drove an hour to meet up amy’s house , I was there once when she hosted a party with the guitar hero and noticed the foosball table. She agreed to lend it to me. This table has several games in it, including ice hockey, ping pong, pool and shuffle board.
The mega prize came from Nancy, she is a former school teacher , who was just fired. But she still has friend in a local school. We drove there and I was granted the right to raid a school gym.
I hit the mother load. Every box and drawer contained treasure. Weird balls from all shapes and sizes, cones, rings, hoops, foam sticks, soccer balls. I took 2 huge bags full of stuff and with that the equipment part was almost done.
Therese is a Chinese, which was adopted by Latin Americans, hence the Latin name. she came to one of the orienteering meetups that I arranged and loved it. The week before I was orienteering with her for 4 hours and after wards we asked the orienteering club for markers, I went to Google earth and printed a map of the park. We went to the park for another tour and decided where to place the markers. I set the markers on the map and printed copies. I never organized a real orienteering event (the previous ones, I arranged a meet up to come to a real orienteering event), this was the first.
I offered josh to arrange the silly questions game and I think he had find browsing the net searching for unique questions. I also looked up questions for a trivia game and arranged missions for a scavenger hunt.
Next came the food. The problem was not knowing exactly how many people to feed. The meet up site lets people say maybe, and I had 25 of these maybes, so it’s hard to plan. I emailed my 25 maybes asking them to change to yes or no. several people changed their RSVP and now I had 30 maybes!
Food options started with a big barbeque, moved to pizzas, then to self made sandwiches, each idea had different costs and issues. After comparing prices and visiting various places, the decision was made. Wal-Mart with food trays of various types. I also had to arrange breakfast and after advice from Stacey, chose bagels, lots and lots of bagels, with cream cheese of different flavors. This food would cause a local diplomatic incident later.
Now all was ready, it was time to party.
My sweet party connection won a party for a 100 at the howl at the moon tavern. This place has 2 pianos, and 2 players who play and sing whatever you ask them (for tips, or no tips) and arrange a general good time. Around 20+ people came from the meet up site, and Inna (alla’s sister) brought 6 couples who had events of their own to celebrate. I love to sing, and I did whenever I knew the words. At some points they called our names and got us to come on stage, and sang a song for us. Inna told them it was our engagement party. It wasn’t, but who cares. We actually danced on stage (there are photos, I think I already sent them).
At one point I asked them for a rod Stewart song, I was looking for a specific one, but did not remember which one. They played and sang and we danced. Then the players (who didn’t like the song) asked for tips to move to another song. A guy stood up and gave 2 bucks and they stopped while we were dancing! I was shocked (and I didn’t pay more for them to keep playing, since they would asked money from others to stop again… they did that a couple of times, and people play ball (pay up))
Other people who had events also went on stage and danced , and they had us to the hokey pokey. We had a blast.
We left a bit early to pick up my cousin (twice removed or something) mike who came in by chance for a wedding in the area.
In the morning we checked the weather sites which promised nice weather. Mike and I went to in the morning to pick up the Bagels and the sky apparently didn’t check the weather site. It was drizzling when we left and pouring by the time we reached the bagel place. We reached the park and started to unload the stuff.
Brandon came in early to help (when I initially posted the games, Brandon asked me to delay it for a week for his own personal reasons, I did which was a mistake in retrospect. This weekend is graduation week and many families go on vacation and the week before had a beautiful weather…. But never mind, too late now) by start time at 9 we had barely 6 people. Therese went to set up the orienteering points and we started with croquette. Never played croquette before, a simple game, but requires some skill. A new play was soon invented, called the ‘Irma rule’. The Irma rule occurs when you slightly tweak the rules to fit your needs. In croquette for example, you need to hit the ball once, but if the ball is close to the hole and to the side. It is hard with one shot, so you do little movements instead of just one and make it (it’s not cheating, it is just taking advantage of the Irma rule). This rule was used often during the game especially by Irma. I finished third, mike forth and Brandon won.
These games were east side vs. west side vs. south side of cleveland (cleveland has no north, since the north is the lake) and the east was in the lead.
Orienteering was next and they went running in the park looking for the carefully placed markers (which some of them were not in the places the map said they would, well Therese is new at this).
Most people got most of the points but Brandon won again. Inna and her family came in by then with Alla, and with more people the games continued. Ring toss was next.
Everyone tried to hit rows of cones – 3 in the 1st row, 2 in the 2nd and one behind with increasing points for each. 3 rounds each and after round 1 Irma was leading but not by herself.
I gave inna’s kids advantage by having them throw from a closer distance. Little misha somehow knew of the existence of the Irma rule and got in closer, right on the cones, even with standing so close, he struggled (he is 4 years old), but did manage to win. Since he lives on the east side, I let the cheating remain… I am from the east as well.
Obstacle course was next, the obstacles were, jumping through a hoop, jumping over a rope, running on hoops, then doing the triple jump, finishing with a jump rope. By then we were around 12 and everyone went. People hit the ropes, hit the hoops, skipped instead of jumping in the triple jump and running instead of using the jump rope. I went through the course with caution, since my leg was not well, so I did not run fast, but I was glad to have done it. Inna went twice, not believing so many people passed her, and did better the 2nd time. I think Igor (Inna’s husband won) but I am not sure, it may have been jay (a south sider).
Dodge ball was fun, we played with 3 balls of different sizes , with the kids playing, so it’s hard to throw strong. At one point I threw a fast one at Igor, who dropped down and let the ball get passed him, hitting little misha (his son) on the leg instead. Few tears later and misha was fine again. I love dodge ball.
The bagels were good and we stopped to rest while playing silly questions game. Josh had a series of very good and funny questions that most of us did not answer. I can’t reveal the questions since I want to use them again.
We played volley ball for an hour and a half on the beach, and had some funny trash talking and teasing then came back for the Wal-Mart lunch delivered by Racer.
We played flag football (I got the flags from the gym, I told you it was a gold mine) and I made my first touchdown pass since I was in the fourth grade. People tackled people (by removing a flag from them) and we all had fun. Later we had some long ball kicking, bocce ball, horse shoe toss and I am sure I missed a few games.
The only issue was the pouring rain in the morning which scared away half the people who signed up and all the maybes. After a cloudy morning, the sun came out and I actually got sun burned.
Both events raised 400$ for the cause (397$ to be exact) and lots of fun memories.
See you in the 2nd annual games next year
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