We had food. Oh boy did we have food.
We had a watermelon cut like a shark.
Fruit salad was inside the mouth. Becky cut this. It was so impressive. The "water" is partially set blue jello in cool whip. The jello is supposed to be a solid sheet, but, for some reason, it didn't completely set. We actually liked it better. It looked like the shark was coming up out of the water.
We had beer.
And soda, of course. The beer, which I couldn't drink, was in commemoration of an upcoming guild event, the Second Annual Terrapin 500, where we race turtle mounts around one of the capital cities. We all had a great laugh about this.
We had a specially decorated cake.
The plastic pigs stuck on the cake are in honor of "Mr. Wiggles", the guild mascot. In the game, when we are running a raid, I need to have Mr. Wiggles, a pig, running along with me. We do better, for some reason, when the mascot is along.
We had a dragon pinata. Carole's cat, Faux, was unimpressed.
The piñata commemorated Deathwing, who was the final villain of the last retooling of the game. He was a big black dragon.
We hung the piñata off one section of Jon and Becky's deck. Jon found a broom and we let the kids take a swing. Lee's son took a swing and got it swaying. Her daughter wound up and swung. The rope snapped and Deathwing went sailing into the back yard. He didn't break.
After we stopped laughing at the dragon fleeing, Larry and Jon put their heads together and used an electrical cord to hang the dargon on the deck.
Larry used a good ol' Boy Scout knot to hold the pinata. Stuart swung next.
Then Carole.
After Carole took a hit, Doo got a chance. Poor guy got the damp chair which we didn't know until he stood up.
Finally, it was Lee's turn.
She took a mighty swing and split Deathwing, cleanly decapitating the dragon and spilling candy all over for the kids, who giggled with delight.
Jon and Becky liked the look of a bodiless dragon on the deck so much, the head hung there for a good 3 weeks before getting too soggy to maintain its form and was taken down.
The best part was having all these people come for a party. It meant a drive of 2.5 hours for several people up near Washington DC. Lee and her family came up from Georgia and stayed overnight.
We were sitting around the fire pit at the end of the day, reminiscing about how we came to find Spectacular Death and what were some of the funny guild stories we remembered. All of the above people belong to SD with Lee, on the left in the front, being the newest member. Doo, in the front on the right, has been in the guild the longest, besides me. I don't count. I started the thing. Jon joined in 2010, while Vince, in the back in the gray shirt, his son, Stuart, and Betsy, behind Doo, joined in 2011.
What I marveled at, as we sat laughing and talking. was that, although we had never met each other before that night, it felt like we were all old friends, good old friends. Jon and Becky had just gotten engaged so we celebrated that, but we were really celebrating how the whole event wasn't awkward at all as they can be when you don't "know" anyone. It was hugs, on meeting. We called each other by our WOW toon name and answered to that instead of our real name. And, it felt normal. I'm "Gimm". Calling me "Deb" almost didn't cause me to answer. I am so proud to call these people friends. I hope they felt the same.
As a souvenir, I had a bunch of cups made for everyone to take a bunch home.
I forgot to take more photos than what you see here. Other guild members who couldn't come said the lack of photos shows just how much fun we were having. We spent more time talking and laughing than posing for photos.
This is one of my favorite memories of the whole week. We're already thinking about a guild meet-up next year. If it's anything like this one, it will be fantastic.
Beverage: Dr Pepper
Deb
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