It's been a crummy summer with all the rain and coolness; just a few weeks of really nice weather. So, here we find ourselves at the end of the summer that wasn't: Labor Day 2006 and I thought, well we should have a backgammon party! Unfortunately, no one caught the joke in the party title "... with summer squash summer kick off". I thought we'd just ignore the official end of summer and continue right on as the weather has been really nice, though very cool in the evenings, sometimes almost like early fall.

We had some amazing games - lots of blood across the boards. The dice were wild and so were the players. Well, that's the way it would probably appear to someone not familiar with us because we just really get into things and have a good time of it. Though we try to keep score, there's just too much bad talk going on between games it seems for anyone to remember to keep their score cards up. And of course, that just creates more opportunity for harassing each other. All in good fun, though!.

Regardless, I have been playing backgammon a lot not only during the week but sometimes getting together with friends on weekends to play. I didn't have a party in August because it's usually very hot and who want's to cook in the heat... Not me! But I've been getting rumblings from the cheap seats as to when the next party was going to be so let's do it!

Well, we had some amazing games - lots of blood across the boards. The dice were wild and so were the players. lots of blood across the boards. The dice were wild and so were the players. Well, that's the way it would probably appear to someone not familiar with us because we just really get into things and have a good time of it. Though we try to keep score, there's just too much bad talk going on between games it seems for anyone to remember to keep their score cards up. And of course, that just creates more opportunity for harassing each other. All in good fun, though!.

Positions disintegrated as quickly as they were built and many of us suffered the humiliation of dancing on the bar through eight or ten throws on more than one occasion.

It was tough getting folks to break from the boards to even eat, that's how involved they were. Dinner was a hit - chef Rose triumphs again, I suppose. The beans were even a hit. Kerra had given me some fresh fennel from her garden the night before when I was down for dinner - and yes, a humiliating 3 - 0 defeat against the mighty bringer of doom David. Anyway, I cooked them up with garlic and the fennel and they were great.

Before breaking from the boards to get dinner ready, I had several match wins. Then after dinner I threw hot and cold. After finishing the movie of the night - the very weird Final Destination 3 - Rick hung around wanting another piece of me. And he got it spinning me dizzy in a 3 set match that he won 5 - 2. I'll get you next week, Rick; and your little dog Toto, too...