Tonight I think we technically constituted a horde. We were: John L., John T., Jeff, Cathy, Cindy, Jennifer, Lindsay, Ferne, Don, Bob, Alex, Bill, Dean, new guy Gary, and myself — Tomek. Some impertinent party had reserved our usual corner booth so, understanding folk that we were, we let them have it. Tonight. Only.

At our end of the table we shared home ownership and flood stories, tree removal, I shared some memories of brothers, family, and we touched on Buffalo pizza and wings (and meal portions), unionism, employer pension horror stories, technical and freelance writing, flying Valkeries, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the local bike trails, not biking in D.C., the German Protestant Reformation (which led to a brief interlude auf deutsch), Hussites, the Swedish Deluge in Poland, cats, our old pot habits, shooting in Vermont and black powder muzzle loading in general, some rehashing of John L.’s story,  and while we mostly managed to avoid politics tonight, Alex did observe loudly at one point that watery tarts distributing swords as a system of government may actually be an improvement over the current process, as results may suggest. In general, a good time was had by all.