Events Update...

Posted in Central Oklahoma Mensa on May 13, 2002

…or What You Missed Out On If Your Name Isn’t In Bold Below

It happened not to rain for our Doggy Day Out trip…. at least not for an hour or so. Quite an accomplishment, since it seems like every weekend since mid-March has been rainy. It seems to do that a lot in Oklahoma. I noticed it first when my husband and I bought new camping equipment. Every weekend we’d plan to go camping, and every weekend it rained. Eventually we stopped trying. That was three years ago, and we still haven’t used the equipment. But I digress…

The dog park was filled with playing dogs. Some, like Dale Amlee’s Ben (a beautiful 10-year-old Samoyed) impressed us with tricks like “Fetch”… an especially impressive feat when the dog actually brings the ball back afterwards. Some dogs showed off their swimming ability in the dog park’s pond (then came and sat right between the humans to shake off all the water). And then there was our Bernie… the only thing he showed off was his ability to bark at a perfectly nice-seeming stranger. Sometimes you just can’t take the kids out in public!


The Tai Chi Speaker Meeting went well, all except for the speaker meeting part. Our speaker unforunately had to cancel at the last minute because of a family emergency (we hope to reschedule soon). We tried to convince someone to don a white robe and a black belt and pretend to be the expert, but no one volunteered. We had a wonderful time anyway. It gave us an excuse to try out a couple of new games, Smart Mouth and Curses, winners from this year’s Mind Games. TJ Lundeen really had the Smart Mouth game figured out. She won both times, though Billy Mabray did give her a run for her money. TJ would have been happy to keep playing it all night, but the losers didn’t think that sounded as fun. Joe Gentile had much to say about his socialist ideas on game-playing — everyone should end up with the same number of points so there’s no winners, no losers, and everybody has a good time. We think he was just sore because we didn’t let him use his childhood cat’s name (Patoink?) as one of the answers.


After Smart Mouth, we tried out Curses, which proved to be quite fun as well. Max Hedges ended up beating second-place Angela Mabray (along with everyone else) in a game that decidedly favors introverts. Many of the challenges include a statement like, “Every time you speak, move your arms like a dancer” or “Every time you speak, act like you have an invisible golf ball in your mouth.” For those with lots to say, the game is a little trickier.


While everyone else was busy biting tongues, faking hamster heart-attacks, and protecting Lucky Charms, the dignified Jon Lundeen made friends with the hosts’ new dog, Abby. From what we hear, Jon gives quite the belly-rub. All in all, everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.


The amazing thing is, we even remembered to take pictures this time. See them here.