I should have gone to bed ages ago. I have to get up early tomorrow to venture into the wilds of Missouri (pronounced Missura, of course) to meet up with my mom's sister and kids, which would be fun if I didn't feel the crushing weight of all the things I need to do (write a book; write my Christmas cards, which are looking less likely; take care of a million things related to promo). Also, it's Missouri, which I enjoy looking down upon since the counties directly south of us might possibly be even more backwoods than ours. Sounds impossible, I know, but it's true.
We had a lovely family day today, though -- it was Wampler Rail Baron Day (tm), and so I rolled out of bed before ten a.m. so that I could shower and prepare for the festivities. Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Drewbaby came down, and they brought Drewbaby's girlfriend Stephanie along (he must feel v. secure in his relationship if he's willing to let her socialize with us, let alone let her see a star football player like himself play Rail Baron for an entire day). It was Aunt Kathy's birthday, and she sacrificed day-after-Christmas sales to play, so you can see how important such a tradition is to us. So we basically played and snacked all day; I snacked less than I could have, due to the gluten-free status and to the fact that I'm traditionally the banker, which means I'm basically chained to the game for its duration. I don't actually mind, though, and at least this time I did well enough to not feel like I totally wasted my time.
We started playing around 12:30, but we took a break at 4pm (shortly after the last railroad sold, which is when shit gets real) and scattered -- [censored]/Drewbaby/Steffi went to feed the feral cats that still show up at my grandma's backdoor expecting handouts; Mom and Aunt Kathy went into town to run an errand; Uncle Mark went to pick up my grandmother and bring her out to our place; and Dad and I drove around some fields looking for tiling inputs and outputs for the invoices he was trying to finish before the end of the year. Driving through the fields almost made me seasick -- I won't even call it carsick, since his pickup bouncing over the ruts felt like we were being tossed around on the sea in a small rowboat. Looking for the inputs was almost like a scavenger hunt, though; they were orange pillar-like objects scattered across the field, visible from some angles and hidden from others depending on the height/depth of the ruts between you and the inputs. But he thinks we found them all, and I didn't puke in his truck, so it seemed to be a success. It's slightly crazy to me that this is all farmland when my father says that there were 'city' roads that used to cross one of those farms way back in the day -- but even fifty years ago, our town was already shrinking, and it's continuing its long, slow retreat.
sssanyway, we came home and found everyone else was back, so we made supper (ham sandwiches for everyone else, ham quesadillas on corn tortillas for me) and got back into Rail Baron. Around seven, people started making concerned noises about whether the game was ever going to end, since no one had a lot of money, and so we set a timer for 30 minutes and said we'd stop and declare the winner based on highest asset value at the end of the round when the timer went off. That really sped things up, since some of us had massive incentive to keep the game moving fast to collect more money, but we still called a halt at the end of 30mins -- and my brother won, with me in second and Uncle Mark in third. Then, they all left, I took Gram back to her apartment, and then picked [censored] up in Humeston after he dropped off a truck up there. I made it home without hitting any deer, and mostly did nothing since then, but I suppose I should sleep.
Did I mention that [censored] gave me a copy of Rail Baron for Christmas? So if any of you want to play someday, we can! All you need is a full day and a lot of snacks, and maybe some alcohol for good measure (although I've played it sober for years and have yet to kill anyone).
Okay, really, sleep is imperative. Only a couple more days in Iowa -- goodnight!
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