Soon after we returned to the Sea Cliff, another car drove up, with J, B, and, um, J (Damn! This is going to get confusing). The next thing was to assess food supply, and make a grocery run. L and T weren't going to arrive for a while, so we figured we'd start on dinner.
Now, I've been sworn to secrecy never to reveal anything that happened during the Party Phase, and much of that is just a blur, which helps, but I do have a few memories clear enough to relate:
- Despite the plethora of bottles, the group decided that we STILL did not have enough alcohol, so a team was dispatched to fetch more. They were wildly successful.
- There was some confusion as B was cooking. The plan was to grill burgers and veggie kabobs, but he started prepping the meat for the skewers. When this was noticed, I tried to diplomatically point out that he was given carte blanche (Fr. for "jungle weasel") for cooking, which started J off in a giggle fit. B's embarrassment only made J giggle more, but we plunged ahead with the skewer plan, and the kabobs were delicious.
- When you have eight people in a hot tub, there's not much room left for the water. Nobody seemed to mind.
- After the eating and drinking and hot-tubbing, I wasn't allowed to go to bed until we competed a game of Cranium. Despite being moderately sober, I flailed helplessly with the word-oriented questions; a tad humiliating for someone who considers himself a writer. We stuck to the factoid questions, and still came in last place.
Somewhere around midnight I was given clearance to go to bed, and I promptly did so. Reflecting on the day during the few minutes between retiring and sleep, I could only rate it as yet another great vacation day.