Chicken Popsicles and Lacey Underwear

On Saturday night, I hosted a bunch of people at The Estate for some fun, frivolity and food. It was a party for two friends: Rubino who was recently married and Doug who became a dad for the first time. If they were women, they would have been thrown showers. But because they are men, they got the manly equivalent: A Storm.

What makes a storm different? Well, the decorations included black streamers and lightning bolts (which are still hanging from my ceiling. I'll post when they actually get taken down. I'm betting it will be awhile). We also ate pizza from the delivery box and beverages straight from the can. Drinks were kept cold in a giant R2-D2 cooler. And the party was held a very long time after both events (Doug's daughter drove herself to the party). The only thing that would have made The Storm more manly would have been large quantities of meat. And perhaps some violence.

We also didn't play any Lady Games like at showers. Instead, we broke out the traditional games of The Estate: Scene-It and Pictionary. I want to share Saturday night's best Pictionary drawings. One great moment (with no photo to share for it) was when I was supposed to draw "Poultry." I drew a chicken and then drew what I meant to be a drumstick. But apparently, it wasn't very well done because Rubino saw it and guessed, "Chicken popsicle?"

So you may be asking, why is there no picture of that one? Well, because after Rubino's guess, I scratched it out to the point that it is now just a black splotch.

And now on to the drawings from Saturday that are still in existence. The first (at left) was drawn by Dale during an "All Play." One guess from our team was, "Oklahoma." But it is not Oklahoma. It is "Money."

The other great drawing from the night is below. It produced guesses of "Bee," "Mosquito," and "Dead Snowman."

After Marc crossed off this drawing (because of the Dead Snowman guess, I think), he made a second attempt that lost the candy cane headdress and gained a long black goatee. From that, we successfully guessed that it was a goat.

Both of these drawings have been entered into my Pictionary Hall of Fame, a collection proudly displayed on my fridge. Sadly, the Greatest Pictionary Drawing of All Time is no longer in the Hall of Fame. I am unsure where it went. But I can try to explain its greatness. During an "All Play," Charissa drew three stick figures. Two were the same size and a third, in the middle, was very short. I assumed this was a family. I guessed, "Parents" and "Baby." But then, Charissa gave the baby a gun. Well, that didn't help us guess the correct answer so Charissa started a new image. This one appeared to be an ocean liner, complete with the four smoke stacks on top.

It turns out that the word was "posse." The Stick Family was supposed to be a posse (with a very short leader) and the ocean liner was actually a dead possum lying with his four legs sticking straight in the air. Apparently, we were supposed to guess possum and then make the connection to "posse."

I thought I would share some of the other distinquished drawings of lore in the Hall of Fame:

You may be surprised that both of these drawings are from the same "All Play" round. But they are. You can tell from the top image (drawn by Holly) that this is a beaver because of her arrows denoting the buck teeth and flat tail. The bottom image by Gene, however, seems to be a sketching of the rare Beaver Turkey.

The next two are for the word "hiccup."

Yah, I can't even begin to explain either of those. I have no idea. But I can try and explain the next one because I drew it. Here it goes:

As you can plainly tell from the repeated circles and the arrow, the focus here is the stomach of this no-eyed, T-shirt-wearing bear. The word was "Tummy." But there are many mysteries here: Why do I assume bears like cookies? Why is he wearing a collared T-shirt? And why a bear at all? I don't know. But I think Winnie the Pooh is to blame. He is what I think of when I think of the word "Tummy" but now I am not sure why. I also am not sure why I gave this bear a belly button.

Speaking of strange connections, I guess that whenever my friend Josh thinks of "Lace" he somehow thinks of lacey underwear (and people with three arms): I'll end today's gallery tour with this picture from Becky, Charissa's old roommate:

As Becky was drawing this picture, our team guessed "Elephant", "Tusk", "Mammoth," etc... None of them were right. I looked over to the other team and saw they were drawing plant-like things. It turns out the word was "Ivy," not "Ivory."