This week it will be four month since the fire and we still don't have a written itemization of what is getting torn out and rebuilt on the interior of our house. Four fucking months! If you have ever had your car wreaked you know how this works. You can't take the car into a shop to get it repaired until an adjuster takes a look at it. Imagine it took four months for the adjuster to get out and look at your car. 

I've always hated those hypothetical "What 10 games would you want to have if you were stranded on a desert island," or "What 3 games would you save if your house was on fire." I guess I should have paid more attention to those, because two weeks ago we quite literally had about 5 minutes to grab 5 games off our selves before all our games were packed up to be put into deep storage for 8-12 months.

At the Gate of Loyang is a game about getting vegetables and exchanging them for other vegetables and then exchanging those vegetable for money which is used to buy points. That should be explanation enough for why I hate it. But it isn't. 

I was totally surprised to learn that a game I liked had won the Kennerspiel des Jahres Award. Several months ago The Village had some buzz among the women in the internet board game community. It was almost totally based on the game's theme and a brief description of the game play. Only a few gals had actually played it. It seemed like something my Euro-loving gal gamer friends might like, and since I' m always looking for a good compromise game so I don't have to be polite and sit and smile through another hand of Dominion or the horror that is Hawaii, I tracked down a copy and bought it. I figured worse case scenario I didn't like it and could sell it or give it to one of my friends who did.

The Spawn invited her cousin, Ghost, and her friend, Kindle Girl, over for Arkham Horror and a sleep over on Friday. This kind of took me by surprise, since The Spawn has never played Arkham Horror, and doesn't like games that last more than 30 minutes.

The first thing she asked when we sat down to play was if the game was really going to last for 8 hours. The game did last 4 hours, with a break for pie, and The Spawn spent a good deal of it standing  up (she just can't sit that long). I tweaked the game a bit so we were playing in easy mode. It was pretty much a cake walk for the investigators. For veterans it would have been a rather dull game, with few tense moments, but the girls didn't realize this. They spent most of the game in fear of their characters dying a horrible death, although none of them ever got close to it. I think this game wins the prize for the most time spent in the Hospital and the Asylum, as whenever the girl's characters where down even a couple sanity or life points, they went directly for the heal up. 

I was getting a bit worried that the girls were going to decide that Arkham Horror was a bit long and dull, as despite my love for the game, it was beginning to feel that way to me. But, no, once they sealed that last gate, and did their victory dance, they all declared the game awesome. They decided, however, it would be even more awesome to play with just their friends, rather than us boring grown-ups. Ghost, who is an experienced player, was the voice of reason and explained that the rule book was about a zillion pages long, and there was no way they could run a game by themselves without a bit more practice. So, yay, I get to run at least one more game for them this summer to teach them a few more rules before they abandon me.