… sometimes I go out after dark.  Not often, usually I am quite reliably home by seven o’clock, the Monster’s bedtime.  But, just sometimes, I go out. 

Tonight O. and I went to an Ale Festival and hung out with some fellow chess players.  Chess players.  This might sound like a really dull lot, but you would be surprised.  Within the chess playing community you get all sorts, some really entertaining. 

My first visit to Guernsey was over a chess festival and I met the Guernsey Magistrate.  At the time I had no idea who he was.  Actually, I still don’t understand Guernsey politics enough to define his title.  I was introduced at the festival dinner, quite drunk already, and he told me that he knew me.  That he didn’t need the introduction because my mother did his laundry for years.  He’d seen me grow up.  Everyone seems to think that this is some great funny joke,  and that’s just his sense of humor.  But to me,  that’s weird.  Just fucking weird. 

Or John, the flaming homosexual that walked up to my husband in a pub and kissed him full on the mouth.  Luckily they are friends, but O. was not amused.  He’s the one that blames the years of chess play for the corruption of his soul.

Or the older Dutch guy that shouted at the band, "Why did you have to ruin a good song by fucking singing?  Huh?"

These are chess players. 

We saw a girl that we met, also, during my first visit at a housewarming party for one of O’s brother’s friends.  I’m not sure why I remembered her, or recognized her after five years, but I did.  She came to where we were sitting while O. was in the toilet and showed me her engagement ring (!?)  I asked if she had been listening to the lyrics of the live musicians.  Yes,  she had.  She started singing, "cigarettes stain your teeth, beer knocks you off your feet."  These guys sing the truth, man. 

Um,  ok. But the lyrics I was talking about was the song about September 11th.  "You drove into my towers and I want to kill all you nigger Taliban" The singer/songwriter was not American.  I am and I found it, if not offensive, then very unnecessary.  That’s a bit over the top.  She said no.  The British people feel, and therefore hate, terrorism more than American’s because of WWI, WWII and the IRA.  I didn’t give that enough thought (being the ALE festival and all).  Nobody LIKES terrorism, but I can say ok, fair enough because maybe American’s didn’t recognize the amount of terrorism going on around the world at that time.  But, just come on, the only thing I was saying was that the lyrics were BAD.

She ended the conversation by saying how nice it was to talk to an American that wasn’t an idiot and that I was to feel free to come sit with her.  I’m not sure if that’s meant to be a compliment, but obviously I didn’t go join her.  

And as an add on, I have a Duncan story.  As I was getting ready to go out/getting the Boy to bed I told him, "Duncan, I am going to come check on you in ten minutes, you need to be lying down or you’ll be in trouble, ok?  I’m serious!" then he adds "yeah, and grumpy!" 

It’s hard to be a hard-ass when they are funny.