Team Chaos and the Murder Basement

Oh my god, it has been so long since I've written. I'm something like a month behind on this blog. I plead writer's block. I can't remember the last time it hit me so hard. Especially when I have things I want to talk about. But every time I sat down to write about this, I got completely stuck. Not one word would come out.

So journey with me, back to President's Day Weekend. We were still stuck in the grip of winter. That was probably the coldest weekend of the entire season this year. But we hadn't known it would be like that when we got a group of friends together to rent a house in Vermont for a ski weekend. I spent the entire time playing games in front of a roaring fire instead of skiing, but some people did brave the elements. Regardless, it ended up being a really fun weekend with lots of friends.

We were able to find a house that slept all fourteen of us near Ludlow, VT, pretty close to the Killington Ski Resort. But when you're trying to balance a group that large with a reasonable budget, you have to sacrifice other things, like a feeling of security. This house was basically a cabin in the woods, and there was some fear that we were all going to be murdered by an axe-wielding, mask-wearing villain. Especially when we saw the basement.

I say that, but the truth is that most of us only saw the dark staircase leading to the basement and decided to go no farther. It wasn't until the hot tub refused to heat up on the second night that a search for the circuit breaker led one of our members into the basement. I'm happy to report that he emerged unscathed, but with harrowing tales of loose wires and standing water. The breaker we needed ended up not being down there.

Other than that misadventure, which did eventually result in a working hot tub, no one came close to danger. A group of people went skiing on Saturday (when the high was 7*F) and snowshoeing on Sunday (I think it was marginally warmer). But as I said, I stayed inside, only venturing out for food and firewood. We had a great variety of games, though with fourteen people it's hard to include everyone all the time. Which led to some people interacting with the games from the outside with the goal of increasing chaos. It was a great use of everyone's talents.

I'm looking forward to getting together with this group again. Which, since it took me so long to write this post, is going to happen very soon! The weather should be nicer this time around.