Final words on SOTLSEGB

For all practical purposes, aside from our initial need to fix some of the prefs, SOTLSEGB went off without a hitch. We’d have a round, ballots would come back in a timely fashion, and we’d have another round. No real crises worth reporting. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Let’s not jinx it for the next time. (There was one interesting, shall we say, problem, that has come up before and which might be of interest. I’ll address that separately, as it’s really not specific to SOTLSEGB.)

CP and I returned this year to my tab cave, which was absolutely my choice for a workplace, based on previously working in Grand Central Station with a hundred other tabbers all talking at once when I wanted to be talking, and vice versa. I just couldn’t get any work done there. In the past we’ve been here, there and everywhere in the building, but I always prefer peace and quiet. However, somehow I missed the fact that O’C was re-divvying out tabroom spaces this year, so when I went to check in on PF, I discovered that, in essence, they were tabbing in the palace at Versailles, my own quarters being the Bastille by comparison. They were all port and cigars and leather chairs and big screen TVs watching college football games while their valets polished their shoes and straightened their cravats for them in the principal’s office, which hadn’t been open to us since the Soddie days, when he used to rule from the principal’s throne like the pharaoh overseeing the building of the pyramids. How did I miss out on this? I don’t begrudge it them, though. I don’t want to fall into their louche, sybaritic ways. On the other hand, I did decide I wanted to improve slightly, so next year we’ll be next door to Grand Central Station and policy tab, where, if we’re so inclined, we can take advantage of the couches, the microwave and pleasant conversation, otherwise we’ll keep to ourselves and listen to “Luck Be a Lady Tonight” over and over again.

Foods of the World Unite were pretty good this time out. Friday night we had “Tastes of the Via Veneto,” AKA debate ziti. Saturday lunch was a nice change, “L’apres-midi en Provence,” AKA debate ziti. “Festival of the Greeks” on Saturday night was especially interesting: they served debate ziti. We went to the Far East on Sunday with the imaginative “Foods Marco Polo Brought Back from China” buffet, which heavily featured debate ziti. The thing of it is, given that most of the judges are college students, they just wolfed this stuff down like vultures ripping open a fresh gazelle. There’s not enough debate ziti in all of Forensicia to hold them. Older people at a tournament like this have a glazed expression on their faces before they even arrive, so I think they don’t even notice, and let’s face it, debate ziti is easy to gum when your teeth are mostly replaced by crowns and bridges, and easy to digest after a lifetime of steaks, chops and raw oysters.

One doesn’t sleep much in one’s little hotel room during tournaments like this, so I’ll admit that I was happy to slip back to the chez for Sunday dinner (chicken, not debate ziti). Princeton opened Tuesday, the first-timers hit the deck this Saturday, and Bump is percolating on the back burner as our housing parent is making steady progress. In other words, the season is just about in full swing. When all is said and done, SOTLSEGB is just one not-quite-small part of it.