And then there’s CatNats…
Seeing as the event was in D.C., I arrived a couple of days early to do some touristing. The temperature was in the 90s, which made schlepping around a bit more daunting than one would like, but I got to tour the Capitol, ponder the Gutenberg Bible in the Library of Congress, see a music performance of The Great Gatsby, say hello to not one, not two, but three Vermeers in the National Gallery (not to mention Madame Monet and her son, a Whistler woman in white and a Rembrandt or two), and roam around the History Museum paying homage the wigs of both Harpo and Chico perched beside Groucho’s suit, Judy’s red shoes, the Babe’s signature with the rest of the team on aged baseball, and a whole bunch of other goodies from the Arts and Leisure past. And, oh yeah, I discovered I had forgotten to bring a mouse—I’m an 80s computist and can’t live without one—so I wandered into the nearby Apple Store and plunked down a hundred bucks for the wee, sleekit, cowrie, tim’rous beastie. Granted the Apple mouse is pretty great, but a not-so-great generic mouse off of Amazon is maybe fifteen bucks and does the job almost as well (and without a charger under its butt). I also gave the Neo a shot while I was in the store, and watched it slowly load its icons into the Finder and thought to myself, This slow, in an Apple Store? I think not.
Then it started to rain and it was time for CatNatting.
Friday is prep day. Not that there’s all that much to prep, but there is the issue of breaking out the folks we can for late rounds so that we don’t get caught with 5 white middle-aged men from Regis in the final. I have nothing against middle-aged men from Regis as a general rule, considering that half the tournaments I run are lousy with them, but CatNats runs on no-repeat-judging and no same-region-judging, and if you don’t play your cards right, you can end up in trouble. The diocesan directors allot judges in advance for all the break rounds, so you have to work with what you’ve got. If you plan ahead, you’re fine, which we learned early on in the process. Friday is for planning ahead.
The tournament itself isn’t particularly difficult. You have a lot of teams and a lot of judges, and the tabroom software runs best when the numbers are large. The work is chasing down the handful of no-shows and tech issues, like the poor woman who took an Uber to the wrong Westin (there’s at least 3 of them—Westins, that is, not poor women in Ubers). Mostly everybody is there to do the job, and they do. We provided ample warning in advance that they might judge all 5 prelims, and many did, and they didn’t come in whining how they can’t be expected to work all day under these conditions as they have in the past. Come to think of it, no matter how many rounds judges are assigned, and how fairly the burden is split, just about every invitational sooner or later has those poor harried neurasthenic judges storming tab demanding with their last breaths to be set free. But as I say, blissfully not this time.
There are various rules and regs that are peculiar to CatNats, some of which I understand, some of which I don’t. Whatever. That’s probably true of every tournament everywhere. In situations where one finds the Rs and Rs unacceptable, one then votes with one’s feet. I’ve been doing CatNats for a few years now, so obviously my feet have voted for the incumbents. I am finding the weekend a bit difficult in some respects, though, mostly because I’m the oldest person there (until Grandma Julia shows up). Traveling to wherever it is can be wearing. At least Chicago and DC offered rewards beyond the tournament; some of the venues, like the upcoming Lafayette, Louisiana, are, well, Lafayette, Louisiana. You can’t get there from here, and when you do get there, there you are. And then there’s the food. My stomach is not exactly delicate, but I probably ate three times as much as I would if I were at home, and not necessarily as healthfully. And what is this “sleep” of which I have heard tell? Okay, I’ll admit it: I’ seriously thinking that this may have been my last CatNats. I mean, I did start going in 1996, back when I had skin in the game, and barely missed a one in my coaching years. I’ve now tabbed maybe half a dozen one way or the other. I even helped out with the virtual Middle School tournament. At some point…
We’ll see.
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