St. John's College
Annapolis, MD
Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

Croquet, with duck!
- or -
A week that featured ducks

So, what a bipolar week! For days and days it's all crappy and gray. No one wants to talk. Life is terrible, and everyone has a cold. Even small accomplishments seem pointless.

And then! And then!

The sun comes out, and the sky clears, and suddenly there's so much to see! Everything's colorful again, and it's pleasant to be outside. Everyone talks and laughs and smiles, and, for that matter, runs around in circles or jumps up and down in one place. Suddenly, it's good to be alive.

And just in time, too, because we had our 25th annual croquet tournament yesterday, and it was something else. For one thing, I somehow managed to organize a cooking collective to set up a big picnic, which was a huge success, although I was pretty stressed for about an hour. Throwing parties on back campus late at night, I obviously no conception of what the nature of the "freeloader" truly is. I fed people I'd never seen before, or will see again.

Anyhow. After a quick dinner on Friday, a friend (Mr. Gates) and I drove over to Whole Foods to get supplies, like fruit, juice, veggies and . . . a duck! We cooked a duck for our picnic, with orange and cranberries and walnuts. The next morning, I woke up to beautiful weather and the knowledge that I had hours to bake everything I needed. Between the calm assembly of familiar ingredients, the manageable complexity of the particular recipe, and the stunning look of the finished product, I felt pretty satisfied. Add to that the perfect weather, my roommate playing music in the kitchen and keeping me company, and people dropping by with donations of champagne, coffee (for me), and more baked goods, I was feeling pretty good before croquet even started.

There was, to be quite honest, a bit of tension with cooking at the Gates' house, since there was a certain lack of organization that I find difficult to work with, and it was a long walk to campus with boxes of food, and I was nearly late for the St. John's chorus opening the match, not to mention being in shorts and sandals instead of a spring dress. But after a little chill time I was able to come back and play the hostess at our blanket-covered area, which is always fun. And we had tons of good food, really a much nicer spread than most of the Annapolis folks or alums - and we were definitely having the most fun! With plenty of sandwiches, wine, cheese and other tasty things, we sat in splendor and watched our team of slightly scruffy croquet heroes absolutely dissect the Midshipmen and their polished, monogrammed mallets.

And that was just during the day! Although, I feel that the afternoon was the best part. With the games winding down into delicious victory and the crowd starting to leave, it was good just to slowly pack up and delegate work around so that everyone's stuff was taken care of, and then just stand in the long shadows watching tipsy men do backflips and little kids in suits and dresses run around and throw frisbees to each other. It was a long and wonderful day, and it wasn't over with just croquet, either:  there was a wonderfully elegant wine tasting in my dorm, and then an equally wonderful Cotillion with everyone dressed to the nines, with lots of people who like to dance, a live swing band, and strawberries and cream at midnight.

It sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? Yup. Now I have to get some work done, though!

Until next week,

Roxanne