We're Havin' A Mario Party...

I awoke to a ringing phone. Yes, it was the Acme. Could I come in at 10AM instead of noon? No. I'd just gotten up! I ended up going it at 11. I still need the hours, not only for vacation, but for rent, glasses and contacts, and what my insurance doesn't cover for my dental exams. Work was steady-to-busy, except around noon, when the lines suddenly went crazy and I realized how low on help we were when we had to call managers to work registers.

I did my laundry later than usual, around quarter of 6. Uncle Ken was painting furniture. Dolores was listening to the radio. Jessa was chatting on the computer in her room; we ended up talking until dinner. Dolores made us pepper steak and rice while she and Uncle Ken watched an Eagles pre-season game, and we talked to her.

After dinner, Jessa and I played "Mario Party 8" on her Wii. The "Mario Party" games are actually electronic board games. You choose a character (Jessa was Toad in this case, I was Princess Peach), and in the regular "Party Tent" section, have them play each other and two computer-driven characters in a board-game style game. In this case, it was a Monopoly-esque competition. The characters run around the "board," spending so much money on a hotel. The more money you spend, the more stars you get. If you spend 20 coins on a 1-star hotel, for instance, it'll turn into a 2-star hotel and you'll get 2 stars. If you spend 30 coins, the 2-star hotel becomes a 3-star hotel.

Between rounds, the four characters play each other in mini-battle games that are more arcade-like. You can either play 4-player battle (each character against each other), 3-on-1 (three characters against 1 character) or 2 on 2 (tag teams). The winner (and on some games, the second-place character) gets 10 coins. The exception is "Battle Royale." In this case, everyone puts 20 coins (or as many coins as they can) in the pot, and we get a different 4-player game. Jessa was winning before Dolores came up to announce that Erica was on the porch chatting with them and wanted to see me.

I did say "hi" to Erica, a friend of mine, and apologized for ducking out on thrift shop volunteering today. She said it was all right. Another volunteer had a client cancel and came in at the last minute. I promised I'd do it for her when I come back from vacation next month. Right now is just too crazy.