Okay, so my hand seems to have regained the ability to type unimpaired- just in time for me to have caught a major strain of outdoor-itis. So, though I COULD be online again, doing stuff like RPGing, or WW, or Whatnot... I don't want to. I barely want to be indoors. And, quite apart from my online "commitments", that doesn't bode well for the packing of my room.
Mind you, I'm about to take off for a weekend of No-Internet, over which I shall play (probably) about 9 games of Bunnock, get sunburned around the ears, and see more cousins than I can count.
The World Bunnock Championship Tournament has been held for 14 years now, yearly, in the town of Macklin Saskatchewan, where a whole parcel of ethnic Germans from Russia's Volga valley settled in the early 20th Century. Among the other things they brought from the Old World was the oddish game of "Bunnock", or as we know it, "Bones". Played with 52 horse ankle bones (don't look at me that way! They're cleaned, painted, and in no way seperated from the horses prematurely), and played in a sort of lawn bowling/horseshoes mesh between two teams of four.
Insanely fun- as most people discover after they've been forced to try it. Typically, that doesn't happen until you talked them past their whole "oh, weird!" reactions.
Anyway, the World Championship (meaning they were the first to have a tournament, and there's is the biggest) is held yearly in Macklin. Pretty much everyone who plays is descended from those Macklin-based German-Russians, or else heard of it from them. As a German-Russian of good Gartner stalk off my Mom's side, I'm consequently related (by many infathomable degrees of kinship) to every second person there. It's really sweet that way! Most the teams are Canadian, Albertans and Saskatchewaners being predominant, but people from all 13 provinces and territories have played (except maybe Nunavuters), not to mention Americans, Japanese, and Australians. Yes, some people have come from Japan and Australia to play. Never heard the story there, though.
Anyway, it's going to be sweet, sweet! I just hope my stitches don't give me any trouble...
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