Big Playtime

Anthony and I have discovered something else we have in common: we were both great Lego fans in the early 1990's. On opposite sides of the world, we poured over the same catalogues and collected some of the same sets. We both loved the Pirates (he had more), and the Castles (I had more), and we both had pretty extensive collections of basic blocks. Anthony also liked the Space and Technic sets, but I never got into those.

After the bread-baking class the other day, Anthony's dad Mike came down to join us for dinner. He brought, by special request, all of Anthony's electric trains and his Lego collection. Anthony got so excited that he stayed up until 4am that first night playing with the Lego. (Sheer exhaustion sent me to bed around 12:30). Every night since then, though, we've spent at least a little time playing Lego together. So far, we've focused on the Pirates. Anthony built the Pirate Ship (He had the Pirate Ship! My inner 8-year-old was green with envy. But then I reminded her that now it's my pirate ship too!), and I built the Forbidden Island. Then we added a fort, some imperial gunboats, a wharf, a gallows, and an offshore observation platform. I went to bed early again last night, only to discover this morning that the Forbidden Island is under heavy assault by the imperial forces! Most of my pirates seem to have deserted, leaving only two men and an intoxicated monkey to defend the place. (It probably doesn't help that I hung two pirates on the gallows last night -- I couldn't resist the opportunity!) Hopefully the pirate ship will arrive in time...

All this makes me want to rescue my own Lego collection from the dusty obscurity of my parents' attic. Once we have my Pirate stuff as well, we'll combine them to build a massive pirate island, big enough to withstand any imperial assault!