Fortress Party 2021 - The Kentucky Derby

Here were the unnamed horses, getting ready to race. 

We had all the Kentucky Derby races from 2008-2021 on continuous loop. Meanwhile, guests got submit suggestions for the names for each of the six horses. At midnight, we picked five names out of each box, and the audience voted on the best names. The winners got to take home the horse they named.

Except for horse #6. That one was a loaner, and we had to return it after the party. People still got to name that horse, but they put their suggestions in the shredder instead of the suggestion box.

The 'guests' sat behind this window, each with a giant hat or fascinator. 

Even Mitch McConnell was there.

And of course, we had a bourbon bar, featuring Kentucky-inspired beverages served by distinguished southern gentlemen. 

Fortress Party 2021 - Chuck E. Cheese

There are many horrors at Chuck E. Cheese, but the worst is the animatronic animal band.

This video is my family's least favorite part of Fortress Party. If you happened to walk by and see it during the party, it is quite amusing, but when the house is otherwise quiet, and you hear these dozen or so saccharine birthday songs over and over, it makes you want to drown yourself in a ball pit. 

But the real reason for this room was the home-made video game cabinets. Sean and Andy worked on these diligently for the weeks leading up to the party, and they worked like a charm. They included mashy my favorites such as Gauntlet, Ms. Pac-Man, Dig-Dug, Elevator Action, and Q-Bert. My only regret is that I forgot to ask them to install Moon Patrol. 

We borrowed a pinball machine from a guy named H, who had loaned as the Mystery Machine a few years prior. I bet that if we did a study, we would prove that people with one-letter names have the coolest stuff. 

A visit to Chuck E. Cheese would not be complete without a wall full of useless crap that you can spend your tickets on. We weren't actually dispensing tickets, of course, so nobody was able to buy any of this stuff, but the candy was free. (Note that the first bowl actually has Lactaid pills, and those were not free. Neither was the Ivermectin, which was available in case anyone caught COVID19 at the party.) 

Fortress Party 2021 - Planet Fitness

We bought a treadmill during the pandemic, and frankly, I didn't want to have to move it, so we built a room around it. The room became a Star Wars-themed gym, with Peleton (Pelpeton?) trainers on the big screen in front of the treadmill.

The highlight of the room was the videos themselves. There are two workouts, one led by the Mandolorian, and one led by Emperor Palpatine (which starts at 12:37 in this video.)

There was also a starship console, of sorts. 

The light sabers were taped to 5 point weights, making them "Not-so-light sabers."

Since it's a gym, there had to be a water cooler. In this case, it was water from the Bacta tank. 

This is hard to read, but it says, "Luke Warm Water." 

Finally, the walls of the room were plastered with with motivational signs. 

Fortress Party 2021 - The Organ Trail

When we're brainstorming about room ideas, we usually start by reviewing our available resources. This year, our list of assets included a surplus of mannequin parts. Over the years, we have acquired close to 10 mannequins, but I don't always take great care of them. In a few instances, the widgets that affix their legs to their torsos have become denatured. So what does one do with a mannequin with unattached legs?

Well, something having to do with the Donner Party, obviously. Unofficially, we called this room "The Oregon Trail," because all the signs leading to the room were modified from the old PC game. But of course, with the focus being on cannibalism and dismemberment, it probably made more sense to call it the Organ Trail.

Fortress Party 2020-2021 - Stranger Things

The Stranger Things room was the first thematic repeat we've ever done at Fortress Party. We liked it so much at our London Family-only Fortress Party in 2020, we brought it back in 2021. Here are some pictures from each:

The alphabet wall. Note the demogorgon coming out of the wall in 2021. 

Robin (a.k.a Lauren) serving up ice cold scoops. Note the You Rule/You Suck dry erase board that was only in 2020.

Will the Wise and his D&D stuff. 

Eleven in 2020

 

Eleven in 2021 (we couldn't afford the actual actress this time.)

At the 2021 party, one of the guests started playing a trumpet for some reason. 

And the ice cream slinger wasn't always Robin. Sometimes, it was Steve. 

Fortress Party 2020 - Puppy Bowl, Stranger Things, and The Adventurer's Tavern

We knew we couldn't have people in the house in December 2020, but we wanted to keep the streak alive, so we went ahead with a London-family only party. We limited it to the basement, and to save myself time, I hung walls, but no ceiling sheets. 

Each family member was given a $100 budget and free reign to design one room.

Lauren's room was Puppy Bowl. Our new pandemic puppy, Ozo, was direct beneficiary. Here he is shown with his friend Franklin "Frankie" Burke, the only non-London who was invited to Fortress Party.

Frankie's family waited outside while this was filmed. They were told we needed to borrow their dog for a few minutes, but they didn't find out why until this video was used as part of the Fortress Party 2021 invitation 11 months later. 

Malcolm's Room was called The Adventurer's Tavern.

He wanted it to be the type of place that swarthy dungeon-crawlers would mingle between dragon slayings. And naturally, that meant there would be a map on a table that someone had stabbed through with a knife to indicate the location where many villagers had mysteriously disappeared. 

Scarlett's Room: Stranger Things

We ended up reusing this idea in 2021, so I saved most of the pictures for a comparison montage in a subsequent posting. But here's a demogorgon materializing out a wall, as they are wont to do.

We ended up spending a fair amount of our respective budgets on costumes. Lauren and Scarlett were characters from Stranger Things (Robin and Elle, respectively), Malcolm was the barkeep, and I was the Puppy Bowl referee. 

There were no other human guests, but we were able to give our cousins the Zoom Fortress Experience. 

We kept several of the longstanding Fortress Party traditions alive, including the sign-in sheet and the stickers with (pandemic-themed) fortress puns.

Finally, no Fortress Party is complete without a lively rendition of "Cigareets and Whiskey." 

Postcards From Panama, Part 10

Dear friends,

The Hard Taco song for December is called, "The Paleo," and it will challenge (but ultimately reinforce) all of your preconceived notions about cavemen! 

For those of you who have been regular readers of the Hard Taco Digest since 2009, you will be happy for today's installment of Postcards from Panama, the world's most awkward and longstanding unilateral pen pal conversation! To enhance your enjoyment of these letters, you may want to read/reread/rereread some prior Postcards from Panama installments. 

 

Postcards from Panama, Part 10

11/18/2021
Dear Karen,

You're not going to believe this, but the Spanish phrase for post office is "Oficina de Correos," not "Oficina del Postres."  I'm embarrassed that I mixed those up! Especially because for the last three years, I've been writing you postcards and dropping them off at a dessert shop. These postcards featured world-class stock photos of Panama's natural and cultural highlights, and the things I wrote on them were equal parts informative and emotional. 

There is a woman who works at Oficina del Postres named Natalidad Diversión ("Birthrate Fun"). I assumed she was a postal worker, but I now know she is a pastry chef. The poofy white hat makes more sense now. 

I explained to her that the postcards I had been giving her every 10-15 days since November 2018 were intended for my fiancé, and not for her. She didn't make any facial expressions when I explained this, so I don't know the extent to which this was heartbreaking information for her. Interestingly, a lot of people come into the post office/bakery and comment to each other that Natalidad is physically good-looking, but I just see her as a close friend. 

The good news is that she only speaks a few words of English, so she had discarded most of the 75+ postcards I had placed in her hand without reading them. That is a relief, because they had intimate and educational information on them. But when I asked directly, she agreed that the few English words she recognized on the postcards were both informative and emotional, in equal measures. 

With warmest regards,

Michael

11/20/2021
Dear Karen,

I made an error when I started my last postcard with "you're not going to believe this." Of course you were going to believe it, because it is true! Obviously, I would not have promised to marry you if I thought you were not smart enough to believe things that are true. Likewise, you would have not made a solemn vow to eventually marry me if you thought I was the type of person who would utter falsehoods. 

In fact, Karen, I cannot lie at all. You may recall that when we were kids, I refused to be the leader when we played Simon Says. That person must lie repeatedly, because the use of present tense (Simon SAYS) implies knowledge that someone named Simon is currently saying that very phrase/command. So if the leader says something like, "Simon Says Pat Your Head," and Simon is not actively saying that somewhere in the world, they are a liar. (Even typing it made me throw up for 10 minutes.) 

I am more willing to play Simon Said and stick to very common phrases and orders that I can feel confident Simon once said, such as, "Simon Said I'm in the Mood for Carryout." Please consider writing back when you have a chance, and let me know your thoughts about this, and other virtues of mine.   

With warmest regards,

Michael

11/22/2021
Dear Karen,

How are you? How is your day compared to the last few? I was reviewing my childhood journal and confirmed that on August 1, 1989, at 7:00 pm CST (8:00 pm EST), you and I made a solemn vow that if both of us were single 20 years later, we would marry each other permanently. It's kind of funny when you think about how often we say things that are true, but don't carry the weight of an unbreakable promise, such as "The weather is nice," or "Someone named Simon was once in the mood for carryout."

With warmest regards,

Michael

11/28/2021

Dear Karen,

Oh no! I just learned that Stephen Sondheim, the titan of American Musical Theatre, has died from dire complications of bursitis. It reminded me how much you used to enjoy show-tunes, and Stephen Sondheim show-tunes, in particularly. Was he the one who starred in Oliver!? (The confusing punctuation at the end of that sentence is because I am asking a question, but the name of the musical ends with an exclamation point.) 

With warmest regards and heartfelt condolences for your loss,

Michael

11/30/3021

Dear Karen,

I went back to the dessert shop and asked Natalidad Diversión (the questionably attractive pastry chef who I just see as a close friend) if she could make a custom desert in memory of Stephen Sondheim. I was worried that she might be disappointed when I told her that it was for my fiancé in the United States, so to cushion the blow, I gave her a blank postcard for her to throw away.

I can't remember which Stephen Sondheim musical is your favorite, so I asked her to make bespoke desserts for all three of them. Natalidad doesn't specialize in baking things in different shapes, so all of the desserts will be a a semi-soft bread pudding. She has will label the shipping boxes with the image of Stephen Sondheim (R.I.P.) and the names of the Stephen Sondheim musicals: Oklahoma!,  Hello, Dolly!, and Hello, Oliver!! (In this case, three of the four exclamation points are the names of the musicals, and the final one is to express my personal excitement at the thought of you opening your mailbox and finding it full of bespoke bread pudding!)

With warmest regards,

Michael

12/1/2021

Dear Karen,

How have you been lately? Let me know once you receive the individually labeled Sondheim bread puddings. It's not a big deal, except that they were very expensive because we had to pay the Sondheim estate to use his likeness on the labels. I was thinking that you might enjoy a Stephen Sondheim-themed honeymoon. What are the sights that inspired him to co-star in Oklahoma!? 

If you would prefer to have our honeymoon in Carson City, because that's where my parents live, just let me know. Please write back at your convenience and be sure to use my address and not the Oficina del Postres, because I think the woman there might be secretly discarding your letters to me because of romantic envy.  

With warmest regards,

Michael