Dragonfly Sitting on a Lily Pad

Dave left to return to Purdue this morning. Last night he and three of his friends played Warhammer on the dining room table. Warhammer is a fantasy miniatures game. Each player fields an army of orcs, goblins, dwarves, elves or humans. It is loosely based upon the JRR Tolkien universe. The relationship between Warhammer and Tolkien is similar to that of Dungeons and Dragons and Tolkien. Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D, is a fantasy role-playing game where one player, the Dungeon Master or DM creates a fantasy world that the other players ‘adventure’ in. I mention all this as preamble to the rest of my story.

After Dave left, Anne and I launched on our bicycles and rode to the park. It was nearly noon by then and it was already warm. After all, this is Saint Louis and this is June. So, to the tune of “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me”, we rode to the park. After we did our miles, we did some sightseeing. The park seems to be teeming with wildlife these days. The above pictured dragonfly is just one small example. As we were winding our way back home, we passed through the Deer Lake area of the park; we came upon what I can only describe as a gazebo. It wasn’t there last week. It just appeared.

It is still under construction, but it looked nearly finished. It is being erected next to the also relatively new Council Circle. Unlike the circle, I don’t think that the gazebo is a permanent addition to the park. I suspect that it is being built as someone’s wedding chapel, but that is just a guess. No one knew anything about it at the visitor’s center. If I ride before work this week, maybe I can ask one of the construction workers about it. The following dialog is an old D&D meme and one of our favorite stories.

DM: You see a well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
Player 1: A gazebo? What color is it?
DM: It’s white.
Player 2: How big is it?
DM: It’s about 30 feet across and 15 feet high.
Player 3: I use my sword to detect whether it’s good.
DM: It’s not good. It’s a gazebo!
Player 2: I call out to it.
DM: It won’t answer. It’s a gazebo!
Player 1: I sheath my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
DM: No, it’s a gazebo!
Player 3: I shoot it with my bow. What happened?
DM: There is now a gazebo with an arrow in it.
Player 2: Wasn’t it wounded?
DM: Of course not! It’s a gazebo!
Player 1: I run away.