The Firefox browser opened up to Scrabble.com. Aaron, who had previously visited my home and played scrabble with me, immediately located my game. I have a "travel" addition, which lets the players stick the letters into squares that hold them fast - convenient for setting up a puzzle.
It was not so straightforward, though. They picked out many words hidden with the square, such as "how," "measure," "man," "red," and "herring." (And also "anal," which had not been intentional!)
Alex thought aloud, "How do you measure? Measuring tape?" She looked to her left, and there was my shelving unit full of tools, including - yes! - measuring tape.
Laurence pulled the tape out and, under the 6' mark (roughly the height of a man), were numbers: coordinates which turned out to point to the French Trail in nearby Redwood Regional Park. After a bit of a false lead (what around here is French?), Allison noticed a map of Redwood Park on my wall.
On the other side of the map was a hand drawn map of the mini agility course I'd set out in my front yard. I thought that perhaps only the dog people among my friends would understand the symbols, but in fact multiple other people immediately recognized them. Off they went to the front yard, where they discovered a plastic bag filled with tea leaves inside the tunnel.
Back inside to the kitchen, they located the tea tins, and the corresponding one included a picture of Chimera.
In what was an unsettling moment for him, everyone turned to stare at the dog and a few people started to reach for him at once. He tucked his tail and moved away, and then they calmed down. Agnes called him over and he jumped onto her lap, letting her pick him up.
He turned out to be wearing a tag that said, "Prepare for a rainy day."
Someone asked, "How do you prepare for a rainy day?"
"Umbrella!" cried Laurence.
It turned out to be a stick and a small piece of plastic rain gutter hidden inside one of my galoshes.
Boy, is Ray on the case, or what?
Not pictured, because it was now dark outside, was everyone running outside and looking at the gutters. Allison pointed out that there was a small section of gutter piping wedged up above the outdoor light. Alex pushed at it and four balls fell out and bounced all over the deck! She immediately knew what to do - "The basketball!"
I had attached a plastic container to the wall along with a rectangle of white paper marked to look like a basketball board. Laurence dunked a ball into the container and was rewarded with a mass of purple glitter raining down on his arm as a hole opened at the bottom.
Chimera stared to eat the glitter, so I shooed him away and took a moment to vacuum the bulk of it up.
In the meantime, the guests went over to a piece of paper which was also covered in a pile of purple glitter and dumped it off. The writing underneath said "Sduw ri d edodqfhg euhdnidvw!" It didn't take long for someone to realize that it was a Caesar shift of 3, and the message said, "Part of a balanced breakfast!"
What's in a balanced breakfast? Eggs? Bacon?
Agnes is hungry and losing interest...
Allison finds the cereal.
And inside is a (homemade) jigsaw puzzle!
They diligently get to work taping the pieces together.
Although it takes longer than I had anticipated. I had gotten carried away when cutting up the pieces.
The completed puzzle (minus two pieces, which disappeared).
The back of the puzzle contains instructions to walk through the doorway, then "forward 4 paces, right 7 paces, left 3 paces," and so on.
To be continued...
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