N’s sketches

Couch avoidance

This is my most sports-like concept, though it involves 3 items: 1 couch and two weight workout balls (unless they took turns, which could work, but wouldn’t be as fun).

Rules: Your hind end can’t be more than 6 inches from the couch’s seat. You’re allowed to try to swing your hips to get your opponent to sit, but don’t lose your balance because the first person to sit loses.

Beat the stick

This one could be a bit dangerous. It involves a thick, but short pile carpet and the twist-off handle of a broom or a mop, which becomes a pole.

Rules: Two people move and spin the handle, though they must keep it on the ground and not just ram it at the jumper. The jumper can never touch the pole. If the jumper touches the pole, they sit down and move the pole and the person who has waited longest gets to go.

Marble football (soccer)

This is more of a game. It requires two larger, same-sized rubber bands and a good sized marble.

Rules: Your knees must be 30 degrees apart. Hook your rubber band between your thumbs and shoot the marble at your opponent. If you shoot past their rubber band and through their legs, you score. Goooooooooooooal!!

Bao bao, baby

This is a game, too. Each person gets a chopstick and then there’s one bao (Chinese bun with whatever filling you like, but I’m imagining bbq pork). Could be played with mochi, too.

Rules: Put the chopstick in your mouth, skinny end out. Somebody skewer the bao. Transfer that bao successfully to your partner. Assuming your have other pairs completing, whichever pair successfully passes their bao (no dropping it) the most times wins.

Handyman’s ball

Another game. This one involves a wide carpenter’s pencil and a smaller marble or a metal ball.

Rules: Roll the ball back and forth on the unsharpened length of the pencil and…don’t drop it. Whoever rolls the most lengths wins.

Allesandro Bottichocolati

You may’ve guessed that sports aren’t really my thing. Art is. So I knew we’d get there. This project requires chocolate syrup and plates or, better, melted chocolate and waxed paper.

Rules: Grab an empty plate and use the syrup bottle (or melted chocolate on a spoon) to draw a picture. In case this doesn’t get messy enough, blindfold your chocolatista.

Vincent van Quick

Yes, another art project. This involves paper, brushes, paint, and tape (SO over the limit), but it seemed fun (to me), so I included it, anyway.

Rules: Put up however many pieces of paper you like on the wall (better paper the wall around the papers, too). Everyone gets a brush and gets to pick a different color of paint. Paint whatever you like, but do it fast. A timer goes off every 3 minutes (adjust time period to your liking) and then you have to switch to the next painting, augmenting whatever the previous painter did. Do this until there’s a consensus that your work is done. Expect that not everyone will last til the end.