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Last night, I attended an event for Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess's reelection campaign at the Jefferson Park Lawn Bowling Club (people were stuffing envelopes with money, but I didn't donate). Naturally, I was a little nervous beforehand, so I decided to look up guidelines on appropriate attire. Worldbowler.com said I'd be okay if I dressed in all cream or white. So I grabbed some khakis, a cream yellow dress shirt, and off-white Converse and went to town.

Burgess and his dozen fans (mostly upper-middle class, middle-aged white people) shared four Costco pizzas (veggie, pepperoni, and cheese) and nonchalantly discussed the deep-bore tunnel, the Seattle Police Officers Guild, and the correlation between homelessness and crime. Burgess thinks it's very low—he wants to move toward location-based enforcement.

Tim and I played the first game.

The goal of lawn bowling is to roll your four unevenly-weighted bowls closest to the jack in a series of rounds. You swing the ball and let go with a spin motion, with the heavier side pointed towards the inside. A low release and graceful, gentle departure guarantee a solid bowl.

After two heated rounds, I eventually stole victory from Burgess (totally intentionally) by knocking the jack toward my bowls. No one who knew what they were doing bothered to keep score. When asked what he thought of his first game of lawn bowling, Burgess replied, "It was great until you assaulted me with your bowls."

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