All of which made for perfectly pleasant conversation as they sampled some light predinner wines and popped colorful amuse-bouches into their mouths and spooned up soup, but as the dinner stretched on into dishes that looked more like main courses and that were accompanied by red wine, Richard found himself wishing that they could just grab the Band-Aid and rip it off. The formal purpose of this retreat and this dinner was to celebrate the conclusion of Devin’s year as Writer in Residence and to hand the torch to Don Donald, who had finally polished off his trilogy-turned-tetrakaidecalogy and was ready to devote some time to further development of the backstory and "bible" of T’Rain.