Amazingly, we are halfway through the month of April. Normally I would have been up half the night trying to get my taxes finished - only to file for an extension. Thank you CV, now I can have an auto-extension. So I could be lazy last night.
Yesterday as I was browsing various Social Media Sites I came across something people were playing online with each other. It was a closed group and they were playing UNO Pictures. If you remember UNO was a simple card game where you had to match the color or the symbol of the previous card to lay down one of your cards. The goal, get rid of all your cards. A few other rules and variations on the game exist, but that is the basic concept. In this group game, a person starts with a photo and the next person has to come up with a photo from their device that has something in common with the previous photo. It was pretty funny. Something for you to try if you have a friend or family group. Coming across this made me have a few moments thinking about games.
My family loves games. My parents have always played them. My nephews and their spouses play them. We all love games. I play alot of online games and puzzle games. I am particularly fond of the word games. So from a board game perspective, Scrabble is my favorite, hands down. When I was small and we went to my grandparents house in Arkansas, I knew I was always going to get to play Scrabble. Not because either of my grandparents played. They really did not play that game. But Miss Mary Alice played.
Miss Mary Alice lived next door to my grandparents. I believe she may have been a retired teacher. That woman loved Scrabble. I knew I could run across the lot and knock on her door, and if she was awake, she most likely would be in for a game of Scrabble. I had to learn fast. She took no mercy on the fact that she was playing a child. I needed to know the two letter words and q words with no u. She had a dictionary right there and I was welcome to challenge her. I quickly realized that was futile. My mom would sometimes walk over with me and the three of us would play. It was something I continued to do until Miss Mary Alice could no longer play. She would tell me, "Shucks child, I can barely see the board anymore". So we would sit and chat. I never did have a chance to tell her how much I enjoyed those Scrabble sessions with her.
At home, my mom would play Boggle with me. Do you remember this one?
The 16 dice grid had a plastic dome. You shook them up (and that was REALLY loud) and had the sand timer ready. You took the dome off and flipped the timer. You then wrote down as many three letter words or larger as you could. You made a word by being able to draw a line from one dice to the next - as long as the dice was touching it could be used. No repeats of letters - although you could create house rules to allow that! You only got to score the word if you had one that your opponent did not (because otherwise they cancelled each other out). Loved that game. My mom was a fierce competitor on that game. Her vocabulary is enormous. I would practice on my own a lot. They have electronic versions of it, but I still like playing with Pen and Paper one the most.
One thing about social distancing alone is you have no one to play games with. And you may be in a house with someone who does not play games. But if you play games, what games do you like? Do you have favorite board games or card games?
Have a great day everyone!
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