I planned to write about the tournament as soon as I got home, but the kids stayed over Monday night, then I worked and had mediation meetings and more kid time and then worked some more… very good and busy week, really.

So here I am, finally. The tournament was great. My record (8-7) doesn’t sound great. I did make some boneheaded errors. In fact, it looks like -- as much as I can’t believe it and hate to confess it publicly -- I probably missed the word BASENJIS. For a kajillion points. I have gone back over my score sheet with disbelief and creative rack leave analysis, and I am pretty sure that’s the rack I had. So that was indeed a terrible miss. But in that same game, I also made one of the better strategic plays I’ve made in my scrabble “career” and was rewarded by being able to play out with ESTUARIaL from the ES and win the game. From low to high in one short game. I’ll resist making comments about metaphors for life.

I had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck. I so often draw well that in the past I’ve not dealt well emotionally with a run of bad luck, and I feel like, in this event at least, I kept my wits (and humor) about me. And the bad luck didn’t last long, just a few games. Honestly, I feel like my biggest triumph was emotional. I rode it out.

John and I gave some of the young punks of Scrabble a ride to the train station. Such wonderfully quirky, brilliant, nerdy young men. The high point MIGHT have been when one of the young men told us all that he thinks he has a parasite.

Meanwhile, back at the Big E expo center in Springfield, Massachusetts (one of the worst places to get lost in America, maybe in the world), Curie was not winning her shows. Apparently I’ve kept her a little on the thin side, which means the judges think she’s “long”. She was thrilled to hang out with her brother Pippin, however. Curie and Pippin think they are Meant To Be Together. They’d establish an Egyptian dynasty if we’d approve. Or if we’d look the other way.

So. All that news is really to say: I’m doing okay. I feel my nerve endings again. My paralysis is not entirely gone, but I am looking at things with something like my old chirpy Pollyanna ways. “A futon, an iron, and a welcome mat and this apartment is DONE!”