Skip to main content
My scrabble rating as of today is 1695. It has been a little higher than that, but I’m marking an official line here: January 1, 2005, I’m at 1695. What will it be on January 1, 2006?

This week’s scrabble news/progress. Let’s see, I went 3-1, won 20 bucks.

The club situation was awkward, though. Right after I arrived, Bob arrived, and we paired up. He won the first game. Then the entire operation had to move to a member’s house, because the community center was closing early for holidays. When we got there, the other director said, a little hesitantly, “Bob, you want to play Marsh? You two are the two highest rated here.” Bob said yes. (He doesn’t enjoy playing lower rated players, I don’t think.) I said, kind of jovially, “good, I can win my money back!” But I had the sense that the other players thought that I didn’t want to play with them. Okay, it IS good for my game to play against players like Bob. Especially for money. But I don’t want to irritate other players, either.

(The club member who hosted the gathering spent the first 20 minutes or so in the family room haranguing her elderly mother. At one point, I swear, she said, “Do you hear me? I’m sick of this. I’m going to put you in a home.” We all kept our heads bowed over our boards. Next time I’m going to go in and sit with the old lady and let Bob play the crabby woman.)

The next few months will be a little busy here, but I have started reading through the old Medleys I got for Christmas and I’m continuing my study. My version of study is a little eccentric, but it works for me. So now I just have to coordinate time and money and decide upon the next tournament…

Comments

listeme said…
Sure, if you call a 17-year-old a chauffeur.

Coordinates? I can't even find the map. And I think it's a map of Montana.
Zinnia said…
you should be commenting on my blog and making snide remarks about my pony. all of you.
listeme said…
Believe me, we do comment on your blog. Snidely.

Popular posts from this blog

This has been a very long week -- perhaps 16 or 17 days, at least. I have been offered -- and accepted -- my younger sister’s finished basement for the next year and a half. This will be a major cost-saver for me and a big help for her (she has two toddlers and is expecting a baby in August.) So that was a humongous start to the week. My other sister and her teenaged son have had to make some really hard decisions. She gave me permission to quote her: “spent yesterday at the hospital with my son. about eleven hours. sitting here writing and rewriting this entry trying to find just the right words. how to explain-- he is not healthy. he is mentally ill. he is not safe at home. none of this really covers it. so here's one image from the day. we walk into the east wing at maine med escorted by security. the very nice guard LOOKS like a skinhead but actually has incredible kindness and compassion for my snarly boy. he tells us gently that he has to check ian for weapons and sharp o...
More lake news : they've installed microwaves in the cabins. Okay. This is deeply disturbing to me. First of all, let's be honest. The furniture is rickety at best. Harvest gold plaids went out of style with the Bradys. The easy chairs with no legs never were in style. The high chair is just plain dangerous. The pots and pans are not non-stick; that's baked-on grease. So bringing in cute little white microwaves seems like some perversion of priority. Not to mention! Microwaves introduce things like frozen dinners, oatmeal with dinosaurs, and something called EasyMac. This is just wrong. Sick and wrong. Why, when I was a kid we chipped ice away from the lake's edge just to get our drinking water and then lit a fire to melt it. And the microwaves are really tiny and inadequate. It took 14 minutes to defrost my chili.
So I can finally talk about this without shuddering… much. There I was, innocently minding my own business, reading “Freakonomics” in the bathroom, and out of the corner of my eye I saw something run by. Curie and Sagan were both napping, so I was immediately alarmed. I thought maybe it was a mouse. (This should give you an idea of the size of the thing.) It was not a mouse. It was a centipede. It dashed into the laundry nook. “Aahh!” I said and looked around for help. No help was in sight. I believe in being prepared. I also believe in keeping an eye on my enemy. This presented a dilemma. I had to go find weapons without taking my eye off the creature. So I would run out of the bathroom, look around for something, anything -- where is a bazooka when I need one? -- and then race back in to see if he was still there. I did this several times. Finally, armed with a long piece of, well, bamboo (to poke with, of course), a bottle of bathroom cleaner, and a big cup, I advanced ...