From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Out come the card table and fold up chairs, boxes of puzzles and extra lamps. It’s winter puzzle time for me. This week I chose a 1000 piece puzzle composed of every candy bar I can remember: breath mints, lozenges, cigarette packages, and all the magazines I recall reading and a few newspapers too. This was the perfect choice: currently I’m in mourning for the loss of so many magazines, newspapers and bookstores. Internet news is replacing in-depth reading for some folks, but my day wouldn’t be quite right without my daily newspaper and a good book.

What’s happened to scintillating conversations punctuated with dictionary look-up-words and a handy Roget’s Thesaurus? They’re basically gone! We’ve gotten used to computers suggesting words to use as well as different punctuation marks that it likes to insert. Trust me, that electronic genius machine is NOT always right! For example, my computer does not decipher the different uses of there, their and they’re. Sometimes it mistakes my use of to, too and two. And what about a or an, lay or lie? Oh, well, I suppose few people would recognize the various uses of same-sounding words called homonyms…

So, it’s back to games and puzzles. I can wile away hours piecing puzzle pieces together. I’m no good at Sudoku but I do love jigsaw puzzles and the simpler crosswords. I’m addicted to colorful computer puzzles. One of my favorite games is Mexican Train. One evening we had dinner guests who played into the wee hours of the morning. They ended up spending the night in our guest room. Upon waking, the ever-competitive Dan wanted a rematch. He was determined to beat me…no way was that going to happen! Ha!

And bridge is the perfect card game with my girlfriends on Wednesday afternoons. Bridge was the tell-all time for us moms when we had teenage kids. Each of us learned about the supposedly secret escapades of our teens from information imparted by other bridge-playing moms. It felt so good to be on top of the news our kids thought was known to only a few. Someone’s kid always broke their silence. Of course, a sinfully decadent dessert is required of each bridge gathering by the rotating hostesses. Who can resist chocolate?

Monopoly is a favorite board game with neighbor friends. Unfortunately, a former neighbor, Gary in Missouri, got so frustrated at all the houses and hotels my real estate baron husband accumulated with his play money, he threw up his hands in frustration. He stood, ready to leave the game, and announced, “Dave, you’re taking all the properties!”  Dave replied, “Isn’t that the object of this game?” Ha…we’re still good friends. We haven’t played Monopoly in years, however.

When we had children who were still crawling or were not yet in school, our family gatherings played Where’s Waldo, Chutes and Ladders, Dominos or Clue. When the kids got older, we graduated to Sequence, Chess, Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. Today, when it’s too cold to be outdoors, our young granddaughters paint, put puzzles together, dress the dolls and play dress up with their many princess costumes. Of course, each costume must have some sort of crown or tiara to make the girls feel like princesses. Now that Scout, the youngest grandchild is walking, he’s proving to be a force the girls will have to deal with. He copies whatever the girls are doing from gymnastics to tennis to catching the ball and dancing…always with a huge smile and twinkling eyes. He’s a charmer.

Oh, the games people play. It’s fine family fun. We’re actually TALKING to each other. We’re having fun COMMUNICATING together with games!

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.