Tag Archives: games

The Game

Posted on September 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

I remember the Titans. GCM High. They came with swagger and talent and bravado and beat us my first year as a student.

There are other games, with compatriots, people who treat me with disdain, even my husband and our dog. My dear husband says I’m “sneaky” because I can find my way through small streets to get to the grocery, streets he does not know and that do not involve highway traffic.

My dog says I do not need discipline any more, I just want you to feed me. I turned down two small, new dogs last-minute to take care of for a week because we just got off another volunteer gig and old dog and me are exhausted. Plus hubby is here 24/7 at least for this week. I’ll make mini-quiches or we’ll make pancakes because I just got maple syrup. I prefer grade B as I think it tastes better.

With people and dogs (not cats) it’s all in your head. Read them, know what they want you to do for them and decide whether or not to do what they ask. Then decide how to explain your answer, that is critical and it must be short and specific.

Cats are a different story. Cheers! Dee

 

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The Blue Car

Posted on September 6, 2017 | Leave a comment

It was sleek, fast and sexy. I believe the electric cars and the huge track Santa put in our basement was worthy of our efforts, and that the cars were based on period models.

I chose the white car. Whoever got to bet with me (nothing but a brownie or cookie) got to choose the car. They always chose the blue model, so I got the white one. I knew how to keep and manage my speed on the curves and the blue car would fly off the track and be back a length.

He was a hare, I was a tortoise, who nearly always won, the one with the heavier car, and I was eight and knew how to not choose. Get the smart, stable one especially if your competition doesn’t know how to choose the right car.

Don’t be silly, I had to drive the blue car many times and learned how to do it without flying off the track. I won those races as well because it was faster so I ran it faster on the straightaways and I let it slow on the curves. The guys never got that point, they just wanted to go fast.

I once had kids over when I was 12, boys and girls. We had a ping pong tournament and I was in the top two paired against a skilled male athlete at school. I won. He threw a fit and told me that a girl should always let the boy win any game. We were not dating, nor was I allowed to date anytime in the near future.

No way. If I’m better at a game than you, I’m just better. I’m the white car and you just flew off the tracks. Game, Dee!

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The Dictionary Game

Posted on January 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

My father hated “room picnics” but my aunts devised them for inexpensive lunches between swims at a place “halfway” between our cousins, grandfather, and us.

They’re retired English teachers so brought a dictionary. We did not have Monopoly or Scrabble, we had the Dictionary Game.

Open a dictionary to any random page. Find a word you’ve never seen. Then spell it, define it and use it in a sentence. Write it down on a scrap of paper. Give it to the person who is not playing to read to the group. The vote goes to the person who gave the best answer, right or not.

I always went for funny so always lost. Tibia, one of the sirens near Scylla and Charybdis on the Greek Isles. The name means “between a rock and a hard place.” I was left between Scylla and Charybdis when I visited Greece and had to choose a cigar, with a language barrier, to bring home to Dad.

We did sail by and say farewell to Odysseus one year. The tibia is a bone in your lower leg (calf) next to the fibula. I told you I always lost the game. There was fun in swimming all day, eating lunch in and dinner out, and playing games. I just let my imagination go, and loved losing to my cousins and siblings. Here’s to happy times! Dee

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Missing Pieces

Posted on August 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

Weeks ago we got dog Zoe an educational game consisting of a round MDF base with nine wood pieces, six pegs and three sliders. Basically the humans place a treat in each hole and add the pegs and sliders. Zoe’s now got the game down to 45 seconds and loses pieces under living room furniture. Then it’s our turn to get down there and find them and put them all away for the next time.

We’ve a huge missing piece of the Dee/Zoe game now. My husband. He has been gone across the country for nearly two weeks now trying out what may become a new job. He’s very busy and it would take 12 hours for him to get to our airport lobby on a Saturday and perhaps go out to the car (on a cool day) to say hello to Zoe, then turn around another 12 hours and go back to work. That doesn’t make any sense time wise or monetarily.

This is the longest we’ve been away from each other in our 13 years and with the time difference we rarely get more than a few minutes to speak on the phone. Zoe always knows it’s him when he calls, must know by my voice and key words, and lays by the door expecting him to come home from work in 20 minutes. We’ve only had 30 second calls from work in the past when he was in or near the neighborhood: I’m coming home dear, do you need anything? No, we’re fine. Just come home. My lasagne is in the oven.

[Change that to there’s pot roast in the oven, or I’m marinating skirt steak and working on Chimichurri and everything else and need you to to man the grill.]

Just come home, dear, and we can figure out where our new home might be. I miss you. Dee

p.s. He won’t come home for anything with eggplant in it, thus my stellar Moussaka is a bust here but I could always make it as a gift. Always live on on the bright side of the street. d

 

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Urban Herding?

Posted on August 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

OK, you can call me an over-achieving parent. Zoe, the dog, has an educational game that is ten times more serious as what is made for humans way younger than she, in human years.

She loves the game and loves to be challenged, and wants more. I am having her tested for temperament (she’s done this at least ten times and always passes with flying colors) next week then we may do a class in urban herding, which is herding with balls not sheep. Nosing balls into an enclosure. Well, it’s not what I want to do but she may wish to do so.

Are there others? I can think of a few who may join in. Only if I can walk them to the training site together and tire them out a bit both ways. Thank you G, see y’all next week. Cheers, Dee

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Mastitis and Games

Posted on November 24, 2013 | 2 comments

I went to get down Backgammon after years of unuse. I didn’t even remember how to set up the board. I was in college and didn’t have money so spent $50 on a dark green and gold corduroy backgammon set for the family over 30 years ago and it came back to me. My husband and I are set to play any moment now after he showers and dresses.

12 years ago I bet a sailor on a game. We were in the Ionian seas and I beat the pants off him with all his crew watching. I roll doubles, knock wood.

My nephew is rolling doubles and is a good Christian boy and his dad doesn’t want him to head off to Vegas anytime soon so his grandma has a backgammon set and we can play and see who gets better dice rolls.

To get to the “game box” I took down  a picnic basket with cows atop and a shelf within, that my husband said “mastitis.” His dad had a dairy for 30 years and got rewards for buying mastitis treatments (think cereal box tops) so our Val The Vet has a “mastitis blanket” and we now have a mastitis picnic basket with cows on it. All Hail M.

We sent Nanny an outdoor game for the great-grands, Qube. It’s supposed to be 45 degrees and sunny at her place that day.

We will take the cow basket to the rancher/former dairyman for Thanksgiving fully laden with food and gifts. I intend to roll better dice than my better half and win backgammon before lunch today.  Happy Turkey Day! Dee

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