Christmas festivities can do that to a body.
I think my favorite part of the day - I mean, besides the opening of presents and the fantastic standing rib roast dinner and and the Christmas cookies, and the eggnog (newly discovered Lewes Dairy brand which is Out.Of.This.World.) - is when we play Scrabble.
Our daughters are smart and creative and competitive, but our son-in-law is a brilliant strategist. And, he knows how to use the Scrabble dictionary app on his iPhone to good advantage.
His team won but, you know, it was really no contest. I mean, I'm a total, unrepentant logophile but there's just no match for a good strategist.
For example, you can probably score 15 points for the word "logophile" just with the letters alone, but you can vastly improve that score depending on whether or not, say, the H tile (worth 4 points) or the P tile (worth 3 points) fall on a double or triple letter square.
Or, you might just place the word in such a way that it builds off another word and then you get all those points, too. IF, that is, another team doesn't use that word to build their word.
Just to add to the fun, you can use an egg timer to limit the amount of time spent on strategy. Which is really important when you've got one player who's really good with strategy.
It's a little like life, you know? It's not what you've got. It's how you use it. And, with whom you play. Sometimes, you've got all the time in the world. Other times, someone flips over the timer and you've only got a minute to make your move. And, sometimes....well, sometimes you just get lucky with what you pull out of the bag.
Our whole family gets into it. Which I love.
I know. That's probably not what some people expect is on the "agenda" of a bunch of people who live an "alternative lifestyle".
I'm not sure what we're supposed to be doing, exactly, but as for me and my household, this "new normal" family plays Scrabble.
I can hardly wait for next year's Christmas game of Scrabble.
Thank goodness I get a whole year to rest up for it.
Have I mentioned that I'm happily, deliriously exhausted?
No matter how many points any of those words earn - or how they get played.
1 comment:
My sister was rather brilliant with words and she would set out the most amazing words, but she had no feel for the strategy as you say. I used to whip her senseless, by holding back my "zoo" until I could get it on a triple letter or word score.
But as in all areas of the battle of the sexes, along comes my wife who is quite good at generating the words and can play a killer game of strategy. Once again the boys loose out to the superior female mind. If they only could somehow incorporate Scrabble with maps.
She once told me that she would challenge me to a battle of wits, but she never fights an unarmed man.
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