Day 2: Plus ça change...

So many happy memories surfaced as I was preparing...this time on the right day(!)...for Board Games...Yeah! Whenever I take out my Scrabble set, Deluxe Edition, I always think of Judi. Neighbor and friend, who dared be the passenger in my first outing after my newly acquired driver's license all those many years ago on our way to theater class at Queens College. The Scrabble set was a gift from Judi for my 20-something birthday, at my request and with her great generosity. The card is still in the box, which also contained another treasure:

The scoring sheet from my very first game of Scrabble with my niece Sharoni. She would have been 8 years old at the time and did fairly well, the final score being 198 to 210. From the handwriting I can tell that she's the one who kept score, an accomplishment at 8 and one that she shares with my adopted nephew Bruno, who, much more recently and at almost the exact same age as Sharon was then, also rose to the challenge of keeping score at his first game of Scrabble (with me, his brother Axel and their mother Dodi) earlier this year. My notion of what kids should be up to is nothing if not consistent and these parallels tickle me endlessly.

Scrabble also brings to mind Ruthie, who taught me the game as a child and put up with my competitive attitude. I was quite the sore loser it appears. And it reminds me of Joan, sister-in-law number 3 (of 5 so far, but who's counting ;-)) who taught me how to play strategically, much to the woe of many a WWF and Wordfeud competitor these days.

We never did play Scrabble today, too great of an international mix among the people who showed up. We did have fun playing several other games, joking and talking about this and that, and rounding the day off with a meal at the Indian restaurant down the block. And I'm already looking forward to the next occasion in June.