Day Eleven: Something Fun

Hipstamatic: Jimmy lens, Kodot XGrizzled film
Instagram: Tilt Shift
Two Friday nights ago, after having a nice pancake dinner, we all stayed at the kitchen table and played Phase 10. We had such a good time together that we decided that maybe every Friday night would be family game night. Of course, you notice that I said we did that two Fridays ago meaning we missed one already and I know tonight is out, too, because I won't be here. But you get the point...we want this to be a regular thing the four of us can do.

I grew up playing games and I just love them all. I have a lot of fond game playing memories.

I learned to play cribbage and euchre when I was pretty young and my family and extended family would play alot. My dad learned to gripe and moan comically while playing cards from his Uncle Dick, who he probably learned to play cards from when he was a kid. To this day, my father will sit at the table and exclaim that my mother doesn't seem to know what a card is when she's his partner but it's a whole different story when she plays against him. She pays not a bit of attention to it. It's part of the fun of playing with them.

When I was growing up, we spent a good bit of time with my mom's mom during the summers. She was a big fan of Shanghai rum, which isn't all that different from Phase 10, really...it's just epically long and can be more complicated. She, my sister and I would spend hours playing that game. Precious hours.

After Steve and I were married but before kids, we would get together with his cousin, Scott, and his wife, Kerrie, to play Michigan rum about every other week it seems like. In my mind, the other weeks were spent at Birmingham Bulls' games. But, you know how memory is...surely we weren't really together that often, were we? Anyway, we would consume Oreos by the entire package and just have the best time. The sort of quiet night in kind of time that we never thought having kids would keep us from having. But, it did somehow.

My family and my mom's brother and sister-in-law would go to the beach almost annually there for a stretch. There would always be a night of charades playing and, after Trivial Pursuit was created, that. I can remember sitting in a bedroom with my uncle and sister, sequestered from the other team, making up charades. With a few drinks in him, my uncle found one of our makeup bags to be very much more interesting than coming up with things for the other team to act out. I can still see him trying to curl his eyelashes. There are many, many other things I remember from those charades games. Gloriously funny things that turned into numerous inside jokes with our family. "It's a palm tree!" "Mary Lou Retton!"

Not that long ago, the kids conned us into playing Disney Scene It with them. This may be the only game I'm not really gung ho on (and, listen, I love Clue which no one else in the world seems to enjoy but me). At one point, the kids had to do a tie breaker. When I saw it on the TV screen, I knew it was going to be comical. It said, "the first one to say what time it is, is the winner of the tiebreaker". Maury, God love him, tried the old Gracie Allen and screamed, "what time is it???" We would have given it to him if he had said, "What time it is" because we're literal like that. Lizzie, in the meantime, is staring at the clock on the mantle with her little brain smoking trying to read the time. (School really did fail us on this one.) After shouting out two wrong times, only one of which was correct if she had the second and minute hand backwards, we motioned to her to try the digital clock on the stove. We were crying we were laughing so hard.

Many more games...Parcheesi (makes me think of On Golden Pond, not just my family)...Tripoley (my parents even found a kids version recently)...Rack-O (my mother-in-law is a fan of this one and plays with the kids alot)...Mastermind (lots of versions, good brain food)...Canasta (Steve and his friends played this one like it was a blood sport)...Monopoly(which my mother calls Monotony and refuses to play)...many more fond memories.