At the end of 2007 I got caught up in the social phenomenon known as Facebook. Several friends of mine from a popular television forum joined up. I stood my ground initially while the wave grew momentum. But I could not hold my position, and weakened when I found out the connection between Facebook and Scrabulous. Along with the other salmon, I joined in swimming upstream to play my fellow friends in Scrabble and Prolific.
When I grew up with the board and the tiles, I was not a great player. We didn’t play it often. I think repetition helps in a game like Scrabble. Instead, I built puzzles. There was a 250 piece Peanuts puzzle that my sisters and I would drag out on rainy days and compete to see how fast a two-player team could finish it. We had a picnic table in the garage and would build it out there. We tried to mix up teams a bit- I have a younger sister and an older sister, and usually we’d have at least friend or neighbor over, to make rotating two-player teams. For some reason, it sticks in my brain that once we finished the puzzle in about 20 minutes, which was a record that stuck around for a while. (When we were kids, we kept track of all accomplishments.)
My sisters were not into puzzles as much as I was. As a teenager, I had a large flat board that I kept in the corner of the living room near the stereo. Big enough to assemble a 1000 piece puzzle on. My Mom, a fastidious cleaner, would make me responsible to vacuum that area. She stayed away, lest a puzzle piece get scooped up. I would sometimes listen to Red Sox games on the radio (or TV38 from Boston) while trying to piece together tough puzzles: New York City skyline at night (all little bits of window lights in the pieces) a plate of cookies (pieces of oatmeal vs pieces of chocolate chips) a glass of milk and a pile of Oreo cookies (very tough – all the Oreos looked the same!) Christmas decorations (lots of bows on boxes) and the dreaded all yellow bananas with just the Dole sticker! That one took forever to finish!
With college and my life as an overworked 20-something in Los Angeles, I moved into making different kinds of puzzles, as a professional in the film biz. Doing puzzles at home was something that was no longer ‘relaxing.’ Basically the job put an end to puzzles. Except for the one time I put together a 3D puzzle of the Millenium Falcon when I was dealing with insomnia.
One year I went home for Christmas, and my brother in law taught me how to play a variation of Speed Scrabble. No board, 7 pieces facedown, you only play with the pieces in front of you. Whoever uses all their pieces to make words on their “own” board successfully would say Take Two, and every player had to take on an additional 2 pieces. (I will admit the link I have above describes it better than I do.)
I was addicted! My brother in law is a smart guy, and a good athlete. The fact that I could beat him at Speed Scrabble – not all the time mind you- was a huge bonus. It definitely was fun to play with the family.
Now, a few months into playing Scrabble online, I realize it is something I’m definitely using as a crutch while I’m not working as much. I miss the interaction of playing someone directly, but it’s a lot of fun – as long as I don’t take it so seriously.
So any of you who play me, and read this blog- please know that I enjoy kicking your ass!
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