Who says I cant?

One of the greatest joys in my life is being Granddad and being with all my grandchildren at once. This weekend we traveled to Connecticut to see our 4 year old soccer star show us her stuff (unfortunately she was on the disabled list-she got a bug) and was joined by daughter Sara and granddaughter Gwendolyn. Gwennie had the misfortune of falling from her swing and breaking her leg. She has a cast from hip to heel. According to the doctor she can't walk with this think. According to Gwen, "watch me!"

She doesn't just walk, she runs, climbs, scoots with the greatest of ease. She adjusted her gait to extend the cast forward and plant it to bring the flexible leg forward. Her aunt Lara pointed out that she walked like Mr. Tumnus from the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe. Gwen has a new nickname and a ride in Hudson's truck.

You play to win, Granny!

A few weeks ago our granddaughter Reese was here for a visit and as is her custom ensnared my child bride for a game. The set up the checkerboard in the kitchen and as is our experience when her family comes, there was much hubbub in every direction. As Ginger was distracted, Reese, in her indisputable 4.5 year old logic, determined that if Granny was not paying attention when it came her turn that should not slow down the game. She proceeded to continue taking her turns. When Granny turned back to the board she discovered that half of her checkers had been jumped and captured. When she registered her concern with the unusual rules for play Reese replied, "You play to win, Granny! You play to win!"

Fast forward to today. We surveyed the paper for something fun to do and found that people gathered at the city library to play scrabble. As we find our library a most enjoyable diversion we called our friend Ellie and decided to check it out. After all, G and I have been playing Scrabble online for several weeks now and enjoy it much.

We arrived at the library and found the site downstairs and met Stella and Connie. Stella gave us the ground rules and set up boards for two on two competition. Ginger was playing Stella-I squared off against Ellie. We began to play.

Stella it turned out to have a lot in common with our dear Reese. She plays to win. Not satisfied with a unilateral attack on Ginger she decided to coach Ellie between turns to increase her scoring potential. Twice she challenged words that I played on our board, even though she was playing another game, but refused to challenge an ineligible word that Ginger played because it set her up to score a load of points. Stella finished with a score of over 400 points and seldom made less that 20 points per word. She informed us that she once won a prize in a tournament for spelling a word using all her tiles that straddled two triple word score markers netting 212 points for one word. By the way, did I mention that Stella is in her 70's or 80's--we were afraid to ask.

At one point as she was helping Ellie in her quest to vanquish me I could not resist the urge to channel Marlon Brando and cried out, "STEL-LAH".

We walked away chuckling. What a great afternoon.