”Life is more fun if you play games.”
Last night I could hear the rain on the roof. It was such a heavy rain the dogs chose not to go outside before bed. The morning is gray and damp. Scattered rain is predicted. It will be warm if the wind stays away.
I have a to-do list. The paper has yellowed. The list never gets shorter. I sigh and swear I’ll get busy. I do that every day.
I grew up playing board and card games. We’d sit at the kitchen table to play. Every Christmas we’d get a new game. We started with Candy Land, Shutes and Ladders and Go to the Head of the Class. We worked up to Sorry and Monopoly. I loved Sorry but not Monopoly. It was too long and boring.
My parents taught me to play dominoes. I didn’t even know it was a game. I just thought you built with the tiles. I didn’t question the pips. We always played double sixes. Much later I bought double nines to try, but I didn’t like it, too many pips to plan ahead. I taught some friends to play dominos. They thought you just built with them.
We learned card games and played Go Fish and Steal the Old Man’s Pack. Go Fish demanded trust, but sometimes I doubted the go fish from my opponent thinking he had my card in his hand. I wasn’t always wrong. We used to play Pokeno on Friday nights. It is sort of a bingo game but, instead of the letters, the boards have cards you cover. My mother kept a huge jar of pennies. We had to buy the pennies. I hated to lose.
One of our adult card games was Hi-Low Jack aka Pitch. You bid for the hand, how many points, tricks, you’ll take. If you win the hand, you call trump, no not that one!!! You get all sorts of points for all sort of cards. My father was a rabid Hi-Low Jack fan. One of the joys of playing the game was beating him. If we did, we na na’ed to make it worse. One time my father’s card, his ace, got trumped, no not that one. He screamed. He fell off the bench in the kitchen, but even lying on the floor didn’t stop him. He kept playing. We couldn’t stop laughing. Life with my father was never dull.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 6, 2025 at 6:03 pm
Hi Kat,
Tuesday morning we had a line of springtime thunderstorms roll through in the early morning. That line gave us our first two tornadoes of the season. Both were EF1. EF stands for Enhanced Fujita scale. The National weather service, if it still remains staffed, said that tornado alley has moved further east into Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. We will see, Texas and Oklahoma still get a lot of severe thunderstorms in the springtime.
The orange pumpkin, who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, decided Tuesday at midnight to place tariffs of 25% on Mexico, Canada, and 50% on China. Then, the big three U.S automakers CEOs, called him and he gave Mexico a reprieve until April second. The president of Mexico, Claudio Sheinbaum, said in the paper, we gave him everything he wants. I think he still thinks he’s running a reality TV game show with the world. He thinks he can just say to world and to business leaders, “You’re Fired”. How did the voters in this country decide to elect him back into office. Some Republican Congressmen have cancelled any, “Town Hall”, type meetings because their constituents are not happy with the results. I truly believe that we get the best government that money can buy. 😦 Elon Musk certainly got his money’s worth.
March 6, 2025 at 8:28 pm
Hi Bob,
I didn’t realize tornadoes come this early, it still being winter and all. That is a long season. We have been in the 40’s d urging the day and down to the 30’s at night. March can even be snowy.
I saw a short video, really short, of a woman in her car. She asked if people care about Nebraska. The comments were all no we don’t. Nebraska voted overwhelming for Trump. You made your bed now lie in it. FAFO is becoming common.
The Republicans were told not to hold anymore town halls. They were all getting booed and yelled at. A couple even walked out. Serves them good!
March 6, 2025 at 9:53 pm
We’ve had tornadoes in every month. A couple of years ago we had tornadoes in December, and our old neighborhood was hit in October in 2020. Generally, the biggest storms come through in the springtime. One year, in May we had hail the size of softballs. Our training center has a four story atrium. That storm’s hail stones came through the plastic panels covering the atrium. Our employees who were working that evening had their cars totaled by their insurance companies. That’s why it’s called tornado alley.
March 7, 2025 at 9:12 am
Bob,
Thanks for the info. I didn’t realize tornado season is all
year. I think I remember when the 2020 one hit.
As for hail, my sister in Colorado has had her roof replaced twice because of hailstones.
We do have hurricane season and a few hurricanes have been massively destructive. I lost electricity for close to a week after Bob, but it was on for only a short time, just long enough for me to restock my fridge before it went off again for 3 or 4 days.