Games:Goodbye, Rutsville

"Please don't ask me what the score is, I'm not even sure what the GAME is."
~Ashleigh Brilliant

Ooh. This hits close to home. MY home.

I have never been a huge game fan.

Competition? Absolutely.
Games?

Hmmm, maybe not so much. As a kid I was not much of a game player. I was more of the onlooker. Onlooking allowed me time to daydream and pretend play in-between moves. I could critically analyze a move, and then move on to what Puggles ( my stuffed Pekinese dog) was saying to Peggy (my answer to Barbie's sister Skipper. ... Hey! I had an extraordinary imagination.)

The games I learned growing up consisted of checkers, chess, Rook, Scrabble, and spoons. I think that was all. I did not play Monopoly with the other siblings. (I was busy with Puggles and Peggy.) Growing up we had a game called Driller, which (only an Okie family would embrace this) had the players drill for oil around the board. I think you can still find this game out there somewhere in gameland. And ditto, my sister's game called Park & Shop. I never understood it. Apparently, one parked, and then one went shopping. As my sister and her friends did this, I happily watched, and brushed Puggle's hair.

I did have a brief fling with Risk and Stratego, and I recall enjoying that. But apparently, that was short-lived, because I don't remember those game rules today.

This past week, I decided to revisit a couple of old games, and maybe learn a new one. This would be my "new" this week, in my "12 Weeks of New".

Out of Rutsville, I started with one of my all-time favorite hand-held games from the 80s: Tetris. I have to tell you: I LOVE TETRIS. Tetris came in as a hand-held game sold by Radio Shack, and sadly a couple of years later, and some corporate lawsuits later as well, it vanished.

I, in my post-partum depression, was bereft.

But now it's back, twenty years later, and on-line! (I chanced to Google Tetris after a grocery sacker boy and I had a conversation about Tetris vs the ability to properly sack groceries. That young man deserves a tip!) So last week, I commenced playing Tetris. Only now, online. (Sheesh. That's like saying, "I flew to Newark today." as opposed to "taking the longhorn wagon train back East.")

So, I embraced Tetris. What else was out there?

I have to admit, in the past ? 30+ years, I have LOVED Mah Jong. I have my mother to thank for that. Come to think of it, my kids and my nieces and nephews have my mother to thank for that! My mother taught them all (I think) how to play Mah Jong online. My mother has always been so computer-literate-cool. She spent so much time with her grandkids, teaching them how to use a mouse, online games, and more. How funny is that?!

OK, I am gamefully digressing...

Tetris, Mah Jong...I already play Scrabble online, and chess...

What's left?

I went online to relearn Solitaire. My mother and my sister could always throw out a Solitaire game in cards, anytime, anywhere. I remember this most on boats, or at the boathouse. This was indubitably the precursor to "online" games. Hmm... it seems like an OK game. It seems like I will need some time to really "get" the game. I am OK with that. I am a slow learner when it comes to games.

Well. Ugh.

This week's "new" is a big BOO in my opinion. So far, at least. I am sure some of you will regale me with reports of delight and nonsense. OK, here goes:

KenKen.

I do not get it.

I hate math. Why would I go here???!

Mom, I anticipate you will be one of the first to reply "I LOVE this!!"

(My mother excels at Sudoku. Don't get it, at all. Where is my Puggles, my little stuffed dog, anyway?)