The rain is raining. True, it's our wet season but the rain puts the beach & the bush both out of bounds. The beach is just unpleasant but the bush is full of leeches. Perhaps to short circuit the Star yodelling the whole village into insanity my mother dragged out the Rummikub tiles & suggested we play a round or two. Growing up the family game of choice was 500 & I can still play a mean hand of 500 but despite the number of children we own, as a family we have never been much into board games & what was played tended to be chess. We had our own tournament going through any wet holidays though inevitably Liddy & Dino were wiped out fairly quickly & the tin tacks came down to Theo & Joss who were both incredibly competitive & stubborn.
I'm not sure my mother will ever ask Star & I to play Rummikub again. Have you ever played? If so you will know all the little tiles have numbers on them. That alone is enough to do my head in but nothing loath I was prepared to have a go despite the fact, like Gin, you need a run & 3o points to go down. If I have to count above 10 I'm in trouble ~ so I was in trouble before the first tile went down. My mother does not normally have trouble with numbers but I think Star & I have done for her, Star & I both being *numerically challenged*. Star became completely dyslexic & incapable of putting any of her tiles down in sequence because she knew what she meant. Sadly this lack of sequencing did not bother me ~ but then I was chronically putting down runs that were missing essential numbers in the sequencing. Let's just say it was not Star who noticed!
Naturally my mother cleaned the pair of us up with very little trouble.
Meanwhile the men are holding down the fort & attempting to comfort two cats who have completely lost the plot & blame Dearest, or so Dearest says, for my absence.
6 comments:
Ah yes. 500. Fabulous memories. If we ever visit during rainy season, let's play cards. Rummykub sounds dangerous! (No, I've never played.)
I've never played Rummikub but think I'd like to give it a try. Wet there...snowing and blowing here. :)
Jeanne: I'm sure you'd do better than the Star & I! lol Don't come in the wet though. Much more fun sightseeing when the sun is shinning. ☺
Julie: localised flooding now. We've had 3" since this morning so I hope it's done by the time we need to head home again.
The weather man tonight said it was going to get wetter!!
My cat doesn't talk to me for a while after I return from a trip - its a way of punishing me for deserting her!!
When I read Rummikub on your blog, my first thoughts were that either I had completely misunderstood your claims about numbers and math OR...you were being tortured--sadly, by your own mother!
Of course, being on the other side of the spectrum, Rummikub is a favorite of mine. The surprise in my life with it is that my mother--terribly math challenged--was the one who introduced us to it about twenty-some years ago on a visit and she loved it at the time. We used to play it with another couple often also.
I like Rummikub! I play it on my computer, where I get extra points by starting off with 20 tiles, and more extra points for going out on my second turn. :-)
I never thought of it terms of math, though... You don't *really* have to count to 30 - just count to 10, 3 times. Seriously, 1,2,3, and 7,8,9 do it, because the 1 goes with the 9, the 2 with the 8, and the 3 with the 7. You don't need to love numbers, just learn the shortcuts.
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