Vocabulary

Please stand by ~

/ Marilyn Davis / 2 Comments

To Higher-Ups:

The Technical Team has noted serious technical difficulties with Blog entitled “Vapor and Flow,” with no forward (or backward) movement observed since mid-January. Blog is currently parked in the Driver’s front yard, where it seems to be accumulating trash. Driver has not yet had it put up on blocks, but Technical Team is on alert.

Team suspects a problem with the fuel injection system, though without hands-on investigation it is impossible to tell whether the gasoline tank might simply be empty. Team had noted some juddering of the steering wheel, accompanied by slightly erratic driving, in December and early January, indicating the need for immediate tire rotation and rebalancing. In addition, tires should be checked for wear. Driver has done none of this.

Driver herself, rather than repairing the Blog or addressing various ethical quandaries in her life at the moment, has become obsessed with the dog urine stains in her carpeting and the possibility of replacing the carpeting with something that can simply be hosed down. She daily repeats a monologue that always begins the same way (“I can’t stand this! What am I going to DO?”) and ends the same way (“But how would they move the piano?”). Technical Team estimates that said piano, a tall, ancient upright, weighs slightly more than a Volkswagen Beetle, flower holder included. Unlike a Beetle, the piano would probably not float, although Team finds this an intriguing question and would very much like to be notified of the results of any experiments along these lines. LOL.

Excuse us, that was unprofessional on our part. To continue, Driver also appears obsessed with a new personal best in Scrabble: her highest-ever non-bingo word score (GAZEBO, 84 points). While interesting numerically, this is judged by Team to be a rather trivial achievement in the grand scheme of things and recommends that Driver should just Get Over It.

Excuse us, please ignore editorial comment. Finally, Technical Team notes that on multiple occasions recently Driver has stated that she “dodged a bullet” because the voice student portion of a recent music recital was cancelled. This comment has been flagged for further analysis, but Team can only assume that someone slated to attend said recital was prepared to use firearms in the event of Driver singing. Team has insufficient information to gauge (pun! LOL) the appropriateness of the posited firearm use.

Excuse us again; Technical Team is fatigued and too easily amused. Team judges that Driver is currently earning A’s in Reading and Scrabble (quantity only), D’s in Physical Therapy and Caregiving, and F’s in Voice Lessons (lack of practice), Problem Resolution (dithering), Diet Remediation (inaction), Photography (inaction), and Blog Repair (inaction and negligence). Given this poor functioning, Driver’s hair looks better than might be expected, although Team is not well trained in assessing such matters.

In conclusion, Technical Team advises continued close monitoring of Blog and Driver, with future updates as necessary.

—Submitted February 23, 2014, ungodly hour of the morning
(Technical Team wishes to note that it has worked overtime on this report and would like to be duly compensated. Thank you.)

Hard Scrabble life ~

/ Marilyn Davis / Leave a comment

Most people of my generation, I suspect, will have heard this phrase wearisomely often over the years: “Working hard, or hardly working?” Had my father been alive to hear my shrieks when I began playing Scrabble seriously, he would surely have said, “Playing hard, or hardly playing?”

In the beginning I was hardly playing, though I didn’t realize it. When I bought an iPod Touch a couple of years ago and cluttered it with (mostly free) apps that I (mostly never) use, I was delighted to begin playing Scrabble against the computer. I didn’t bother to check out the app very thoroughly; I just started playing. I was pleasantly surprised that I usually won my games. That was before I realized that I was playing on the “Normal” level. (My dad would have had a derogatory joke to make here as well.) I promptly switched to the “Hard” level, despite the icon’s grim red face, and my eyes were opened.

Hard-level games bore little resemblance to the family Scrabble games of my childhood. Words I had never seen before, much less heard anyone speak, began popping up over the board like a rash, and I began losing by massive margins. Here’s what I wrote at the time on Facebook:

In short order I was pelted with unfamiliar words (pintle, anyone? qintar?), questionable plurals (zeals? muttons?) and spellings (gapy?), words cribbed from other languages (jeu), words that looked like Germans were trying to pronounce English (ichnite!), and what I am convinced is Klingon (gttyma).

The Hard level was mopping the floor with me. But I was learning, albeit painfully. Eventually I discovered the pleasures of playing actual people, from my ever-persevering, sweet cousin-in-law-once-removed to a Pakistani man who lives in Toronto and used to play in tournaments (I beat him perhaps four times thanks to stunningly good tile draws; he beat me perhaps 20 times thanks to stunningly good ability). My memory, I’m sorry to say, is not what it used to be, but I’m hanging on to the meanings of as many unfamiliar words as possible. Zori? Check. Chon? Check. Dol? Check. Most new words, however, I promptly forget.

I’m not a Scrabble expert. The dirty truth is that I’m now a Scrabble addict. I check my ranking obsessively and keep several games active all the time so that I usually have at least one play to make at any given time. Most telling of all, I have actually purchased a book about playing Scrabble. For my sister and some of my friends, this is going too far. But forget support groups; forget interventions. Don’t take my words away from me. Instead, help me celebrate the fact that a few days ago I bagged my first triple-triple bingo, droppers, for 158 points. Now that’s a rush.