"Potatoes!"

We got the giggles something fierce last night playing the Game of Life.

You know, the one with the rainbow spinner and the little cars with pegs.  My paternal grandmother had the game at her house, but we didn't actually play the game so much as play with the pieces.  So I hadn't realized there were lots of fun mini-challenges among the action cards.  Those are my favorite part--describe a cake you would make, play a rhythm on pretend bongos, show off your skateboarding moves.  It's sorta like my favorite if-questions games.

And last night, we got "tell your best joke."  I blanked.  So Mama told one for me.

Three space aliens are hiding from humans on a freight train, very nervous they'll get caught.  And then they heard a conductor.  What should they do?  So they hid in some nearby crates just as the conductor entered.  The conductor walked up to the first crate and kicked it.

"Woof!" barked the first space alien, panicking.  That was odd, the conductor thought, but kept going.

He kicked the second crate.

"Mooo!" bellowed the second alien, hoping not to be caught.  That was strange, the conductor thought, but walked to the last crate.

The third space alien was very scared and wasn't sure what to do.  The conductor kicked the third crate.

And the third space alien whispered, "Potatoes."


Sis and Bud cracked up; we call did.  And "potatoes" became our by-word.  Later, when the challenge was to make someone laugh, all we had to do was say the word!

Poker Faces

"I know Sis has a good poker face," I said last night over dinner, in reference to something I've forgotten.  They know the song by Lady Gaga but didn't really know what the reference was.  Soon Mama and I were explaining deal, ante-up, bet, hold, raise, fold, call, bluff, tell, and poker face.  And mind you, I probably haven't played poker since I was Sis's age.

Before you know it, we had found a full deck of cards and distributed some M&Ms in place of money or chips.  And a kids' book of games which laid out all the hands and how they compared.  Then Mama pulled up some country music on the player and, of course, we listened to Kenny Rogers's "Gambler."

We played for 45 minutes or so, practicing our bluffing and figuring out all the hands.  We mostly had pairs.  But once, Mama dealt me, right off the bat, a straight.  And I won lots of M&Ms. That hand.  Bud enjoyed bluffing, every hand.  At the end, I shared my candy with him.  Sure, we didn't know exactly who starts the betting or how many times you raise.  But we knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.  No need to walk away.

And it's hard to not count your M&Ms when you're sitting at the table, even though there'll be time enough for counting when the dealing's done.

Spring Vacation: Staycation

Thursday and Friday were specifically dedicated to our family's spring break "staycation" since we couldn't, in good conscience, drag a recovering-from-the-flu child out of town.  So, instead we have

• indulged in a huge pancake breakfast at our favorite breakfast place, which I delighted in after my own almost two-year hiatus
• built new and old Lego sets (Sis has the Friends beauty parlor and Bud and Mama are putting the medieval castle back together again)
• danced in a brief rain shower, while trying to spot a rainbow
• watched a red-tail hawk in a nearby tree ("hawkspotting")
• watched lots of new-to-us "Phineas and Ferb" episodes, including the three-part rollercoaster arc (the original first episode, the time traveling Quantum Bugaloo, and the "Rollercoaster, The Musical.")
• visited the Discovery Museum in Bridgeport (the kids had fun but, frankly, it was awful--very poor didactics when they existed at all because they didn't give kids the info they needed to appreciate the topic at hand or answer their poorly-worded, not-open-ended questions; dirty and broken exhibits (piles of used paper, broken pens, missing stars for constellations, and numerous broken electronics); mediocre aesthetics--poorly designed and hung didactic panels in various fonts on small sheets of paper, chipped paint, dirt; lack of basic instructions or clearly intuitive procedures for hands-on activities.  All around CRAP.  The only good parts were the hands-on activities in the "My House, Your House" exhibition, with the build-your-own cabin, walk-in Mongolian ger, and the Fiji fire pit.)
• eaten lunch at Bloodroot--peanut and mustard greens soup, tofu salad with sesame oil dressing, grilled Swiss cheese, Bloodroot "burger," cheese omelet, oatmeal bread, chocolate devastation cake, brown rice pudding, and lemon-lavender posset in a china cup.  MMMMMMmmmm!  The posset might be the best dessert I've ever had there, better than the pumpkin or blueberry tofu mousses or the cranberry kissel (tied, perhaps, with brandied fruit over ice cream!).  Sis thought so, too.  But, otherwise, the kids didn't like it at all.  Which has me considering a vegetarian month here at home to break the must-have-meat/not natural foods habit.
• gardened, after a trip to the garden store--Sis got red, orange, yellow, and purple pansies plus some trailing verbena with red flowers.  We also have some sweet basil and new pink phlox for the rock wall (since the old phlox is creeping into crevices beautifully).  We spent time outside planting and watering all of these.
• played a new game called Yoome, which requires not only the game but also an iPad app.  It's hard to explain but it's basically a get-to-know-you game with dualistic (is that a word?) questions (ketchup or mustard?  winter or summer?) that one player answers secretly and the others try to guess; best guesser wins.
• read more poetry before bed, including the perfect spring poem for today:

"Maytime Magic" by Mabel Watts 

A little seed

For me to sow...

A little earth

To make it grow...

A little hole, 

A little pat...

A little wish, 

And that's that.

A little sun,

A little shower...

A little while,

And then--a flower!

The New Game in Town

There's a brand new game for Family Game Night, which was held tonight because last night was date night. I laughingly called it Wizard's Chess, owing to our Harry Potter obsession, but it's not far off:

The little magician apprentices have lost some objects in the magic maze. Now, they try to collect them, before the Master notices anything. However, in the maze, the little magicians always bump against invisible walls. So, they have to make their way through the maze by means of a good memory and lots of skill.

You have to move a character through the board but, you're trying to do so with a labyrinth below the first board. The character is joined with a magnetic ball, so, if you hit a wall, the ball drops and you have to start again.

(from boardgamegeek)

And the kids loved it! They loved the "invisible maze" created by a double-decker game board and the strongly magnetic pieces. They loved the wizard theme with the magic tokens. Even the way the magnetic balls dropped and rolled when they hit a wall, which was more fun than disappointing.

It's a game even grumpy old game-phobic me likes to play. So it must be magic!

(And yes, that's the box in German, its country of origin where it has won several awards, I believe. We have the English version.)