words

July 28, 2002

Today's Reading
Eye of the Albatross by Carl Safina, Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

Lately the lunch bunch at Starship Startup has been playing Scrabble. Boy Genius, an engineer, and Group, a tech writer, have emerged as the best players. Yours truly lost to Group by 100 points. Sheephead lost to Group by even more than that. As have Bitwise and Girl Genius. Boy Genius dominates Group, normally winning by a slim margin but almost always winning. I think Group has beaten him once at the most. Yesterday they stopped playing with a clock because Group likes to take a long time to make his plays. So lunch time ends just as Group has made a clever play blocking Boy Genius from a triple word score and Boy Genius has drawn tiles that he thinks he can bingo with on his next turn. It's a cliffhanger.

Goose-hater asks us "Why on earth do you guys want to spend your lunch hour doing something that requires thinking? I need a break from thinking." Group says he's trying to stave off Alzheimer's by keeping his brain limber. He's my age, roughly twice Boy Genius' age. So we're old enough to be worried about that. On the other hand, maybe we should've played more Scrabble when we were Boy Genius' age to prevent Alzheimer's now that we're eligible for it.

This afternoon I bought a new Scrabble set when I went to Walmart to buy Nancy a new tea kettle. She's thrilled with the tea kettle, and excited about beating me at Scrabble. She's a word person. I am not. (What, you thought being a writer made me a word person? Dream on.). We drink herbal tea and she clobbers me in two games. At least I have respectable scores - we both make it into the 300's. Not bad for rusty old people who haven't played in ages.

The way to Minerva's for incredibly good spaghetti with eggplant requires us to pass Myopic Books. The siren song of used books wins out. We delay eggplant gratification for a browse. While Nancy sets up camp among the Anglo-Saxon poetry, I'm flitting among travel, birds, and children's books (you never know when there will be another Arthur Ransome emergency) when my eye lands on the Games shelf right above Childrens. Stefan Fatsis' Word Freak with its catchy Scrabble tile cover image practically leaps off the shelf at me. An inside look at the world of competitive Scrabble. Cheap. Must buy. Must read tonight. Start reading during consumption of Minerva's eggplant. Determine these people are way weirder than Boy Genius, Group, and their whole contingent put together.

I still lose to Nancy.