Week 14: At Your Leisure

I LOVE GAMES!!!!  I grew up in a family with four kids, before the dawn of computers, the internet and video games.  Television existed of course but there were only four channels and there wasn't always something interesting to watch.  Leisure time was spent playing outside, reading or playing cards or board games (or fighting with my sister 😄).  When visiting family, we also played games.  I have a million cousins and each family seemed to have their go-to games, each different from the others (maybe because we all lived so far apart?).  After a family reunion or visit, we'd head home with a new repertoire of games which we'd play until the next visit.  Card games were particularly plentiful.  I believe that my family has forgotten more card games than many people ever hear of in their lifetime.

Unfortunately, I don't get the opportunity to play games often now that Levi isn't at home.  I do have a group of friends who get together for "Games Night" monthly however my friend Pam's daughter has re-named it "blah-blah night" since we only talk and eat and enjoy a beverage.  We did start this whole thing with the intent to play games but it turns out that middle-aged women who work full time and have families/herds are tired on a Friday evening.  Turns out that we're also tired on a Saturday evening 😕.  Don't tell them but next games night at my house, they are going to be forced to play a new game that was just given to me called Game That Tune.  It's fun and quick and it shouldn't take too much brain power.

There is obviously still a market out there for board games because the selection is enormous.  The industry has certainly upped it's game (hahaha), developing extremely complicated, well-constructed adventures, intricately detailed storylines and games that can be expanded so that no matter how many times you play, you never play the same game twice.  There are even co-operative games now, where all the players work together to beat the game rather than each other. 

I see that I got a little off-topic droning on about games but there are some other quiet pursuits that I enjoy in my leisure time.  Read on...

Let's start with Catan.  I have only played this a half dozen times because you need three or four players.  I'm not much for strategy games and although this game depends somewhat on luck, there is long term strategy that can benefit your play.  I've only won the game once and that was with some help from my friends' son who was pretty much out of the game early on.

We've already established that I enjoy reading and we know that photography is on my list of hobbies...but did you know that reading about photography is also something you can do?  After I botched the similar photo from my previous post about reading, I decided to try that shot again and ensure that I didn't knock anything out of alignment.  I believe I succeeded.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle is the most addictive game.  Levi and I have spent hundreds of hours playing it and I have introduced it to friends who have also become addicted.  As a matter of fact, I will be visiting my friend Kathy for several days this spring for the express purpose of playing some HP!  Well, and visiting each other of course but mainly for the HP 😉.

These are some of the bits and pieces you need to play HP.  It's a cooperative game and the goal is to beat He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his henchmen.  We lose a lot and win a lot.  One of the things I find fascinating about the game development process is how much work they must have had to do to ensure that the game is winnable but not always and not so easily.  For example, Levi and I have lost game seven six times in a row before winning and at another time, we have beat it on our first try.

Uno has come up with many different version of the classic game.  We have Uno Spin, shown here and Uno Spit (actually known as Uno Attack - where each time you have to pick up a card, you press a button and a random number of cards gets spit out at you).

Eeek, look at my hyperextending joints...no wonder my hands are sore after playing cards for a little while!  Anyway, when I was about ten we visited our relatives in Indianapolis and my cousin Holly, who is two years older than me I think, could shuffle cards this way and I couldn't.  I did not like that at all and being very jealous of her, I determined to learn the skill before our next visit.  I don't remember how long it took but I was successful.

Yahtzee and Farkle are the two dice games I have played most often.  There are probably dozens or more that I have never heard of.

Puzzles - the other great leisure time activity.  I usually do 1000 piece puzzles but a particularly interesting design or quirky feature will get me interested in something outside my comfort zone.  This little wooden guitar puzzle was given to me by another cousin, Kim, who knows that I like puzzles and that my dad plays guitar.  It was surprisingly tricky to put together when my mom and I tackled it. Some of the pieces had the tiniest projections and everything had to slide in from the top and perfectly line up with all the other crazy pieces.

See the little guitar and saxophone shapes?  Cool, huh?

That's all for today.  I need to look through my list to see what I can come up with for the next installment.  Feel free to offer suggestions!