Word Play

“There is a place for everything and everything has its place,” goes the old adage. I don't know if I buy it. How can that be when some inanimate objects are smarter than we are?
Let's talk about what one would assume is just a plain ol’ silly pencil for starters. I don't know about y'all, but I have this really neat antique apothecary jar by my computer where all of my pencils should sit sharpened, alert, and ready to write at all times. It seems, though, that they have other plans or, perhaps more appropriately, other places they'd rather be. Instead of in my jar, I find them in the pantry, the dog food bowl, the crisper, underneath the bed, crumbled in the dryer, stuck in the soil of my potted succulents and way up underneath my hair.
Don't even get me started on game pieces. We used to have a bi-weekly family game night. We are now down to one a year. Why? Well, it's kind of hard when you can't find the Candy Land pieces because they're hidden in six separate cereal boxes and the Monopoly money is attached to a deposit slip inside a Donald Duck piggy bank. I've even found X and Y Scrabble tiles in the decaf coffee tin in the back of the freezer and a queen of spades shoved in between the layers of mismatched Tupperware.
Please don't think I am trying to accuse my friends and family of cheating or stashing fake cash with fraudulent signatures to buy the Polly Pocket Fashion Combo Pack they didn't get for Christmas. I guess I am just saying these things must obviously have a mind of their own. But before I could cry foul (or maybe “Time’s Up!” while pressing an obnoxiously loud game buzzer) on these missing pieces, along came the 21st Century’s answer to a white knight in shining armor: that’s right, the smartphone. In theory, the phone, like its name, just seems . . . well . . . smart.
Think about it. It just doesn’t call people but provides drinking games without the hangover, spa trips without the expensive price tag and wheatgrass shots, friendly game play without the incessant bickering or outright accusations about a loved one’s declining adherence to their own standard code of ethics?
My personal favorite is Scrabble. What’s not to love? People have proposed marriage using it, broken down barriers with it, and solved some of the universe’s more complex questions over it. Now, thanks to my very smart phone, I don’t have to locate all its parts or watch two people who used to really love each other not speak to one another ever again because one of them got to the triple word spot first.
Now, you can play anytime, anywhere, and thanks to the Words with Friends app, you can play against your favorite people without having to offer to make them coffee or pour them tea. The best part, one would think, would be the total eradication of gaming conflict because now you don’t have to actually see someone glare at you when you lay down a 50 point score on only a two letter word. Pretty cool, right?
Unfortunately, like most things in life including tummy-toning tights, it’s just too good to be true. See, Words with Friends being a “smart” app, it also has a conversation bubble thingy in the right hand corner so you can still egg on your opponent from 2,000 miles away.
Here are few exchanges or “smack talking,” as I like call it, that have passed amongst me and my friends:


“How ‘bout those tiles, sucker!”
“Ok. This is war.”
“Are you happy now?”
“You’re annoying me.”
“How could you be so selfish? You took my place!”
And what really hurts is when they come fast and furious from your old first grade teacher.
But in my short few months of playing the game online, the most frequently used comment, not to mention the most succinct, is “cheater!” This is because for .99 cents, you can also download a bevy of Scrabble cheating software. And you know who you are out there. Come on. I’m a reasonably intelligent person and I’ve never heard of the half the words my Words with Friends have thrown at me. Qis, za, ewer, dirls, gar, loach, ute, tawie and fenny, to name a few. The problem is you can’t accuse someone of cheating unless you had their own phone in your hands to prove it. It’s not like the old days when you’d catch Uncle Ed in the bathroom flipping through the ten-inch thick Webster. Another interesting facet to the game is you can “pick up” a random game with a stranger. This is somewhat intimidating and seems quite unseemly, but one night I couldn’t sleep. I was desperate. I spelled out my opening word on the board and waited nervously for Cleo144144’s move. I was declined. I guess the word RUSE wasn’t challenging enough. I still haven’t gotten over the rejection.
Oh, well. I’m still playing, though. It would take a lot more than that for me to give up on the game I’ve loved for as long as I can remember. And what’s not to love about it; cheating, smack talking, and all? Elizabeth Taylor revealed not too long ago how she and her ex-husband, Richard Burton, would spell out naughty words on the board and never even finish a game. In her words, “When you get aroused playing Scrabble---that’s love, baby!”
Speaking of which, the last Scrabble word I sent to my husband online was Feb. 26 at 2:15 p.m. I guess the word TOAD didn’t really do it for him because I still haven’t heard back. Ethics aside, maybe I really should think about downloading that Scrabble dictionary. I’m betting Elizabeth Taylor would approve, seeing as all’s fair in the name . . . and spelled out word . . . of LOVE.

If the Shoe Fits

We all have certain challenges we face in life. One of mine is saying, “You’re right, I’m wrong.” when I know the opposite is true or, more importantly, when it’s not. Letting go of criticism and guilt, especially the kind I heap on myself, is another.
We’ve all had our fair share of difficult relationships too. My last one is no exception, seeing as we haven’t been getting along for a while now. He folds over without a fight and then snaps at me without warning. It’s no wonder I’ve sent him--my two tiered laundry drying rack, that is--to the basement for a much-needed hiatus.
Don’t even get me started on my love/hate relationships with my dishwasher, shower faucet, glue gun, electric screwdriver and pencil sharpener. They promised to be there when I needed them and to cause me no bodily harm but it hasn’t exactly been working out that way for some time now.
There is one challenge, though, that at times seems to defy all sense of fundamental reasoning. It tests boundaries that could move mountains. It leaves you speechless, breathless and restless. Some days it even brings you straight down to your knees to pray “Dear Lord, remind me again why in the world I got myself into all this in the first place?” I am sure y’all have guessed what it is by now. Yep, I’m talking about parenthood.
A few days ago, I finally worked up some much needed courage. I had a job to do and, to be perfectly honest, it’s the one I dread the most. Give me a root canal, a twenty-eight hour plane ride, or an extended five-hour encore of Oklahoma, and I would probably be just fine. Spend some time shoe shopping with the girls, on the other hand, and I’ll need a Xanax, a molten chocolate lava cake, the patience of Job, the compassion of Gandhi, and a warm bath behind a locked door if I ever hope to function properly again.
One morning, out of the blue, someone will come downstairs with their big toe sticking out of the sole of their shoe while walking with the limp of a 99 year-old man. I brace myself. It’s time.
Later that day, I’ll be standing with my kids in front of the entrance to the shoe shore. “Haven’t we just been here?” I say out loud to no one in particular. I take a deep breath. I don’t expect things to go smoothly. I know we will not be in and out. How can we? Every shoe will either be the wrong size, wrong color, too big, too small, too hot, too cold, too wide, too tight, too plain, or just plain too much. My girls make Goldilocks look like a pretty low maintenance, easygoing gal on the go.
Before you know it, the shoe shop looks as if a Stride Ride 18-wheeler delivery truck hit an oil patch and spilled its entire contents on to the floor. Oh yeah . . . and we still haven’t found a shoe that’ll do. About now, amid the chaos, the bending and standing, the tying and untying, the crying and whining, I decide to just see it for what it really is. Sometimes answers to the most puzzling aspects of life appear when we aren’t even looking for them:

The shoes may only come in blue when you wanted purple but sometimes we don’t get exactly what we want. Be gracious; make the best of it.

Money doesn’t grow on trees and tennis shoes aren’t cheap. Appreciate what you are given; take care of it.

You may make a mess or mess up. It’s okay; just own up to it.

Little feet grow faster by the day. Time is precious; value it.

Indecision will try your patience, but something worth getting should be worth doing right. If it’s important to you, take your time with it.

It’s easier to tell the truth about something sooner rather than later. Don’t wait; tell me about it.

Sometimes it takes a while to figure out how much shoestring to tighten and how much to let out. You just need to find the right tension; adjust to it.

Even after you’ve finally found them a shoe that fits, they probably won’t wear it but will instead choose an old pair that are a size too small and have a hole in the seam that their toe pokes out of because they match their socks better. What can you do? Just go with it.

Sometimes when the self-doubt sneaks in and I wonder if I am doing more harm than good, I think of an old Vietnamese proverb that says, “When hulling rice, one cannot carry one’s baby sister.” Strange choice of a mantra, I know, but true. In other words, common sense really does go a long way. Embracing parenting as the toughest job you’ll ever love, no matter how bad you think you are at it, well . . . that will take you beyond places you never thought you could reach.