At the start of this year, I planned to write every day, a little something – be it a review, a poem, or just a random rant or musing – and then I go and read an article someone has written that is simply beautiful. Reading that single post is an experience in itself – as if I stepped through a magical portal to my own
‘wordly’ wonderland. 

That leaves me wondering, oftentimes, should I continue writing a little something every day or strive for that magical piece every once-in-a-while? And then I read another book, write down my thoughts for it
and out comes a review. I look at my favorite memes, am thrilled about the current theme, and there – another post. Oh well, that day will come too.. until then, I will keep doing what I always do

That brings me to another thought -I did not really write every day this month!  So, I am once again taking the best way out – through the week in a whole lot of posts today. 

Games People Play

ABC Wednesday is a meme I have come to enjoy working on and the community is wonderful. As round 14 of ABC started a couple of weeks ago, I picked a theme to go with this time – ‘Games People Play’. I missed posting for last week’s letter B, but here it is today along with this week’s C.

B is for Bingo

B – One of the first I thought of was bingo. We called it by a different name in India – housie. The name is different but the thrill of the game – the same! I was not lucky at it and remember excitedly strking off all
numbers save one in a matter of minutes, and then wait for that one last number to be called for the win – most often, it never came! The aunty who was the housie caller, used to drag out the suspense till everyone was at the edge of their seats, and finally say something like ‘You and me, 23’ for the number 23.  For more fun housie/bingo slang, check here.

Here is an image of a typical housie card (courtesy: wikipedia). A lot of ways to win, a lot of fun for everyone!

C is for –

Chess, checkers, cricket – I thought of all these games for the letter of the week over at ABC Wednesday . Then a thought struck me (almost a pun because of the game I finally chose) – how about

carrom?

Carromis a beloved childhood game of hands whitened with boric acid powder, of intense moments of play, of making sure you and your opponent are playing nice (no sleight of hand to drop a coin into the hole!!), of making sure the queen is yours, and of pure striking fun. 

Now, we are playing it with our kids here in the US, teaching them our childhood joys. And reveling in it.(image from wikipedia)

C also stands for

Connexio –

a new board game that we started playing with recently (thanks to Chronicle Books for sending me the game to try out and review). I will be posting a more detailed review of the game in another post but this is just a preview.

A game where you can really work your imagination – to make connections between seemingly unrelated things. Playing with my kids really gives me a way different perspective on things and connections between them. This is now a treasured game at home and more details to follow soon.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

I am currently hooked onto White Collar –  a TV show a friend suggested (when I mentioned we are fans of the show ‘Monk’). I love the show and aside from the show itself, I am also getting a whole lot of interesting quotes that appear throughout the show (google search returns a whole lot of lists for White Collar quotes!) as well as new words. Here are a few from the show:

1. recidivism: relapsing into crime: the tendency to relapse into a previous undesirable type of behavior, especially crime
2. flimflam: 1. Nonsense; humbug.; 2. A deception; a swindle.
3. foment: cause trouble: to cause or stir up trouble or rebellion

Book Review for today

Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock – I devoured these books as a little girl and they were among my favorite series. I always longed go off solving mysteries on my own. I even made up a few mysteries where none existed in our sleepy-in-the-middle-of-somewhere-out-there town.  I borrowed an edition from the library to read it recently and though I enjoyed the read, I felt something was lacking.

When I looked up online, I realized that the editions I probably read as a kid were the original versions and the one I am reading now is a condensed (though not enriched) version. It seems to be stripped of originality a little. But I still love Nancy Drew mysteries though I can safely say I much prefer the
original versions now.

This goes towards my reading challenges too! Yay!