BlogReaders Ask, I Answer: Question #5

And now for the fifth and final night of questions and answers!  Last but not least, Dave E. asks:


It sounds like you are really good at knowledge/quiz games.  Do you do crosswords and word puzzles too?  What other games, table or digital, do you like to play?


Um, I don't know about the "really good at" part with knowledge/quiz games, but I just like to play and see how much I know (or don't know).


I do the occasional crossword--the one at the back of some fluff magazine my mom brought me when I was in the hospital helped me keep my sanity--but my mom is the Crossword Queen.  She does several each weekend.  (O.K., sometimes she asks me for help if she's stumped by some mythology or Shakespeare or pop culture question, and sometimes I figure out the theme before she does.)  The senior lady who lived next door to us when I was growing up always did the crossword in the Philadelphia Inquirer, every day.  I think it kept her mind sharp well into her 80s.  So I do feel influenced by them both.


Speaking of weekend puzzles, I drive myself crazy every week trying to figure out those "visual" word puzzles that are in the dinky Parade thingy that comes with the newspaper.  I always manage to get three out of four.  Four for four is super rare.


One thing that my family normally does when Younger Sister comes for a visit is play Scrabble, but with my cousin's wedding taking up most of the weekend and Younger Sister's itchiness to get on the road (missing the boyfriend much?) no game this time.  Probably there will be one come Thanksgiving.


What other games do I like?

• Online: I've played Solitaire 13 on Yahoo Games (Mom got me into that), and some of the word games on there.
• Computer: Occasionally I fire up Hearts.  There's something wickedly enjoyable about dumping the Queen of Spades on another player.
• Table/other: Well, I'm not that coordinated, but I think air hockey is a lot of fun.  Pinball, too.  Also pool (now that I've figured out I can sit on the edge to reach some shots).  When I was a kid, Older Brother got something called Pivot Pool (ours was from the mid-'80s, mind you) that was for the tabletop (no sticks)--it was fun to play, but absolutely hysterical when Younger Sister's cat got obsessed with chasing the balls and shoving them into the pockets.  I still miss that cat; she had such a fun personality.  Not to mention she'd let us put hats on her from our Hot Looks dolls as she slept on the pile of doll clothes.
• We also have seen a revival of Uno playing in the family since Middle Nephew got interested in numbers and wanted to play.  Mom wanted the old design of the cards (I think they went almost completely wordless recently) so I had to flex my eBay scouring muscles.

I probably am forgetting something, but that's a pretty good list as is, isn't it?




I hope you had as much fun asking the questions and reading the answers as I did reading the questions and providing the answers!


And now. . . Drawing!


I have put each Blogreader/questioner's name onto a square paper from my memo cube (equal sizes) and folded them up.  They're all in a pillowcase (a la the velvet bag of buttons from the show I cannot mention because the outcome this week was absurd).  The Cat woke up in time to serve as the judge to make sure this is fair.


. . . I'm shaking up the pillowcase to mix up the papers. . .


. . . I'm drawing one paper out. . . 


. . . I unfold it and see--Rob is our winner!  Congrats to Rob; please e-mail me an address to send you a little prize.






Thank you all for playing!  Let's do it again in another 90-something posts!