I don't like it when folks choose not to play tournaments because of their divisional placement... and I'm musing about doing just that.  If I have the time and resources to play just ONE tournament for the rest of the year (really since BAT), do I really want to play division two?  No, I really don't.

I'm getting some pressure to play it, since it's in my backyard.

Bah.  I'm really on the fence here.

Three more team games at Scrabble club Tuesday night, this time as Mosaic. Mosaic's experience as a team did make a difference; I'm not sure how to quantify it. I know it affected our time management. We KNOW each other's strengths and weaknesses; we don't have to spend time arguing over which decision is better in a certain scenario. (Although we still do at times.) We defer to the "strong" one in a lot of areas. This saves time. We have also developed some shorthands for things.

We each track, which helps our accounting. We each write the racks (mostly out of habit).

We had several plays where our entire "collaboration" consisted of "that?" "Yeah." "Wait, what about…" "It's okay, because of…" "Oh, yeah." With no pointing, writing down, anything. Can't beat telepathy, man.

Our opponents, Cheezchick and Ataraxy, joined later by Mrsscheisskopf, were a blast. They are hilarious and sharp. We kept them in time trouble, which I'm convinced was pretty much our only advantage (that and the incredible patented Marsh Luck which has helped me out of many a jam.)

I really am lucky. I have proof.

And Scrabble today!

Three team games with Bob and Vince.  The team won every time.  If I'm remembering correctly, and of course I am, this means that the team has never lost.  Don't underestimate how much stronger two heads are than one.  Far better draws?  Blanks growing on trees?  Too bad.  The team wins.  (Mosaic is quite a bit stronger than its component parts of Marsh and JVP.)

This particular session, I happened to be on the team every game, woohoo.  Only one triple-triple, but it was a fun one... bONE[F]IsH.  The rest of the stuff was fairly pedestrian:  OUTWITS, BRAI[N]IER, GOORALS, TRENDI[E]R, OUTLIER, ARISTAE, VELOuRS, and TRAINER.  Anything else?  VOTIVE now takes an S.  Lots of good hard racks with tricky solutions.

The sun is shining, the kids are here until 6, and I'm doing okay.

The most organized study method on the planet.

This is the way it works:

Play.
Write down words you miss.
Look up ones you don't know for hooks, etc.
Do it many times.

John and I both "finished" work by five. (In other words, we said we're going to club, this stuff can WAIT.) Don't tell the kids, but we went to Burger King on the way, because I had not planned ahead and made nice healthy sandwiches. We had to decompress from various work and life things throughout the day, but fortunately DC has lots and lots and lots of traffic which made the commute long enough to do so. Ha ha.

And then we were at club. I have really missed it.

I start the night off with a phoney, which pleases me! PREBOrN. My biggest problem in this game has been nerve. I need to play things I'm not 100 percent sure of. So yay for phoneys! (It stayed on the board, which pleased me even more.) On the way home, some three hours later, the only solution to that rack finally occurs to me.

Honestly, there were very few strategic issues or major puzzles. It was just fun, mind-satisfying, good Scrabble. My time was a problem. I went down to the final seconds in two of the three games. I had to figure out a winning out-in-three in the second game, which was fairly tricky and involved setting up a blockable out-in-two. Okay, so that was a little strategic and if I am feeling motivated later, I may post that endgame.

I was so happy to see the people. Brief little catch-ups, bantering, minor kibitzing. I went 2-1.

It was good.

I planned to write about the tournament as soon as I got home, but the kids stayed over Monday night, then I worked and had mediation meetings and more kid time and then worked some more… very good and busy week, really.

So here I am, finally. The tournament was great. My record (8-7) doesn’t sound great. I did make some boneheaded errors. In fact, it looks like -- as much as I can’t believe it and hate to confess it publicly -- I probably missed the word BASENJIS. For a kajillion points. I have gone back over my score sheet with disbelief and creative rack leave analysis, and I am pretty sure that’s the rack I had. So that was indeed a terrible miss. But in that same game, I also made one of the better strategic plays I’ve made in my scrabble “career” and was rewarded by being able to play out with ESTUARIaL from the ES and win the game. From low to high in one short game. I’ll resist making comments about metaphors for life.

I had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck. I so often draw well that in the past I’ve not dealt well emotionally with a run of bad luck, and I feel like, in this event at least, I kept my wits (and humor) about me. And the bad luck didn’t last long, just a few games. Honestly, I feel like my biggest triumph was emotional. I rode it out.

John and I gave some of the young punks of Scrabble a ride to the train station. Such wonderfully quirky, brilliant, nerdy young men. The high point MIGHT have been when one of the young men told us all that he thinks he has a parasite.

Meanwhile, back at the Big E expo center in Springfield, Massachusetts (one of the worst places to get lost in America, maybe in the world), Curie was not winning her shows. Apparently I’ve kept her a little on the thin side, which means the judges think she’s “long”. She was thrilled to hang out with her brother Pippin, however. Curie and Pippin think they are Meant To Be Together. They’d establish an Egyptian dynasty if we’d approve. Or if we’d look the other way.

So. All that news is really to say: I’m doing okay. I feel my nerve endings again. My paralysis is not entirely gone, but I am looking at things with something like my old chirpy Pollyanna ways. “A futon, an iron, and a welcome mat and this apartment is DONE!”

At club on Thursday, I played two phoneys. This makes me very happy. I have felt for a while that I worry so much about playing phoneys that I forego perfectly good words. “Take more risks,” I have jotted on more than one scoresheet. Neither word was obviously bad. Neither was on the list of “phamous phoneys”. Neither word was challenged off. Take more risks, indeed.

Okay, so I’m never really going to be a hang glider. I hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone. (For one thing, it takes a lot of hand-holding to get me up in the air in the first place; it’s hard to hang glide with one hand.) I can fly kites, which is almost as nifty! But I digress.

These days I’m doing a lot of scary things, a lot of stepping out on faith. Maybe other people wouldn’t find them as scary as I do. But the important thing here is that I find them scary -- and that I’m doing them anyway. So what if it isn’t usually considered brave to argue with utility companies? It is brave of me.