C is for Cookie

All the Ardens

Tue, 27 May 2008 01:38:34 GMT

Arden Cup 2003 - First tournament ever. 2nd place, div. D, $275.

Arden Cup 2004 - Nada. Gained a few ratings points.

Arden Cup 2005 - 1st place, div. C, $800 and a Cup!

Arden Cup 2006 - Lost a few ratings points.

Arden Cup 2007 - 3rd place, div. B, $325. Rating jumped from 1469 to 1643.

Arden Cup 2008 - Ugh. Headache. Don't feel like calculating number of ratings points lost.

Arden Cup 2009 - Hope springs eternal!

Only because I should be doing something else...

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 01:29:19 GMT

I haven't posted anything here in AGES. But, being the star procrastinator that I am, I must find something to occupy myself with before I actually start on the gigantic homework assignment that is due on Wednesday. Thank god this Scrabble meme is going around.

GENERAL

How did you get into the game? I used to play with my mom & siblings when I was a kid. Then, when my husband and I were first together, we played all the time. I was competitive enough to go through the entire dictionary to find all the 2-letter words. I started playing a CD-ROM version when my kids were babies and I had time to kill during naptime. When I read Word Freak (of course) I knew I had to seek out a club, and I was lucky enough to meet Bob Denn, who encouraged me to play my first tournament in 2003.

Why do you play? I can't NOT play. I'm hopelessly addicted.

TOURNAMENTS

First tournament: 2003 Arden Cup (2nd place, bottom division - $275!!)
Last tournament: 2/23/08 Indianapolis, IN (My first ever last-place finish. At least it was in div. 1.)
Next tournament: 2008 Arden Cup
Favorite tournament ever: 2005 Arden Cup. (1st place, division 3 - $800 and, of even more value to me, an Arden Cup!!)

GAMES

Favorite game ever: Tough one. In my second tournament ever, I triple-tripled with OUTSIZES for 212, and scored 573 for the game. I've scored higher since then, but that one was just so exciting at the time.

I'll always treasure the last game I played against Bob Denn before he passed away. He won, and it was so good to see him forgetting his pain for a moment.

Most excruciating game ever: During the 2006 USSO, I was up by 198 points in a game with Jeremy Cahnmann, and I completely blew it. I played a phoney that he challenged off, I challenged a good word, and then I lost all momentum. I lost by 71 pts.

Highest Scoring Game: 581, against Bob Nellis during the 2004 NSC in New Orleans.

OPPONENTS

First tourney opponent: Some elderly woman named Mary. It was her first tournament, too. I won, but that's all I remember.

Most common opponent: Lisa Slankard.

Most feared opponent: Anyone under age 15.

Your Scrabble "daddy" (someone you've played many times in tourneys and never beaten):
Connie Breitbell. I've only played her 3 times, but I've lost the most ratings points to her.

Whose daddy are you? Daiva Markelis. (She is also the first person I ever played in a club setting - that time she won by a lot.)

Five opponents you like to play:

1. Lisa Slankard
2. Richard Lauder
3. Lila Crotty
4. Andy Bohnsack
5. Joe Gaspard

Five opponents you don't like to play:

1. The woman who reeks of smoke and acts like a 3-year-old when she is behind.
2. The woman who bitches about her tiles right before throwing down a bingo.
3. The guy who sighs heavily before every play, breathing his foul breath across the board.
4. The guy who stops the clock (during club games) to ask me advice on how to get girls to like him.
5. The woman who sticks her hand in the bag and swirls the tiles around loudly for what seems like hours before picking hers.

Five opponents you'd like to play but haven't yet:

All the women rated higher than me. I know, that's WAY more than 5....

You are in the finals in D1 for the 2016 National Scrabble Championship. Who is sitting across from you? Lisa Slankard. (Just going with the odds. We ALWAYS have to play each other in tournaments, and we take turns being the top-rated female in Illinois.)

WORDS

Five words you hope you get to play someday:

AIMLESS
SEISMAL
SAMIELS
MELISMA
NARCISSIST

My new shirt

Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:59:49 GMT

Yay for packages in the mail!

I just got a t-shirt that I ordered from the New Yorker with my favorite cartoon on it.

This could be the start of a whole new wardrobe.

Of mice and children

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 23:18:48 GMT

Most moms would have freaked out at the sight of a mouse running out from under the refrigerator. Especially at the tail end of a party, with guests still there. But not me.

One our guests caught the little creature with his bare hands, and I fetched a container to put it in. We all stared at it for awhile and pronounced it Too Cute to toss outside into the elements. Instead, we gave it a few pieces of food, and decided to buy it a little cage the next day, if it was still looking healthy.

So now we have our eighth pet, joining a cat, two rats, a fish, a snail, and two tarantulas. He (or she?) seems to be happy enough, eating his food and running on his tiny exercise wheel. My daughter named "her" Sugar, and my son named "him" Drake. I haven't been able to hold it long enough to see which of my children chose correctly. Perhaps we'll never know for sure. I'm not even completely sure that it's a mouse - there's a possibility it could be a vole. Whatever it is, I know we'll all be enjoying its company - and I'll be the one cleaning its cage.

Kicking myself

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 00:13:17 GMT

It was nice to get out to play Scrabble this past weekend.

etheridge2 had a great directorial debut, and I did reasonably well in Div. 1, though I probably lost a few ratings points.

I had some really good games, but there's one that's haunting me now: The second to last game of the tournament I was playing Eric Z., who usually beats me. I managed to get a good lead, both the blanks, and proceeded to figure out how to block his bingos. I had a perfect spot to play GYRO to block both of his possible bingo lanes, so I slapped it on the board and hit the clock. At that point, I was feeling REALLY good about the game. But as soon as he turned the board around to face him, I heard him say, "Challenge!" What?? And I looked down and saw that I had put GRYO* on the board. My heart sank. I took it off, not even bothering with the formality of checking the word judge. And then my heart sank even further when he immediately put down a bingo....and then after that a 70-pt. Z-word.

I was so angry at myself. I'm sure that affected my play in the final game, too. (And in that game, I ALMOST hit the clock, but luckily noticed that I had played TE*. Duh.) My final record was 6-7, which was not much below my expectation, but the fact that I had that one game in the bag and then just BLEW it really had me feeling down afterwards.

I suppose I should focus the game I won by 199 pts., and other really great games that I had. I'm going to be so busy this fall, so I don't know when I'll have another chance to play in a tourney and prove to myself that I'm not a complete ditz!!

I AM particularly happy for my clubmate and friend, Lisa Slankard, who had an awesome tournament and took second place! She and I have taken turns winning games against each other in tournaments, but she's been really working hard on her game lately and it shows. Congrats to her, and also to

porosus, who won Div. 2, and probably would have done well in Div. 1 had he played there!

Numbers, números

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:47:43 GMT

Apparently there are some connections lacking in my brain when in comes to numbers and language.

Here is my issue:

I know all the numbers in English.
I know all the numbers in Spanish.
I know my phone number.
When I have to say my phone number in Spanish, I completely forget it, and have to stop, think of it, write it down, and then say it.

What's wrong with me?

Mexico, land of glorious Q words

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 01:11:12 GMT

This is the first time I've been to Mexico since I started playing tournament Scrabble, and since I've recently been studying the Q words, I'm noticing them everywhere I turn.

The smell of grilled corn tortillas wafts from every corner TAQUERIA, and my daughter's meal of choice here is the familiar QUESADILLA - though she much prefers the less flavorful version she gets back home (such a little YANQUI!).   On the way back from our sight-seeing today, we stopped at a convenience store, and I bought a can of what looked like grapefruit soda. Turns out it also contained TEQUILA - and it was quite good, unlike the drink I tried the other day, PULQUE (made from slightly fermented maguey cactus juice, and once described to me as tasting "kind of like puke").

Our hotel is very near the BOSQUE of Chapultepec, a grand park where the castle of Emperor Maximiliano is located. Inside the castle is a museum of Mexican history, and one of the exhibits showcased the costume of a typical VAQUERO, including his CHAQUETA.    Also in the Bosque de Chapultepec is the National Museum of Anthropology, where we saw a beautiful headdress made from QUETZAL feathers, supposedly worn by Moctezuma.

On another excursion, we went to see the famed Diego Rivera murals in the presidential palace, which depict the history of the country from the days of the Aztecs to the arrival of the CONQUISTADOR, Hernan Cortez. In nearly every Diego Rivera mural, one can find a figure resembling his QUERIDA, Frida Kahlo.

Of course, we've had many other experiences here not involving TWL-acceptable Q words! We'll be here for four more full days, and I'll be keeping my eyes open for more.

¡Adiós!

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:15:04 GMT

I'm off to Mexico City!

I've been there many times, but this will be the first time with children in tow, so I'm sure it will be a whole new adventure.

Of course, I'll be checking those Dayton updates whenever I can. Hope everyone who is there is having a great time!

"Ethan" is the new "Jason"

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 04:06:48 GMT

I named my son Ethan, thinking I was being a little bit different. When he was born just over 9 years ago, I didn't personally know anyone with that name. But now it seems like every other kid out is an Ethan.

I went to my Ethan's baseball game this evening, and struck up a conversation with a woman who was the grandma of the "other" Ethan on his team. We heard everyone yelling, "Go Ethan!" and realized that there was yet ANOTHER one on the opposing team!

The people who moved in next door to us have an Ethan the same age, and the neighbor kids call them "Big Ethan" (mine) and "Little Ethan" (theirs).

After my son's swimming lesson last week, I heard his instructor say, "Ready for your lesson, Ethan?" My son looked a little baffled, and the instructor had to clarify: "No, I was talking to the Ethan behind you."

I hear that boys do better psychologically if they have "common" names, so I suppose I should be glad that I didn't get too original. And I'm pretty sure that with such an uncommon last name, he won't get mixed up with other Ethans.

Of course, maybe no matter what I had named him, people would have been so eager to follow in my cool, trendsetting footsteps that he'd still be surrounded by eponymous peers....

Yummmmmm

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:55:45 GMT

Orbit has Mojito-flavored chewing gum now! Simply brilliant.

Maybe if I just chew it instead of drinking, I'll lose a few pounds....

Urbanarama

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:26:54 GMT

The Urbana tournament last weekend was at the spookiest hotel I've ever stayed at. (Someone described it as looking like a Bavarian version of the hotel in "The Shining.") Thank goodness I don't believe in ghosts, or I would never have gotten any sleep!

I fully intended to improve my penmanship during this tournament, but I'm afraid I'm a hopeless case. I could probably go over the chicken scratches on my score sheets to analyze my games, but it seems like so much trouble - although I'm sure that the lack of analysis will keep me from ever becoming a great player.

I was hoping to at least gain some ratings points from the highest seed, a woman with a 1769 rating who hadn't played a tournament for almost 15 years. But, unfortunately, right before I was supposed to play her, her travel companion (whom I had played against earlier) had to be taken to the hospital for heart problems, and both of them had to withdraw from the tournament. Instead of having byes, the director opted to play the opponents of those who withdrew against each other, so I ended up playing the lowest seed, who beat me handily, and then beat me again two games later.

I ended up 5-7, and my rating will drop back below 1600. And my best game of the whole weekend was the one I played after hours (and after two games of poker and four Long Island iced teas....) against Darin True (after he won the poker games)!  Why couldn't I have played like that against him earlier that day?

Congrats to jonbosco for taking first place, and to faithenuff for placing 2nd, even though she wasn't even going to play in Div. 1 until she was asked to play up at nearly the last minute!

I love summer...

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:52:51 GMT

1. How tall are you barefoot? 5"7.5'
2. Have you ever smoked heroin? No.
3. Do you own a gun? Super soaker.
4. Do you play with the ads on the side of the screen? Nope.
5. Do you get nervous before "meeting the parents"? No. But I get nervous having to visit them now.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? Ick. Unless I've roasted my own over a campfire.
7. What's your favorite Christmas song? "Bring the Torch, Janette Isabella"
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee.
9. Can you do push ups? Haven't tried in years. Not gonna start now.
10. Is your bathroom clean? Relative to the one at the local Shell station, yes.
11. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? The earings I got from my aunt & uncle when I was 13. But I lost one.
12. Do you like pain killers? If alcohol is a pain killer, then "yes".
13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex? Cookies.
14. Do you own a knife? Not just any knife - a whole set of Wusthofs.
15. Do you have A.D.H.D? Not at all.
16. Middle Name? Kristine.
17. Favorite number? 23
18. What's your normal bed time? Whenever I get bored with being awake.
19. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink: Coffee, white wine, red wine.
20. What time did you wake up today? 9:15, but only because I had to.
21. Name one person that comes to mind right now? The woman who should be picking up the annoying kid my son has over here.
22. Current worry? That that woman will never show up and we'll be stuck with the kid.
23. Current hate? The annoying kid.
24. Favorite place to be? Hawaii
25. Least favorite place to be? The teachers' lounge (all that bitching....)
26. Is there anyone that you haven't seen in awhile that you want to catch up with? The family I lived with in Germany 20 yrs. ago.
27. Do you own slippers? Yes.
28. What shirt are you wearing? Boring red Eddie Bauer tank I bought 10 yrs. ago.
29. How many people have ever truly ever broken your heart? None.
30. Favorite color(s)? Green.
31. Would you be a pirate? No.
32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink? 3 seconds ago (Cranberry/pomegranate juice w/vodka. Tastes like cough syrup. Not sure why I'm still drinking it.)
33. What songs do you sing in the shower? I hum along to whatever they're playing on Morning Edition on NPR.
34. What did you fear was going to get you in the night as a child? Aliens. Or God.
35. What's in your pockets right now? Nothing. But I should have had some tissues for my daughter when she sneezed up a gob this morning.
36. Is anyone on your mind right now? My husband, who is talking to me.
37. Do you think you get enough exercise? Not at ALL.
38. Worst injury you've ever had? Whatever happened to me during childbirth.
39. If you could cheat on your spouse, would you? If Jon Stewart showed up on my doorstep, you betcha.
40. Who is your loudest friend?karynjon
41. Who is your most silent friend? Karyn. (I don't have nearly enough friends.)
42. Do you have a crush on someone? Karyn.
43. Does someone have a crush on you? Not likely.
44. Do you wish on shooting stars? No.
45. What is your favorite book? The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
46. What is your favorite candy? Kinderuberaschungen (actually, I don't like the chocolate, just the little prize inside)
47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding? We eloped.
48. What song do you want played at your funeral? Whatever people want to hear. Like I'm gonna care at that point.
49. What is one of your favorite quotes? "Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!"
50. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Wishing my husband would stop snoring.

A new Scrabble drug?

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:46:02 GMT

Just saw an ad for a drug called "Lexapro". It says it's for treating depression, but it sure sounds like it might be a good alternative to Zyzzyva! I'll have to discuss it with my physician to see if it's right for me....

Perhaps I'm crazy....

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:44:31 GMT

....but I've decided to start learning low-probability sixes. Not because I think it will help my game, but because they are more fun to learn. And isn't that what it's all about?

Culinary (non)adventures in San Francisco

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:21:05 GMT

I just got back from the Bay Area, where I was attending a teachers' conference on Two-Way Bilingual Immersion (another way to say "Dual Language Class", which is what I teach). I can't complain about much, as public school teachers rarely get sent, all expenses paid, to such incredible locations, but I am a little disappointed about the meals I had while I was there.

San Francisco is such a great food city, but most of my meals were boring hotel conference fare (e.g., roast beef, mashed potatoes, and a side of veggies). I was excited when the group I was with decided to go into the city in the evening - but we ended up spending the entire time on Fisheman's Wharf, and the food we had was not bad, but it was overpriced and uninteresting. The next day, I tried convincing some of my travel companions to go out for sushi, but none of them liked Japanese food. Even the Floating Boat Sushi Bar, where your meal comes floating by on a cute little boat, could not entice them!! I did get a couple people to join me in a hole-in-the-wall dim sum restaurant, which turned out to be delicious, but that was as good as it got.

I thought I'd have a chance for a nice meal on Friday afternoon, as the rest of my group took an earlier flight home, and I was free to wander the area around the hotel by myself. I took a nice walk by the bay, but had no luck finding good restaurants. I resorted to a chain (The Elephant Bar), where I had a mojito and a decent tofu-veggie lettuce wrap appetizer.   I finally got my sushi when I got the the airport. I bought a fresh-enough-looking rainbow roll, some edamame and a bottle of iced green tea and had a nice little meal when I got on the plane.

I did learn a lot at the conference sessions, the weather was absolutely perfect, and I had plenty of time to study my 8s on SuperMemo, so despite the lack of amazing meals, it was still worth the trip!

Finally, some club games!

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:29:59 GMT

I had a Scrabble-ful weekend, thanks to the heat wave. The Chicago club moved back to its not-so-ridiculously-far-away-from-me location for one day on Sunday, because the regular spot has "inadequate air-conditioning." It worked out nicely for me, at least, even if it was inconvenient for some of the regular city Scrabblers.

I went 5-2, and had some really good games. If I could just improve my penmanship, I'd be able to read my score sheets and make a nice list of my brilliant plays. (It sure looks like I played HLMAII for 28 and SILMRED for 74, but I'm pretty sure I didn't....)

The day before, I had a visit from the Reverend Cahnman, aka etheridge2, who was up in my neck of the woods performing a wedding for a couple who were obviously desperate for an officiant for their 7/7/07 marriage. We played a couple games while my husband grilled up some ribs, and then played a couple more after dinner, each going 2-2 for the evening.

It was nice to throw around some tiles in a non-tournament setting for a change, and that will probably be the last real-life practice I get before the Urbana tourney in a couple weeks.

My poker life, thus far

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 23:12:20 GMT

I've got this problem now: I can't seem to lose at poker. Granted, I am not playing the professionals, but I seem to have an incredible amount of luck when I get together and play with friends. My husband, Rob, has already announced that he will not play poker with me again, and says I should just forget this whole Scrabble thing and play a game that could make me some real money. I can't seem to convince him that it's just pure luck - probably because I win everybody's money EVERY SINGLE TIME we play.

I only learned to play the game last fall. My first game of poker was at the Wisconsin Dells Scrabble tourney, and I was already three sheets to the wind (OK, maybe four or five sheets) when I joined in. Jim Kramer and Steph Steele sat behind me and told me what to do with my cards, and I'm pretty sure that etheridge2, who was dealing, was helping me out a little, too. Most of the evening is a little blurry to me, but when I woke up the next morning I had 20 more dollars in my purse than I had started out with, and I've checked with several sources who all assure me that the money was indeed won at poker.

After that, I decided to learn the actual rules to the game, and Rob and I played a few hands now and then. I started joining in when The Guys got out the chips, and I also started pissing them off when I professed to know nothing about the game (really, I didn't!) and then ended up winning the pot. We kept playing with groups of friends, and a couple months back, Rob warned me that people were not going to want to play at our house anymore if I kept taking all their money. He was joking then, but after seeing me win at two different parties just this week, he sounded pretty serious about not wanting to play me anymore.

I'm still convinced that I am just really damn lucky. I'm usually not in my most sober state of mind when I'm playing - and perhaps my opponents are even less so. I'll be humbled soon enough, I'm sure, but in the meantime I'll be counting my piles of cash....

Scrabblemom

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:13:05 GMT

My daughter turned eight last Friday, and one of the gifts she received was a scrapbooking kit. I gave her a stack of photos from the big pile that I plan on organizing someday (ha), and she started cutting and gluing and getting frustrated with the not-so-picture-perfect results. She asked me for help, and I tried, but things didn't look that much better.

"Meghan's mom is really good at scrapbooking, and Mandy's mom is good at scrapbooking!" she whined.

The frustration became contagious, and I snapped back, "Well, I'm sorry that you don't have a talented mom like Meghan or Mandy!"

Then she looked up at me and said, proudly, "But YOU win Scrabble tournaments, and they don't!"

Turns out I'm not such terrible mom to have, after all.

Urbana

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 20:48:16 GMT

Some higher-rated players really need to sign up for the Urbana tourney already. Something is completely off-balance in the universe when *I* am listed as the top player in Div. 1.

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 14:52:30 GMT

Scrabble club is 50+ miles away, tourneys are few and far between, and I've traded in my ISC addiction for an obsession with Zyzzyva, so I'm hoping this LJ thing can satisfy my desire to have some social interaction with other Scrabble players. I probably won't be posting all my interesting game positions or bingo lists (mostly because I can't read my own handwriting on my score sheets), and I'm not one to blog about the minutiae of my daily life, but I'll find something to ramble on about now and then, I'm sure.

I'm glad to see my friends here, and I'm always up for making new ones, so just introduce yourself if I don't already know you!

-Melissa