I am slowly, but surely, falling in love with our house. It’s been such a long (at times completely demoralizing) process. The road ahead still feels so very long. But all I know is I look around at things beginning to take shape, and I feel myself sinking into a happy place I haven’t been able to find for a very long time. 

For instance, today I walked past my dining table. And my first thought was “I have a working dining table.” My second was “…and I can walk past it!” For those who don’t know my last house, it has good square footage, but is broken up into tiny little spaces, as was the way homes were built at the time (to be able to close off rooms to heat as needed). Even a modest dining table doesn’t fit in the dining room, and when we added French doors to have access to our back yard, we turned the dining room into a makeshift office for me for years. This way a table or desk against the wall didn’t block walking to the back doors. 

When we bought our gaming table, it took up a full 1/3 of the living room because we couldn’t use it effectively in the dining room. When in place, it left about 20 inches of space on either side to squeeze by. For a time I even used it as my desk, and we didn’t get to use it at all as a gaming table. That plus low ceilings and small windows, it always has felt a little oppressive, darker than we’d like, and pokey. It’s been a lot of shifting around and making it work. For 21 years. 

I love my old house for so many reasons, and for a young couple—sans pets or kids—in their 20’s, who mostly went out dancing/partying and dined out, it worked fantastically. But as I grew up, my interests changed. Now I am someone who owns three dogs (and fostered more and wants to do it again), loves to cook and entertain large groups, loves epic gaming…that was not ideal.

Now I have the dining/gaming table in the middle of this beautifully spacious great room. I can walk right by it. LIKE WITHOUT SCOOTCHING. Tall ceilings. Expansive windows letting in so much natural light, I don’t even put on lights until the sun starts to set. I can walk right past my dining table into my kitchen, which has an embarrassment of counter space compared to my not-quite 10X10 kitchen at my old house. I used to have to use my stove as prep space because I had about 2 feet square of counter to prep on that wasn’t taken up by drying rack or necessary small appliances.

I’m sure I will discover limitations here. I am sure I will clutter it up in time. It won’t always be this shiny and new. But I look at it and see a culmination of a design process trying to solve so many “problems” we had in our old house and…it’s beautiful.

A tale of adapting a game for its audience.

My little sister is in town and we got to spend a couple hours together with her two young boys at our new house we’re moving into. Right now most of the games are in boxes, and there are mounds of them in the living room. The boys—who are 4 and 6–saw the pile of games and were astounded. I offered to open some boxes and see if I could find a box with games good for their age. They haven’t played much more than Monopoly in their house, my sister told me (I’m gonna fix that!).

I opened the first box, not knowing what was inside… They gasped and grabbed at Marvel Legendary that was right on top. Oops. I tried to explain it wasn’t a great game for them just now, but they would brook no refusal. So I started by pulling out cards to let them look at them, accepting they would make a total mess of our carefully organized box (filled with many expansions, so very full, and very reliant on the dividers. That went out the window immediately.)

“I WANNA BE SPIDER-MAN!” 

“Well, that’s not quite how it works”, I stumbled. 

“OOOOH WOLVERINE! I’m Wolverine!”

I hemmed and hawed, trying to guide them to a different game, but it was a losing battle. So then I decided to embrace the challenge. I excitedly told them they are recruiters for SHIELD, and their job is to assemble a whole TEAM of heroes to battle the villains (so far, a light description of the game). You don’t play any ONE character, you get the PLAY THEM ALL!

I explained the “scratches” were like attack points (one brother kinda gets this, he is JUST getting into the edges of Pokemon), and the stars were like “money for recruiting”. I made up a simple list of rules on the fly about what they could do on their turn, and then I played game master, flipping up a random enemy for them to battle, complete with loud BAMS and BOOMS when they defeated an enemy. I impressed upon them that they had to work together—their first co-op game, awwww!—and they would pool resources to help defeat the villains. They did a great job with that.

As they got more comfortable, and the older one started stopping to read the additional text on the bottom, I introduced a few new rules. Just simple ones that made it feel like the game was getting more complex and the villains more determined to beat them. At the end of every game, they begged for another game. I would rotate a market of heroes for them to recruit, and the villain pile they were trying to get through, keeping the game fresh.

So basically I made up some rules on the fly that made it accessible for kids their age and experience level. And they rocked it! Sure, the youngest was mostly interested in accumulating wealth, and his older brother was doing most of the fighting, but they were both grinning from ear to ear, practicing counting and addition and multiplication. The older brother was starting to ask keen questions about iconography. I feel confident if given a little time with him one on one, I could have had him playing the full rule set. 

In the end, they made me promise when they are in town again that we’ll play it again. “Sure buddy. We have 500 games, though. So maybe next time you will want to play something else.” But I know next time when they ask to play it again (and I am betting they will), we can build toward the full rule set and get them smashing the villains in no time. And in the meantime, I am sending my sister my Geeklists geared toward mixed age family fun.

Have you ever created new rules or modified them for the age or ability of the players? What is a fun memory you have of this for you?

We lost Loki under similar circumstances. He was fine one day, and the next, super lethargic. It was the night before our huge summer party, and we were rushing around trying to get everything done. I remember I “kicked him” (nudged him with my foot, I have never EVER kicked a dog except once when one was attacking my elderly blind pup) to try to get him out of the way, and he wouldn’t move. I looked at Chris and said that something was wrong. Our energetic, eager to please border collie wouldn’t move. I still remember that “kick” and tear up thinking how awful he must have felt for HIM to not be able to respond to my command, even a more forceful one than usual.

We stopped setting up and took him to the emergency vet. We waited and waited. They said it seemed his heart was swollen and they needed to go in to see what was going on. It was going to be hours before they would get him in, and we asked if we could stay, but they told us to go home. I remember Chris hugging him on the floor of the emergency vet and me nudging him to hurry because the vet was standing there waiting on us. I pet our beautiful boy, and told him he was a good boy and we’d see him soon. I still remember looking back, Loki looking confused through the doorway of the surgery and kennel areas as we left him. I am bawling now remembering this was the last time I saw him. Bawling regretting that I rushed Chris trying to love on him for what would be the last time. That I didn’t get on the floor and squeeze him tight before I left. I just walked away, believing he would be okay.

We went home to try to finish prepping for the party. They later called and said they would be keeping him overnight. They found fluid around his heart and would be trying to drain it. We went to bed. At 3am they called and said he had arrested twice already on the table, and if we wanted to come say goodbye, we needed to come now. We were only 10 minutes away, but it was too long. He was already gone.

They let us see him. He was still warm. We both fell to the floor of the large open kennel and hugged and pet and kissed his lifeless body, told him how much we loved him, what a good dog he had been, thanked him for being OUR boy. The next day, we welcomed over 150 people to our house because it was too late to try to cancel. People kept asking where Loki was and we would just shake our head quietly and try not to talk about it. They instantly understood, but had no idea it was less than 16 hours before they arrived. Drink, host, move on. It’s all we could do.

We still keep his ashes, paw print, and collar on our mantle, next to his big sister’s (she died a few years later, almost to the day). He was just the best dog you could hope for. And you never fully get over that loss.

Reading about Rambo passing stirred up all those feels and harsh memories all over again. I know all too well this exact scenario, and it’s only harder on pet parents today who couldn’t even go in with their pet, or come back to say goodbye, due to COVID. A harsh pain on top of an already harsh pain.

Thanks for the memories, Rambo. And thanks for being our Good Boy, Loki.

Today is a day I think of Chris’ awesome Mom, Pat. I loved her, and am often struck by a deep sadness at how little time I got to get to know her before she passed. Pat loved all things from her Irish heritage. She gifted me a coin for in my shoe—in a little pouch embroidered with a shamrock—for my wedding day. She gifted us an Irish poem in a jade green colored frame, for our one year anniversary. She loved cooking for the holiday (well, any holiday), and when I am in the kitchen for special occasions, I often think of her loving preparations for her family. 

Even when she had so little, she was incredibly generous and thoughtful. And she raised two equally generous and thoughtful children, one of which I was blessed to marry, and the other his fierce-but-gentle sister, Stephanie. She gave of herself endlessly, both in physical manifestations as well as in her spirit. 

I think of today as “St Pat’ys Day”. Here’s to you, Mom! Slainte.