Sylvia's Journal

I am playing scrabble on several fronts: via my smart phone with my sister, one game after another, all of which she wins by a huge margin, in any language except Spanish; I also play with my my friend Andrew whose attendance is spotty, and who is not as good as my sister so I may actually win; and then Sita and I each started a game with the other at the same time, making for a tandem game that discloses how late Sita goes to bed.

And then we played real old-fashioned board scrabble – although it wasn’t total traditional as we were all armed with our smart phone app of the Merriam Webster dictionary to make sure the word was OK – that was our convention – which prevented much haggling and horse trading during the game. My sisters’ difficult games are paying off as I am much better versed in the allowable 2 and 3 letter words.

In between scrabble games Sita took us on a hike. With my painful shoulder and ankle I requested a level walk on more or less even terrain. But soon I found myself pulling at twigs and branches as I worked the steep path up the 1000+ ft rock formation that splits Easthampton and beyond from the Connecticut River and the rest of the world. Sita told us it is called the Tofu curtain, setting the five college towns apart from the blue collar world of Holyoke, Springfield and other non tofu towns.

We left western Mass too late for Axel to be seated with beer in hand at the opening of the Super Bowl. He dropped me off – I have no interest in football – and hurried off to the excitement at the house of one of Sita’s inlaw pairs (she has two).

I stayed home, by the fire, watching endless repeats of Downton abbey, after a documentary of British royal weddings – all variations on a theme with enormous ‘piles of bricks’ dominating the scenery at every twist and turn. It’s the ideal setup for finishing knitting projects: two done, countless more to go. Axel returned disappointed with a bag full of leftover Super Bowl food which served us well for a late evening snack and lunch.