Saturday Night Bardelli Style

Under smoke filled skies we played Scrabble all afternoon and until almost midnight last night. There was a lot of laughter and clowning around. It took me back to my childhood and young adulthood as my family was very big into Scrabble. My dad, mom. aunt Gayle, and cousin Jim were hardcore Scrabble players. Many of my other family members were pretty dedicated too. We spent many late evenings playing into the night and sometimes had two boards up and two games going when there were more than five players. (Scrabble is for two to four players but we often played with five). And my Daddy would make a huge pot of his fabulous spaghetti and we'd make pigs of ourselves. We lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and relatives would come all the way from Los Angeles and Sacramento for those spaghetti feeds and Scrabble tournaments. Those were the days!

Unfortunately my mom, dad, and aunt Gayle and others have passed and most of my other Scrabble compadres are living too far away. The last time my brother visited, he and my nephew played with us into the night and boy, did we reminisce. He has many fond memories of those times also.

We took a lot of photos last night and some video footage of our kittens playing with a Linux screen saver. I have to upload and edit it. They kept watching the screen saver and swatting the monitor screen. We didn't have dinner (homemade pizza) until after 11 pm.

Jerry always helps Bruno play as we're teaching him Scrabble skills and Bruno won three games yesterday. Jerry says "I'm beating myself at Scrabble."

I slept in Saturday morning until 10:30 am. I had been up late Friday night with ice packs on my front right side and back trying to calm down my colitis. It seems to have helped although the pain isn't completely gone. Oddly enough, I'm down to 120 pounds (minus two pounds) and body fat 22 percent (about the same). I tend to eat less when I have a flare up but it's likely water loss.

The book on the table I was reading between Scrabble plays is "Eating For Life" by Bill Phillips of Body For Life fame. I found a near new copy at our FISH Thrift shop for $5.00 and as I successfully did BFL back in 2000 I snapped it up. I'm bookmarking it a lot and will review it soon. It seems to be an excellent approach to lose body fat, gain muscle, and get fit.

Now excuse me, I have another Scrabble marathon to attend.

Photos of Scrabble and those smoky skies...

Memorial Day Photos

We enjoyed our three day weekend although it was cold and rainy most of the time. When the rain stopped - briefly - I took some photos of Jerry preparing the ground for the swimming pool. He said if I posted photos of him laying down rugs in the backyard people would laugh. Who cares! Everyone has to know by now we're rednecks. We get lots of free used carpet from the houses he remodels and it's great for weed control under playground equipment and around the swimming pool. And with carpet all over we can walk barefoot from the back deck to the pool.

We also played Horse-oply and Scrabble. It was a fairly relaxing weekend, but I was up late last night - until 10:30 - because the pizza tried to kill me. I had three slices instead of my usual one and a half and about burst. Then I woke up at 5 am and had to catch a couple of kittens and shoo them back in the bathroom. When they're loose they start chewing electrical cords, stereo wires, computer wires, and we have way too many (wires and kittens). I've got to kitten proof the house!

The big puddle in Fury's outer corral is rain water. Jerry said that's more water than when he left the hose on all night. (Hey, mister, the rain water doesn't cost money). And we're on our sixth day of rain, it's turning out to be an unusually very wet May here in Northern Nevada and I LOVE rain.

I'm taking today off. Maybe I'll even take a nap...