Words over Words With Friends

I consider myself a pretty good Scrabble player when I can get a game up.
Marc and I play anytime we go anywhere on an airplane (and we know how often that is) and we're both fairly competitive. We routinely break 300 points.
We both work with words and so it follows that wherever we go, other Scrabble players tremble...well, maybe that's putting it a little strong.

But when we were asked to join "Words With Friends" on our phone and computer we nodded humbly.
"Sure, we would like to do that," we said.
Yesterday, I signed up with five people and jumped right in.
I'm playing my daughter, and my step-daughter and my son and my grandson and Marc.
Things were going along great, for a while.
Then my son in England played a 59-point word.
What? 59 points is a lot.
I looked carefully at his word, "agenetic."
How did he know that word? I know he's going to college now to learn to make phone apps so maybe he learned it there.
I played my turn, using my "j" and waited for the impressed reaction.
"Haj" was his entry for something like 43 points, using my "j."
What? Where did that come from?
I chatted him, lightly accusing him of playing open-book Scrabble and shopping for words and lucking out.
"That's the only way I can play this game," he said.
Then I got a return play from Marc in the game we had going. He placed the word "mor" in a space that netted him more than 40 points.
I know that "mor" is not a word we both know and use.
I called him. "Since when is "mor" a word?" I asked heatedly.
He finally admitted to trying a few things and being surprised when the game accepted his word.
I told him that was cheating. He said "All's fair in Words With Friends"  because it's not regulation Scrabble. For instance, the triple word spaces are in different places and the board is laid out differently.
I'm ticked and uncertain as to how to proceed. And now I'm hearing something about "Words With Friends Cheats." (Don't think of it as cheating but as a way of playing smarter? Whaaaaat?")
I'm suspecting that if we keep at this, it may lead to actual words with friends, words I might regret.

We own property

A while ago, maybe a couple of years after we bought our house, we started getting phone calls from a lady who said we had some of her property, something about 1-2 feet of our backyard that was pesky to her.
She said she would sign a Quit-Claim deed giving us legal rights to her property if we could just find the time to stop by.
Since we didn't really understand what she was asking and since one of us (who could it be?) isn't really into detail or follow-up, we basically blew her off.
The years went by and every so often as I drove by this lady's house, I would think perhaps we ought to take care of the situation.
Then I heard she died and I figured that was the end of that.
However, recently we got this little note in the mail from the county tax adjustor.
He wants to know who might be willing to pay the taxes on this little bit of property that lies between us and the guy behind us.
It's a one-foot strip that runs along the back edge for about 75 feet and apparently it was to have been included when the developer laid out the subdivision and it never was.
Nobody paid taxes on this little linear piece and now the county wants about $200 in back taxes.
If no one pays the back taxes, it goes on the auction block.
Now we realize we should have paid better attention and sealed the deal while it was easy.
We don't want to pay $200 for something that basically should have been ours to begin with but I guess we owe it.
It's also possible that someone somewhere might buy it just to be mean and make us move our fence or build a hideous wall on our 12 inches.
It's a conundrum as to what to do.
We don't know what the good thing is here. It seems silly to pay money we don't need to pay but we like to think of ourselves as law-abiding citizens.
We're doing some research, thinking it through. 
And, as we went about looking up the parcel on-line we found a bunch of our neighbors had similar tiny plots of unusable real estate.
It doesn't feel like our problem and yet, I can see where it might become one.
I'm think maybe I'll call around and see who's up for a storming of City Hall.

Coming 'round the mountain

the sign says it all

Since I had apparently picked up something viral or at the very least physically uncomfortable, we decided to make a beeline for home from the Grand Canyon.
I was coughing every 5-10 seconds and hungry with no appetite for anything.
I wanted my own bed and kitchen.
So Marc decided to try a shortcut to get us from the lower south rim back to American Fork faster.
We cut out a loop over to Kanab to a museum we were going to peruse and lined up the quickest route on the Google GPS.
It showed a clean shot through Monument Valley that we liked.
However, it came with a warning: "Be aware, 10 % grade ahead next 3 miles, steep curves, gravel surface."
Didn't sound good but the part of the road we were currently on looked fine. We looked ahead and could only see road and the huge monument of colorful impenetrable stone.
Maybe the sign was old.
Or maybe the road cut through where we couldn't see.
How bad could it be?

encouraging news — notice the road mid-picture downside

We forged on.
I kidded Marc a bit about the last time we did something like this and tipped our gas tank to the tune of $1300.
He assured me THIS car could take whatever the road could dish out.
We motored on, now noticing that there were no other cars on the road.
The elevation started to change. We realized we were climbing the side of the mountain to the top.
Now it turned to gravel and washboard.
The turns were blind switchbacks with room for one car at a time.

an aerial view

We started to hang on tighter as we drove on and up. We were literally going up and over the red rock butte. The view from the SkyBridge in the canyon had nothing on this.
We were looking straight down.
I was gripping the car door handle for dear life like it would help.
Suddenly a big old gas truck came the other way, fortunately passing at a rare place wide enough to allow it.
That at least told us it was possible to get to the other side of this road which we eventually managed.
It's one of those "makes a great story" moments that I do not intend repeating.
If you want to, it's called the Mokee Dugway on Utah Highway 261 between Monument Valley and Torrey. I don't recommend it.

Pennies from heaven

So I'm checking our checking account as I usually do on a daily basis so I can keep ahead of the money coming in and going out.
The total was $2,500 higher than it was yesterday and it wasn't payday and I wasn't expecting any remunerations from any of my freelance clients.
I quickly checked the date. Nope, nothing anticipated today.
Tax refund money had already come in and been spent.
Maybe somebody gave us a gift?
Perhaps we were getting a rebate on our phone or TV service...we have been haggling with both services for a while trying to get the price down to what we agreed upon.
Maybe a gangster was parking his winnings in our account?
I called Marc.
He wasn't expecting any money and it was not from the company he works for, similar name but not the same.
He went off to do some investigation.
Turns out that a company Xactware was working with to place advertisements had inadvertently paid Marc for the space rather than the proper entity.
They would like their money back, please.
It was very much like the time we closed a loan for our house 20-odd years ago.
We settled up.
The realtor handed us an envelope and we walked out only to realize a few moments later that they had made the check for the payoff (of about $50,000) to us.
There was a momentary thrill.
Think of all the things we could do with that money.
Even if it was a mistake, maybe they wouldn't notice...
Of course, we straightened up and went right back in with the check to point out their error to them and they were pretty grateful. It saved them some stress.
And I know we did the right thing. We couldn't have kept the money. It would not have been honest and would be akin to robbing a bank...very much the same, actually.
It felt good to be honest.
Putt dang.

Family fun

The motley crew

We just survived a family party for my brother and father and it's going to make a great memory.
Not that survived is really the right word.
It was good to get together. We renewed family bonds and we made my  90-year-old dad happy even though his actual 90th birthday is still months away.
It worked like this: My brother who lives in Iowa with his wife and daughter decided to come to Utah for his 60th birthday so it evolved into a double celebration, a 60/90 event.

Twin birthday boys

All four of us would be together and it would be fun.
It was also a bit of work trying to make it all come together.
My dad is in the Legacy Retirement Center so we decided to have one party there to eliminate dragging he and his wife out into the cold and back.
We decided to have an outdoor picnic for the children's children and their children so as to eliminate breakage and disaster. (Try to imagine 20-25 little kids running through the old people's place with cupcakes in hand).
One event depended heavily on the weather while the other meant I had to think outside the kitchen. The room we reserved is usually a room used for Bingo and church. There's no running water, refrigeration or cooking equipment. So everything we ate or used had to be brought in and up.
I started making lists two months ahead — just ask Marc — and debating the questions.
How much would be enough? How much was too much? Paper or plastic? Utensils or fingers?
For the picnic, were we looking at rain and cold wind? Sunshine and crowds?
Ultimately it all went along pretty well.

A rocket scientist breaking in

We only had two minor disasters.
The $22 worth of balloons I had cafefully ordered in crazy colors loosed themselves from the hitching post at the picnic (Marc was in charge of tying them up) and took off into the sky (the kids loved it!)
The gift my brother brought for my other brother took a hammer, a chisel and a blow torch to break open.
And, oh yes, the song we wanted to sing for my father proved to be a mighty vocal challenge...but that's another blog in itself.
Anyway, it's over now, tucked away in the memory banks, something to talk about in years to come.
No one was hurt. No fist fights broke out and everyone's back in their happy homes.
Whew!!

Geek the verb

Normally, I have a problem with words misused, misunderstood or mispelled.
Having spent most of my life working with words, writing them, editing them, trying to find the right one for the sentence or event, I'm particularly sensitive to using words correctly.
My mother was the same way. She hated commercials and billboards that used "lite" for light and "nite" for night, etc.
She was a proofreader by nature and she worried about the future of the world if people didn't bother to treat the English language with respect.
So when I first learned about the "Geekthelibrary" program, I was slow to warm to it.
Not only did this program ask people to regard "geek" as a verb — rather than the noun it actually is — but all the words are runtogetherlikethis.

Kirsty Stalder on one of our posters

I sat back with my arms folded as I listened to our city librarian try to explain that this venture engages people and might be worth using to help our library. "Geekthelibrary" helps people recognize the library as a multi-faceted facility with something to offer everybody, no matter what their interest.
Working with a mega-grant from Bill and Melinda Gates, the Geekthelibrary people introduce libraries to new ways to increase awareness and to create broad support. They supply ideas and start-up materials if we agree to take the ideas and run with them.
Hopefully, the increased awareness leads to increased moral and much-needed financial support for libraries that are losing ground in this changing world.
Eventually I began to see that people who "geek" libraries understand that a good, well-equipped, well-stocked library is a resource not only for lovers of fiction, romance and mystery but it can provide direction, answers, technical assistance and valuable support for everything from finding a new job to figuring out new ways to enrich one's world.
I see where geeks become a positive force as they immerse themselves into opportunities and challenge the norm.
Along the way, they improve the world around them in fresh, new ways.
I now "geek" where I haven't geeked before. 
Come find out how it works at the Geekthelibrary Launch event at the library Tuesday, April 16th from 7-8 p.m. Listen to the local blue-grass band "Stringshot" and have some refreshment.
You can even volunteer to be on one of our posters (shot by Mark Bowers of Bowers Photography).
I geek it.

Invisible man

Marc has the lead for the play that's opening this week for the Lehi Arts Council.
He plays the grandpa of a crazy family, a grandpa who won't pay his taxes in "You Can't Take It With You."
And although I generally resist seeing community theater in dress rehearsal, I agreed to go to this one because it lent sort of a train-wreck appeal.
The entire cast has been off most of the week and two leading characters were still gone.
The director had gamely decided to go ahead with a split rehearsal on General Conference Saturday and put the show on with only MOST of the cast present. (Alice and Mr. Kirby were both out of town and trying frantically to get back in time.)
I didn't see how I could miss this.
It started at 8:30 p.m. after the priesthood session of conference and it was free since it wasn't really ready for an audience.
I went with reservations, chuckled when the director explained the situation and said we could all get our money back if we were unhappy with the performance.
I waited for a disaster.
However, I was pleasantly surprised.
The show is a classic and the dialogue holds up well even after, what, 60-odd years?
The characters were funny, warm, and the timing — despite having to rely on someone off-stage to read the missing Mr. Kirby's lines — was spot on.
Alice showed up in the nick of time, not the least bit flustered. Marc does a nice job and walks like a real old man, having watched my 90-year-old dad closely for the past few weeks.
It was also somewhat interesting to see all the characters looking at and talking to an invisible man.

Marc getting a hug

It made the audience pay better attention, I think.
And we all had to envision a "Mr. Kirby" so he fit the part perfectly, right?
I'm almost wondering if someone ought to write a play featuring the missing guy...could be quite the show.
If you want to see "You Can't Take It With You," it plays through the week and Monday the 15th at 7:30 at the Lehi Arts Center at 685 N. Center. I think tickets are about $5.
And that's for a full cast.