Mah Jong Time

Photo:  Craig Rumpel

A few of my sister’s friends, ensconced in communities bereft of mah jong players, often play online.  Although I don’t personally participate to this type of game, last night I came close…on Facebook.

It all started when my friend Scott, still home in Houston following Thanksgiving, posted this as his status update:  coming soon: www.overheardatmahjong.org.  (Don't try to click on this faux link...Scott made it up!)

In Facebook comments among Scott and his friends, the following conversation ensued:

JanetheWriter:  Hmmm...should I be afraid?!?

Scott:  I am upstairs at my parents’ doing work and it's mah jong night downstairs!

JanetheWriter:  Three bam!

Mike (Does he really play or just listen from upstairs?!):  Four crack. Two dot. FLOWER!

JanetheWriter:  Mahj!

Bananagrams Shabbat

I may not have time to write much these days, but I did manage to find a bit of time to relax and unwind with words last night.

Check out my finished Bananagrams puzzle, which uses every single one of the game's 144 tiles:

I'm addicted!

Sunday Dinner

We Hermans are an old-fashioned family. After more than four decades, we still enjoy being together and we do it as often as possible. These days, it’s often over Sunday dinner – although not every week – at my sister’s apartment.

Here are some photos from our afternoon together today:

In addition to a scrumptious homemade meal prepared by Amy (spinach salad, lasagna, apple brown Betty with lowfat frozen vanilla yogurt and coffee perked in a 1956 copper percolator that was a second anniversary gift to my parents from my grandparents), today’s activities – as they often do – included tossing the football with six-year-old Ian, listening to his corny knock-knock jokes and playing a game. (Fast forward about 70 years from the Great Depression, subtract a few kids and grandkids and it’s the Waltons ala 21st century, with me playing the role of John-Boy, the chronicler of family tales.)

Bananagrams was today’s game and it was a hit with everyone, even Ian, who paired up with his mommy to play. It appears that we all were evenly matched, and each person won at least one round. Here’s my winning hand:

Like I said, we Hermans are an old-fashioned family, and today was an old-fashioned kind of day. And, although I’m not ready to go cold turkey on the email or totally forgo the iPod, there is definitely something to be said for simple, family time.

Mah Jongg Mavens

Check out this article from today’s New York Times.

On Martin Luther King Day, my sister and a friend joined the mah jongg mavens at the East River Café for a chance to clack some tiles--cracks, bams, dots winds and dragons—to munch some M&Ms, and, with a bit of luck and some careful strategy, to win small change.

Indeed, Amy and I both came to mah jongg, as the story suggests, through the set that belonged to our maternal grandmother. It’s mine by inheritance, but has taken up residence at my sister’s apartment because she recently taught some colleagues and friends to play and, at the moment, she’s the one who plays more often.

I’m hopeful that’ll change in the near future and that soon enough, I’ll be clacking tiles, munching M&Ms and, with a bit of luck and some careful strategy, winning some small change from my own set of mah jong mavens.

Mahj anyone?

Games Galore!

Every so often, friends and I get together to play mah jongg. Although a few of us use our grandmothers’ sets – and feel close to them when we do – we’ve definitely put our own spin on the tile clacking game, often adding Chinese food delivery (and sometimes margaritas) to the mix of bams and cracks, winds and dragons.

Last night, we played a number of hands, many of which were won by my sister. It was, however, the second game I’d played during the day – and wouldn't be the last (or even the penultimate one). The first was Bananagrams -- a wonderfully fast-paced word game that marries Scrabble together with Boggle and the comic page’s word Jumble – to which I was introduced at friends' “tacky holiday sweater” brunch yesterday morning.

As we were about to call it a night, my sister excitedly showed us Doodle Dice, a game for ages six to adult that she’d gotten for my nephew for Hanukkah. Before we knew it, we were tossing the dice and using them to try to create the stick figure pictures shown on the cards in the game’s “gallery.” When Doodle Dice ended with one of us a winner (having collected one each of the different color cards from the gallery), my sister, now on a roll, innocently asked the Midwesterner among us if she knew how to play euchre. After a quick tutorial, we were once again playing a game -- this time dealing cards, designating trump suits and collecting tricks.

Euchre? Bananagrams? Mah jongg? Doodle Dice? I’m game…