Puzzles and People
It is interesting to me how some people love to do puzzles, jigsaw, crossword, jumbles, sudoku, etc. and others do not. I am a puzzler. I love to do all kinds of mentally challenging games especially puzzles. I have a method to my puzzling, particularly jigsaw puzzles. I admit that I like ones which are 300 to 500 pieces, although, every once and awhile I do like the challenge of a 1000-piecer. The only problem is the larger ones take forever to lay out with tremoring hands. I stick to smaller puzzles and I am able to complete them within a reasonable amount of time so we get to eat at the table again.
My husband does not enjoy completing puzzles or playing games. Why, I wonder? What happened in his past to make him shy away from the extraordinary glee you can get from finishing off those final few pieces in your autumn-scene puzzle? Something must have gone terribly wrong with his experiences in the world of puzzling.
Thank heaven, I do not have the same aversion to gaming. I love to pull out a game and spend the evening with the family trying to guess the charade. Is it a book or movie or tv show? l also enjoy the games of chance like Yahtzee. But my favorite games are those where luck and skill collide and lead to racking the brain and crossing the fingers. For the most part, I actually play those type of games online now that my kids are grown and my husband has game-a-phobia. Monopoly and Scrabble are my go-to games to play on my iPhone and iPad. I play against a computer which only beats me a small percetage of the time. Of course, this may be due to the fact that I set the skill level at intermediate, but never advance. I have the uncanny desire to win even if there is no one to tell, including my computer opponent.
The one game that continues to truly hit at my competitive core is chess. My son set me up to play online chess with skill-matched opponents and all I need to do is invite them. I know nothing about the player and vice a versa. It is a little weird to participate in a game that may take several days to play and yet I only know the names they posted as their players’ handle. The only stipulation I post when I invite a new player is that they are from this country so we’re in the same relative time zone. I tried going international, but I would receive a “ding” on my phone at 3:30 in the morning only to learn a pawn took my queen. Ouch.
There are active games where people go to Escape Chambers and team up with family and friends to outwit one another to get through a kinda maze. The team who gets through first, wins. Then there are the good board games, like Parcheesi and Life that are great fun, but require other people to commit to play, you can’t do these on your own. And, of course, there are tons of card games. Some of these require one, two, three or more players and include various levels of complexity and focus. And there is always Solitaire where you and a deck of cards can go at it or just go online and find variations of Solitaire games with interesting colors and prints on the backside of the computerized cards. Phew, there are lots of choices for those who just want to have fun! Did I mention I like puzzles?!
