I Hate scrabble!

I'm sorry to anyone reading this who loves it.

It's been about a week since I'm back from tour, and a week and 2 days since Lynette's accident.

It's WAY cold, and TONS of snow! (see picture of our back-yard: just taken an hr ago.)

Back yard... early morning... today.

We're still dealing with day to day untangling from the accident.

There's also a fair amount of anger and the frustration.

I've been helping with the small 'run and grabs,' pick-ups and stuff, also the rental and return of a car, and generally being available for whatever.

The 'high of survival' has worn off.

Turns out that the insurance we have, IS supposed to cover property as well as medical when the other driver is uninsured...but it's taken a lawyer to let us know about this, and now will also need a lawyer to help us convince the insurance company to admit it. (a meeting with this lawyer happens at noon today, a friend of a friend.)

In the mean time, we've paid for everything so far out of pocket... the impound lot's fees and towing charge, (just so we could get to the car and recover what's inside... )

It's still accruing daily fees since, so there will be other payments needed till we can either have it crushed, or sell it for parts to someone.

The rental of a car for a week was expensive, (perhaps I shouldn't have agreed to their basic insurance package?) - Happy, we're past needing that, now that Lynette is just able to crawl up into the band-van for rides... but still needing help getting back out.

Surface driving in the van sucks gas.

And I've always hated scrabble.

Lynette knows this... and thinks I'm just mean about it.

(She loves it.)

It's really not the game.

And I've never really explored why I hate it till just a few days ago.

We had friends over for an 'in-house' - 'night out.' (Lynette still not up for too much time on her broken ankle, and also the troubles with getting around on crutches.)

Scrabble was the game of choice... (though I was outnumbered, and also, I'd felt guilty about not liking it for so long, keeping Lynette from playing it...)

With Lynette's insistence, (her being the 'sick-girl,') it was decided that the two couples would make up the two teams.

Lynette is an english professor.

Words are second nature to her.

I, on the other hand, am hard pressed to come up with a 2 or 3 letter word from the tiny blocks set in front of me.

I don't want to go way into the night's game, as that's not really the point of this blog... So I'll cut to the chase:

* I drifted away from the game...

* Lynette scored highest,

* There' was spilt wine.

- (ps On this... my laptop seems fine, though its looking very 'well loved' now.)

* The game ended.

But here.

I discovered why I hate the game so much... It's memories.

I spend about 3 years in special education classes: 2nd grade, 3rd grade (which I almost failed,) & 4th if I am remembering correctly.

In 3rd grade, I stopped doing my work... I was part of an experimental era of grade school teaching. We were on our own to test ourselves, do the assignments, etc... I figured out how to work around it all, and just quit.

I drew, played games etc... for most of the year, until it was discovered.

The 'whole-spelling' type of spelling technique I was taught... (remembering the full word shapes?? or something like that?) as opposed to phonics, caused me to fail miserably in spelling.

The results became more apparent in 4th grade when 8 or 9 words out of a 10 word spelling list, would be misspelled by me.

The teacher, I'm sure now, in an attempt to encourage my motivation, would hold it up in front of the class for ridicule... that, of course, only made me want to leave. It never sparked a self motivational fire in me.

As it is now... I am bound to spellcheck... and only recently have I begun to explore writing as a way to pull the crazy life impressions out of my head out. (I think also writing music all these years, and working with lyrics has also helped me get beyond a fear of words.)

Scrabble? Suddenly I'm back in 4th grade.

Who knew?... but there it is.

I've also discovered (or should I say re-discovered,) that neither Lynette nor I are good under stress when we're together.

You know how after a while, couples can press each other's buttons? without even trying? - I know... there are 'good buttons' of course... but I'm talking about the 'bad buttons.' here!

Well, we're constantly pushing them!

We'll be fine... so don't worry..., it's just how it works.

It makes troubles, more troublesome.

But we always get through it... (Lynette sez it's helpful for my songwriting ;)

OK,

So, enough for a second blog posting... and I suppose, (now that I know,) I may give scrabble another try at some point... but forgive me if I drift away after a time.

-Venus