Having been up way too late Friday night, we all slept in on Saturday but once we were up, it was straight to work.  I started out by touching up the dining room and painting the baseboards white.  While I did that, Megan and Josie moved the living room furniture, covered it, spread the dropcloths and began painting the living room.

Milk chocolate looks great on the walls.

The living room is enormous so it took all day to paint it.  We did the chocolate (the color is actually much lighter than milk chocolate; it's more like hot cocoa) on three walls and the lighter shade on the window wall and the archway.  There's a built in nook with shelves for vases or statuary near the foyer and we painted the inside of that light too, so as to make it pop.  the two shades of brown are close so they don't scream "Look!!  I'm a different color!!" but just emphasize some of the architectural details, which you couldn't even see before because the whole house was painted the same color.

While we were doing this inside, Ty was out mowing the pasture.  Even with a riding mower, you don't do all five acres at once. 

Later on, when we'd finally finished the living room, we were ready to go swimming so we went to the home of some friends; T and K, who have a pool.  They were kind enough to barbecue for us too and we had a great time. T's dad and K's mom live with them and they have a four year old daughter who was fun to play with in the pool.

We brought our travel scrabble game but when we asked our hosts if they liked scrabble, K's mom, S pulled out her titanium Diamond Edition Scrabble board and we used that.

T laughed at us and called S a 'ringer' and warned us that we didn't stand a chance as she set up her beautiful Scrabble game.

I want a Diamond Edition Scrabble case.

Ty won the letter draw and began with the word HAY for 18 points.  S said "good job!" and I don't know if she was being condescending or sarcastic. 

The first word S used was "Ciao".

Now, at our house, no foreign words are accepted.  None.

We were not at our house.

We all know enough about house rules not to quibble.  No way was I gonna challenge S in her own house.

Then she used "vin" as in Vehicle Identification Number.  During the course of the game she used AR (the letter R) and TI ( la, ti, do).

We don't allow initials or abbreviations at the Pivec house, either.  Katie is still bitter that I let Jay use TUX once because it has it's own entry in the Oxford dictionary. 

We were not at the Pivec house.

At this point, I slammed my second beer and thought "It is SO on."

S was the best I've ever seen at making not only two but three or four words at once.  That's easier to do when you accept the Official Scrabble Dictionary, which is banned at our house because too many bogus words are in it and not enough actual words, but I certainly can't say the Official game dictionary shouldn't be used.

It's just not used at our house, where we WERE NOT PLAYING.

During the second round of the game, Tyler and I just started slamming beers.  I was at the far end of the table, which was poolside with an umbrella, so I couldn't even see the board until I stood up and leaned across the table for my turn.  Even if I had ever wanted to challenge S (which I was NOT GOING TO DO), I never saw what she played until after Megan and Josie's turn (they were partners) when it was too late.

The only premium letter I got was X but I managed to use it with WAX on a double letter score for 26 then again on my next turn when I added a Y to it.

It was a really good, open board and even with lame letters I managed to score at least 15 on every turn.  Tyler blew us all out of the water with KAZOO on a triple letter score.

By the time the game was over, I was drunk, Ty had moved on to whiskey and S was apparently kind of pissed that we smoked her. I don't think she played a single word bigger than four letters.(Exept CIAO).  She went in the house and wouldn't come out to eat with us.

She's lucky Katie wasn't here.  Katie would've quit playing after one of Sandy's foreign words but not before taking the 50 point bonus by slamming all seven letters on a triple word score.  The best game I was ever in, both Katie and I got that 50 point bonus.  She beat me.

Sa may be a ringer but she'd never played with us before.

I guess she told T that she suspected that Ty only won because the rest of us set him up.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!

She's obviously never seen us play anything before. Anyway, she had no excuse for why I beat her, too.

T's dad was a stitch!   Viet Nam vet with lots of great stories.

After dinner, which was really delicious, we drove into Austin to watch the bats.  Under the Congress Ave bridge, there are apparently millions of bats which fly out enmasse at dusk.  It's a popular attraction so we joined the throng on the bridge and waited.  The bats decided to dribble out a few dozen at a time so it was an underwhelming spectacle last night but we went to Amy's Ice cream afterwards so the trip into town was thoroughly appreciated.

The house looks so good it's ridiculous.  They need some art for their giant walls and tomorrow, I'm going to paint them some.

 

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