Games People Play...and a Giveaway!

Long ago I realized I wasn’t any good at sports. I played tennis in high school for a season, but I might as well have closed my eyes and swung at the ball. My vision was that bad and I didn’t get contact lenses until the next year. I didn’t know who the cute seniors were for all my freshman year because they were always too far away to identify!

Surfer Guy and his family are very athletic. Both his parents were high school coaches and PE teachers. Surfer Guy, his brother, and my sister-in-law (brother-in-law’s wife) all had athletic scholarships in college. After I married into this family I got by on my skills in cookie-baking and doing stuff like babysitting the grandchildren while everyone else went out and did stuff with balls.

There were still other hours to fill when I was with the in-laws and I was gratified to find I was good at Trivial Pursuit. These people don’t know as much trivia as me (though they can clean my clock on science and sports junk, natch). And hey, I found I could hold my own when it was Chutes & Ladders with the kids. But I still had a secret talent, I told myself. I was pretty darn good at other adult games. Gin Rummy. Hearts.

Well, heck no. Surfer Guy and Surfer Brother can clean my clock at that too! They remember when the aces have all been played. That kind of thing. When I win, it’s by sheer luck. For a long time my husband, his brother, my sister-in-law, and I all talked about learning to play bridge from my mother-in-law, but the Surfer Bros. say they know enough to fake it--which means I’d be left in the dust. Again.

Wonderful author Eloisa James will be joining us next Wednesday to talk about her latest book, When the Duke Returns, part of her current series of Georgian romances which includes the game of chess as a central element. I remember my dad and my brother playing that game when I was a kid. I don’t know why I didn’t learn. But when Surfer Guy started teaching our sons to play, I decided I would pay attention. We have a set on the ledge of the hot tub by our pool and we’d sit there on Friday nights in the steaming water and they’d play.

I started playing too. How hard could it be to beat a 7-year-old (or at least hold my own)?

You know the answer. I’m just not good at games! I can’t remember the moves of the horse or the castle or the queen, and when the little kid is rolling his eyes in frustration…well, you give up. Have me read a story, tell a story, make a costume, bake a cookie, then I’m your woman. But games…I need to stick with Chutes & Ladders and the Arts & Literature category of Trivial Pursuit.

Are you expert in a game or sport? Or just enjoy one or more? Share! One lucky commenter will win an Advance Reader Copy of When the Duke Returns by Eloisa James. Come back next Wednesday too, when she’ll answer my piercing questions and we’ll have more giveaways!