Yesterday I hung out with our grandson, N. We went downtown and looked at books, games, and clever Halloween thingies. Then we bought an ungodly amount of french fries which we took back to my house to share with Grandpa. We all watched a game show on Netflix called "Is it Cake?" Later I took N home, and while we waited for his parents to return I taught him the card game solitaire.
My maternal grandfather taught me solitaire about 60 years ago. It was the only time I spent any time alone with him (he had 36 grandchildren), and he was so kind and sweet.
Solitaire seemed like the best card game in the world to me, because you could play it by yourself. You could cheat if you wanted to, and no one would know or care, except you. I quickly realized that winning because I cheated wasn't nearly as exciting as when the random luck of the draw enabled me to win. It was a private learning experience that stayed with me.
Now I've taught my grandchild. I can only hope that in 60 years he'll remember this.
I play solitaire almost every day. I have between 15 and 20 different solitaire fanes that I play regularly. Right now I like Klondike 4 decks. Tomorrow might be a patience game.
ReplyDeleteSweet that you taught your grandson to play solitaire.
ReplyDeleteNow you've got me wondering who taught my father to play solitaire. It was my father who taught me. He came from a strict Lutheran family and as a child he was taught that card-playing was "sinful."
When I was growing up, our family enjoyed all kinds of card games. My parents played Bridge but I never learned how to play.
After my father retired, he always had a deck of cards handy and played solitaire daily. In the last years of his life, my father became convinced that God spoke to him through the game of solitaire. He would ask God a question and God would answer, "Yes," "No," or "No Comment." My father's questions were of a religious nature. He kept a record of God's responses. Interesting, the part cards played in his life. I'm guessing he played solitaire up until the day he died in 2003.
That is SO interesting.
DeleteMy granny was very keen on card games and knew dozens of them. She taught me a few but sadly I've forgotten them all except patience/solitaire which I can still manage.
ReplyDeleteYes! I was taught to play solitaire by my grandmother, too.
ReplyDeleteMom taught us how to play solitaire. Wonderful game. And a two people solitaire, Russian Bank. I've taught many people how to play that game.
ReplyDeleteI play solitaire everyday but on the computer. There are many different kinds of solitaire and I enjoy quite a few of them! I can waste a LOT of time doing this. I don't think I have played solitaire with actual cards for years now... That was a nice moment to share with your grandson.
ReplyDeleteHe will. I still remember when my great aunt taught me the card game War! I can't remember where I learned solitaire, though.
ReplyDeleteWe play War with him, too.
DeleteOnce one had to shuffle the cards and lay them out manually. Now a quick click does anything and everything. I've been doing it for years to the point where fragments of my brain have migrated from my noggin down into my finger-tips and it's hard to detect any sort of intellectual intervention. Without this asset it's doubtful whether I'd not have simply keeled over and snuffed it in one or another of the myriad NHS waiting rooms I've occupied since July 2021. Oh that it had been available on three seemingly endless flights to and from New Zealand two decades ago.
ReplyDeleteI have yet to find an online solitaire app I like. They all seem. Do you have a recommendation?
DeleteWas going to ask where you stood relative to Milton (sounds such a feeble sort of entity - a bit like Milquetoast) but am glad to hear you appear to have done all that you could. Bonne chance.
ReplyDeleteAm baffled by "... online solitaire I like" My priorities are (1) No ads; pretty hard to find; mine's called Classic. (2) Must offer Klondike option - ie, turning over three cards not singles. (3) Simple record-keeping.
One further reason for giving Tone Deaf the chop was to see if I could devote myself entirely to resurrecting my novel Rictangular Lenses, stuck at 56,000 words for several years. I'm glad to say this has happened.
This is how Chapter Twelve starts:
IT RAINED heavily at the Ascot National Hunt meeting, causing Lindsay to wonder why she’d accepted this Saturday freebie in the first place; the guest of a fledgling accountancy software company whose packages were six years out of date by McLeod standards. After all, hadn’t she always thought of horses as beautifully stupid?
And wasn’t being here unavoidable proof that her rare leisure outings tended to be ad hoc and governed by whatever was available at a few hours’ notice? None of them planned and often of marginal interest.
● Ascot (often referred to as Royal Ascot) is a lush horse-race circuit much patronised by our late Queen. National Hunt racing occurs during the winter months and has the horses jumping over barriers as well as racing conventionally. Fairly high level of horse mortality. Not my kind of sport but one doesn't always write novels about the things one likes.