Go to Jail. Go Directly to Jail.

Remember the Un-Game, Lola? The game where there were no losers, no winners, just families having fun? It was about as much fun as the bi-weekly family meetings that Mom and Dad conducted in the living room. For some reason, whenever I saw that box, I wanted to crawl under my bed and test that theory about dust bunnies. Nothing ever good came out of it, not even the self esteem or family togetherness it was supposed to bring. Now in the Frequent Flyer's family, it was do or die, kill or by killed, monopolize or go for broke. Even Betty and Veronica weren't safe as they had to earn their wins legitimately from the King - their pop-pop.

Which brings us to tonight. The Frequent Flyer is out of town, so Betty and Veronica decided that a "friendly" game of Monopoly might be in order. I should have been a little leery when the game of catch in my classroom ended in Betty beaning Veronica is the face with the stress ball. Ah, Monopoly . . . the game where we normally have four people to handle the financial burden of one person's, well, monopoly. I normally go for the oranges and the reds, but this time, I was short one orange but had one or two of a color each Betty and Veronica needed. And, I kept landing in jail. Not just one or two times but eight times and I never passed Go. I think the 100 pound notes (yup, it is the British version that Mom got me for my birthday many years ago) got mixed up with the 500 pound notes so I was doing moderately okay when the worst thing happened: Veronica landed on the last orange piece that I needed so I made a deal - the yellow I had for the orange plus amnesty until she developed any houses on the yellows. Bad move. I couldn't even put any houses on my properties because I was so nervous of hitting any of Veronica's properties with hotels. That little imp had hotels up in three turns. We didn't stand a chance. Betty, who before had been alluding to Veronica's property as being developed with blood money, went down first and I finally cashed it in quickly after she left for her room. At least with the Un-Game there was the off chance that the Other Sister would be the first one to cry or the Bro would get in trouble.



Say hello to the chevron hand towel. Every quick knit I find really isn't that quick. Oh, sure, it's only a repeat of 12 rows, 26 times, but there is something about performing the same 12 rows over and over. Stockinette stitch for row after row doesn't even register in my brain any more because it is the crux of knitting but memorizing the pattern and performing those specific stitches seems to take more time. I only hope this doesn't become the pattern that I dread completing since I have two more to make after this one. At least Target has some cheery sock monkey sheets to make the time pass.

Enjoy your retreat! I guess you are entitled to the massage after the last weekend. If you haven't already picked up Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics, you need to run out and get it now. Disc two is fun but kind of kitschy; disc one is simply a thing of wonder. Rock on!

Ava

PS - I'll check on flight prices for you, but it might be something that you would have to purchase the week of the flight. Sometimes the cheapest ones happen like that.

PPS - actually, the age limit is 13 - I ought to know - and I love the pattern. I think James needs the afghan. He looked mighty chilly without his shirt yesterday.