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corrielleDay 5
In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends.
Some people might already know about this, but I love playing card games. My memories of family gatherings when I was younger always included a deck of cards (or several) and my relatives gleefully trouncing each other.
My dad's side of the family played canasta, which is a decently complicated game that involves getting sets of seven of the same card (you play this with multiple decks, obviously) that was apparently very popular in the U.S. with people of my parents' generation. I grew up watching my family play it, and when I was eleven or twelve, I insisted that mom teach me. She did, and I started taking part in family games very soon after that, partnering with my wonderfully shrewd Great Aunt Ruby, who was incredibly fun to play with. (And I seem to remember winning a lot with her.) When I was older, we started playing Hand and Foot, which is a variant of Canasta with higher stakes, more cards on the table, and more cut-throat rules.
This is a game with a lot of cards, a lot of points, and a lot of stuff going on. I love it. There aren't a lot of things that compare to sitting around with a pitcher of sweet tea (Aunt Ruby made awesome sweet tea) and a really close game of Hand and Foot.
My mom's side of the family, though, played Pitch, which I've read is a regional thing. I've never met someone who didn't have Midwestern roots who knew what I was talking about when I mentioned the game. My Oklahoman grandparents brought it with them when they moved to California. My grandfather loved this game, and a lot of my memories of him involve the delight he took in a masterful bluff. Pitch is a betting game, of sorts... you state how many points you think you can pull in by the end of the round, and whoever "bids" the highest gets some extra cards from the deck to help them try. This is another game that has a lot of cards flying around, though the point system is more restrained than in Canasta. (We've had scores in the 20,000 range before... in Pitch, we play to 21.)
As I've gotten older, I've tried to take advantage of any opportunity I get to play cards. My family gatherings aren't as large as they used to be, and almost all of the people who used to really love to play have passed on or don't have the mental faculties needed any more. Mom still likes to play, though, and on Thanksgiving she and I roped Dad and his cousin into a game. (My dad, for all that his family had a bunch of really good players in it, doesn't usually play unless someone needs a partner. He'd rather stand around and chat or try to catch funny moments on video.) Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it made me all nostalgic.
I'm pretty lucky in that I've got friends who will indulge my occasional need to play a complicated game. We've had to come up with our own "house rules" sometimes when none of us can remember exactly how we learned it, but I think that's how a lot of house rules are born in the first place.
All of this has got me wondering why I love these games so much, and I think it's because they let me be a little competitive (I'm usually not...), but at the same time, there's a lot of companionship that develops between people who are sitting around a table playing cards, especially long, drawn out games.
That isn't to say I won't play short games... I like them a lot, and I'm always up for learning new ones. Speed is fun, Gin is a nice, short game that still involved some thinking, and I remember learning something with a wildly inappropriate name like "Egyptian Rat Screw" that involved so much potential for violence that we made a "no rings allowed" rule. Just a couple of days ago, a friend taught me Nerts, which is like multiple-person solitaire and Uno combined.
All of this card playing has led me to gather a decent collection of decks. When I traveled in Europe, I bought card decks the way some people buy spoons or shot glasses. I have cards with the Welsh flag on the back, cards with pictures of Stonehenge, Indiana Jones cards, pirate cards, but I think my favorite one is my reproduction Civil War Era deck. Why? *points to icon* Because they're what Ezra would have used.
In your own space, share something non-fannish you are passionate about with your fannish friends.
Some people might already know about this, but I love playing card games. My memories of family gatherings when I was younger always included a deck of cards (or several) and my relatives gleefully trouncing each other.
My dad's side of the family played canasta, which is a decently complicated game that involves getting sets of seven of the same card (you play this with multiple decks, obviously) that was apparently very popular in the U.S. with people of my parents' generation. I grew up watching my family play it, and when I was eleven or twelve, I insisted that mom teach me. She did, and I started taking part in family games very soon after that, partnering with my wonderfully shrewd Great Aunt Ruby, who was incredibly fun to play with. (And I seem to remember winning a lot with her.) When I was older, we started playing Hand and Foot, which is a variant of Canasta with higher stakes, more cards on the table, and more cut-throat rules.
This is a game with a lot of cards, a lot of points, and a lot of stuff going on. I love it. There aren't a lot of things that compare to sitting around with a pitcher of sweet tea (Aunt Ruby made awesome sweet tea) and a really close game of Hand and Foot.
My mom's side of the family, though, played Pitch, which I've read is a regional thing. I've never met someone who didn't have Midwestern roots who knew what I was talking about when I mentioned the game. My Oklahoman grandparents brought it with them when they moved to California. My grandfather loved this game, and a lot of my memories of him involve the delight he took in a masterful bluff. Pitch is a betting game, of sorts... you state how many points you think you can pull in by the end of the round, and whoever "bids" the highest gets some extra cards from the deck to help them try. This is another game that has a lot of cards flying around, though the point system is more restrained than in Canasta. (We've had scores in the 20,000 range before... in Pitch, we play to 21.)
As I've gotten older, I've tried to take advantage of any opportunity I get to play cards. My family gatherings aren't as large as they used to be, and almost all of the people who used to really love to play have passed on or don't have the mental faculties needed any more. Mom still likes to play, though, and on Thanksgiving she and I roped Dad and his cousin into a game. (My dad, for all that his family had a bunch of really good players in it, doesn't usually play unless someone needs a partner. He'd rather stand around and chat or try to catch funny moments on video.) Anyway, it was a lot of fun and it made me all nostalgic.
I'm pretty lucky in that I've got friends who will indulge my occasional need to play a complicated game. We've had to come up with our own "house rules" sometimes when none of us can remember exactly how we learned it, but I think that's how a lot of house rules are born in the first place.
All of this has got me wondering why I love these games so much, and I think it's because they let me be a little competitive (I'm usually not...), but at the same time, there's a lot of companionship that develops between people who are sitting around a table playing cards, especially long, drawn out games.
That isn't to say I won't play short games... I like them a lot, and I'm always up for learning new ones. Speed is fun, Gin is a nice, short game that still involved some thinking, and I remember learning something with a wildly inappropriate name like "Egyptian Rat Screw" that involved so much potential for violence that we made a "no rings allowed" rule. Just a couple of days ago, a friend taught me Nerts, which is like multiple-person solitaire and Uno combined.
All of this card playing has led me to gather a decent collection of decks. When I traveled in Europe, I bought card decks the way some people buy spoons or shot glasses. I have cards with the Welsh flag on the back, cards with pictures of Stonehenge, Indiana Jones cards, pirate cards, but I think my favorite one is my reproduction Civil War Era deck. Why? *points to icon* Because they're what Ezra would have used.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-01-06 09:12 am (UTC)Um... I dunno what Egyptian Rat Screw is, but I expect if we DO get enough people to play a really GOOD game of Nerts... we ought to make a no rings rule too. You saw me playing nice. I don't play nice once I have a big table and people who know the rules. I'll go for that card and god help you if your hand is in my way! My cousin Tim (who I dethroned as the recognized family champion of Nerts) teased me for my hard card slapping technique.
I actually have a TON of decks of cards but some are locked in the impossibly jammed drawer and may have to wait till I can disassemble the whole structure there and possibly the drawer itself... But you don't want to play Nerts with a deck you don't want bent cards in. Basically, you'll never play poker with a deck you've used for Nerts.