As a diehard Scrabble™ fan, I got a kick out of a remark made by someone who was asked the secret of his success in life; he replied, “Just as in Scrabble, it comes down to tile management.” In other words, play the hand you’re dealt. Good advice. I actually have been dealing with several kinds of tiles lately; the different ones that are going on the floor in different rooms in my old house here and the ones I am trying to use to get Triple Word Score.
I have been playing email Scrabble games with one of my dearest friends — in fact we sometimes have had two games going at once. Joanie now lives in Pennsylvania and before that she and her husband were living all over the world, most recently in Mumbai. So having a face-to-face game became a rarity for us. She found a great website called Scrabulous where you can play in real time, via email or various other ways, including solitaire. And…it’s free! Lately, I have been totally on the schneid. Despite the availability of official tips on improving one’s game, it is hard to apply tile management techniques when your rack is U U I I I O O. So who here in Marysville likes to play Scrabble?
On the other front, tiles have been going very well. I think I now have the most beautiful floors in the world. Have I mentioned how I revere Tom Boots, III, the craftsman who owns Sierra Classic Tile? Genius. And a patient one. We’ve re-created floors (and some walls) that look like they were installed in 1920 when my house was built. This meant a lot of little tiles (mostly 1×1 inch) in different patterns. Now that’s tile management. John Davison worked with Tom on the project with similar patience and precision. Jenna and Joel over at Tile City have been a great help in finding the right materials at a good price for the looks we were trying to achieve. I also got one tile from Lowe’s and did make one “out of town” purchase from Anchor Bay Tile in Arizona. They have, among other beautiful products, a small vintage-crackly subway tile that matched the little ones I saw in the Julia Morgan house now occupied by The Helders photography studio on Sixth St.
I’ve alluded to cleaning the (mostly white) tile floors before; that is my ultimate tile management challenge. My budget for Swiffer refills has been blown to bits.
I do! I love Scrabble!
I do! I love Scrabble!