Loose Leaf Notes

That’s me doing “research” for a story about the new Dogtown Roadhouse in town.  They have 8 beers on tap and 28 kinds of bottled microbrews. The beer tasting put my fellow Scrabble players at an advantage. “Just one more piece?” young Porter Sweeney seemed to ask his dad.  At Dogtown they cook pizza in [...]

Too often my life feels like a landslide of clutter that I have to sort through to make sense of. Some days it takes many hands.

Josh lays down the money letters, J, K, Z, and Q, for a winning game plan. Mara moonlights, making dream catchers for her job at Seeds of Light, while waiting for the Scrabble business to pick up. Colleen doesn’t have an X to stand on, even so, she taunts Josh with the E’s he wished [...]

This is the part of our café Scrabble game where Mara jumps up on the chair and gives Rosemary, who has a headache, a massage, and then Rosemary calls Mara a “Nutcracker” and I crack up. Note: Click and scroll HERE for more Scrabble pictures and antics.

Does ZAG exist without ZIG? I played UNITE rather than UNTIE because I like the word better and Mara wondered why she saw VOLE instead of LOVE in her letters. We learned that GEEZ could be spelled with a G or a J and was used as a “mild oath,” but SHANG (maybe we were [...]

I thought she came over to play a game of Scrabble but maybe she came to show off what her new Voyager phone could do. She downloaded Loose Leaf Notes and checked my comments, took a picture of me (see below) with the phone, texted it to Facebook and read me the comments it got [...]

1. Future Scrabble player plots his strategy 2. Bites off more than he can chew 3. Uses board for surfing 4. Digs for good letters 5. Pleads innocent when his grandmother protests his putting them in his mouth Post Note: See the action video clip HERE.

I usually like to play Scrabble between 12 and 2:00 p.m. By noon I’m awake enough and after 2:00 I start getting tired. But this Scrabble game was scheduled for 10:30 because Rosemary had an appointment to get her haircut at 12:30. “So you can take advantage of my sleepy state and Rosemary’s long hair,” [...]

She brought mango salsa and chips. I made my specialty: rye crisp crackers with melted cheese, pesto, and red peppers. Just picked raspberries and blueberries got passed around. It was the first time ten year old Kyla played with us. She’s in the family business, after all, and also writes haiku. Coloring in a coloring [...]

1. Press Play 2. Record 3. Pause 4. Fast Forward 5. Rewind I was recently shocked to notice that my last Scrabble blog entry was from way back in March when Chelsea, Virginia, and I won the Literacy Volunteer Scrabble Tournament HERE. I have actually played two games with Mara since then, but we talked [...]

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on March 27, 2008. Those monthly Scrabble games I’ve been playing with friends at the Café Del Sol have paid off. I was one of three players from our informal group representing Floyd in a Scrabble Tournament to benefit the Literacy Volunteers of Roanoke this past [...]

AKA: Play One for St. Patrick It was Mara (center) who typed out our mission, described in thirteen parts and titled “Procedure for Scrabble Poem.” Part 1: Play a game of Scrabble with Colleen, Rosemary, and Kathleen on St. Patrick’s Day at the Café Del Sol. Wear Green. Joke about whether you are Irish or [...]

“I’m like a bridge lady who plays Scrabble,” I said to my friend Art, who asked me how I was doing as he was sitting down for lunch at a table next to ours. We were at the Café Del Sol and three of us were playing. Virginia and I were getting in some practice [...]

Your thoughts and words are powerful … they think we’re disposable … well both my thumbs opposable …are spelled out on a double word and triple letter score … ~ Kimya Dawson Warming up for a game with my poet friend, Mara, I put the Scrabble box by the woodstove after it sat in the [...]

To the tune of “Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire,” I ask Mara, “Why did you get your haircut?” “I won a haircut.” “In a poetry slam?” “No, I said I WANT a haircut. I won dogs tags in a poetry slam.” Mara’s daughter Kyla, sitting at the next table fixing her doll’s hair, asks, [...]

It was a mega game and a record turnout with six players, two boards, two dictionaries, lunch plates, tea cups, score pads and one decked out cappuccino spread out on the two tables put together to make one long one. We drew straws to see which of two teams we would play on. As the [...]

AKA: Day at the Café 1. Read her lips 2. Game boys 3. It’s not rocket science or arm wrestling 4. And the winner is … Post notes: All the above photos were taken at the Café Del Sol last week where Mara and I played Scrabble. To read more about how we dabble in [...]