The Manly Game of Cribbage

Tough guys playing cribbage

Mr. Toby Crackit swept up his winnings (at cribbage) and crammed them into his waist-coat pocket.  - From "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens

During the summer, several evenings a week, around 5 P.M., you can usually find Dave and me sitting at the kitchen table listening to smooth jazz and playing a couple of games of cribbage.  Cribbage is a tough game. And it's traditionally been a man's game.  Dave's played his whole life but I'm a latecomer.  However, it didn't take me long to get addicted.

Cribbage is old!  "Oliver Twist" was first published in 1838 but cribbage was invented by an Englishman in the 1600s.  It has some things in common with bridge and poker, neither of which I play.  Actually I think I'm too old to learn to be a good bridge player.  It took me weeks to learn cribbage.  Lots of counting and lots of rules.

Our standard cribbage board

There's a style of playing called Muggins.  It's kind of a "cut throat" style.  Dave and I prefer to play the "Gentleman's game."

Fancy (but manly) cribbage boards

Cribbage was at one time the "official game" of American submariners. That makes sense.  It's a mind game.  I don't think it could keep me from going bonkers on a submarine but I'm sure it helped some sailors.

Cribbage is a card game.  Some folks think the board is involved in how you play it.  But the board is simply for keeping score.

There are all kinds of fancy boards.  Dave had one made of ivory with  intricate scrimshaw carvings.  Now we just use the regular board..

More tough guys playing cribbage

You may remember that, in a M.A.S.H. episode, (that originally ran about 35 years ago)  the super wealthy and snooty surgeon, Charles Emerson Winchester III was shipped off from Tokyo to the 4077th M.A.S.H. because he beat a Colonel out of $600 playing cribbage.

So here's a word of advice.  Don't play cribbage for money.  Especially if you play with Dave.



***

Britney's 500 Dollar Manicure

The news media is all abuzz today about Britney Spears' recently published list of expenditures.  Among them is a manicure for $500.  This seemed odd to me.  While I was walking this morning I tried to visualize a $500 manicure.  I, myself, have maybe three or four manicures a year.  They're usually $15 plus tip.  And I always tip 20 per cent.  This is kind of a spiritual issue with me, as well as the fact that women have a bad tipping reputation.

Anyway, when I got home - and with several serious items on the agenda - I decided first to research the $500 manicure.  I was wondering if maybe she had it while watching a Broadway show or if food and fine wines were involved.

Gosh, I'm so naive. As it turns out, Britney's was a bargain mani.  For instance...

Leighton Denny $32,000 manicure

On the 2012 Grammys red carpet Rihanna sported a $5,000 24-karat gold gem mani..

British beauty expert Leighton Denny can give you a diamond, sapphire and ruby mani for the bargain price of $32,000.  Apparently it's a hit with Arab princesses.

So Britney, please forgive me for thinking you were being frivolous.  I guess $500 for a manicure can be seen as reasonable after all.

I wonder what kind of tip you leave with the $32,000 kind.


***

August Entertainment

Dave and I haven't kept to our weekly movie going schedule in quite a while.  Absolutely nothing playing that we care to see.  I'm not suggesting that the summer movies are bad.  But if you don't care for animation, science fiction or wacky comedy - you're out of luck.

In the meantime, I've tried to watch more Netflix.  Do you have Netflix?  After you buy a box (about $50 but I found a Best Buy coupon and bought ours for much less) Netflix cost $7.99 per month.  We don't watch it much but it's changed the way we view TV.  

 I tried the original and very successful Netflix show "House of Cards" but it doesn't do much for me.  I do, however, like "Orange is the New Black."  It's about a young, sweet, rather naive, entitled Smith grad who is sentenced to a year in a minimum security women's prison.  Yes, it is blatantly sexual and raw so please don't watch it if that sort of thing bothers you.  But I've come to like it because we eventually discover why each one of these women is there.  The series humanizes them.  Yes, they're guilty of their crimes.  Yes, there are bad people, both inmates and guards. But everybody's complicated.  Both in a women's prison and in real life.

In the meantime, I'm patiently waiting for Woody Allen's, "Blue Jasmine"and "Lee Daniel's The Butler" to arrive at the movie theater.


***

Louis Poulsen Floor Lamp

I work hard at being a positive person - but sometimes I'm not.  For instance, Dave has this Poulsen floor lamp he loves.  To me it's not particularly attractive.  Sort of industrial looking.  But, of course, since I'm a nice person I don't complain.

Dave's lamp after the fix today

A while back the lamp quit working.  Dave had a lot of trouble finding new bulbs and when he did find them they cost $75.00.  When I asked why, he said, "The lamp is Swedish."  

He put the the bulbs in the lamp and it still didn't work.  So I, nicely, suggested that maybe he'd like me to put the lamp on Craig's List and we could buy a new one.  He didn't want to do that.  He loves his lamp.  

So I put a call into our electrician, Wiley.  In the meantime, Dave and our neighbor, Al, thought they could fix it.  Dave bought two new ballasts, and this morning Dave and Al worked on the lamp.  

By the way, when Wiley the electrician called me back I told him to wait a few days because Dave's an architect and Al's an engineer "so you know they can't fix that lamp!"

Poulsen Floor Lamp $3,920.

But they did.  And here it is in the photo above.  And it didn't need new bulbs so Dave is off now returning them.  

In the meantime I looked up "Poulsen Floor Lamps."  This is the closet I could find to Dave's older lamp.  It's not quite the same - but they're close.  Dave's is metal of some kind and this one is metal and glass, plus the design is inverted.  

This one sells for $3,920.  Dave has never mentioned what he paid for his.  

But, yes, thenceforth, I plan to treat the lamp with more respect.  

***

Beware of Sharks and Gustnados

This weekend, in Cocoa Beach, Florida, there was some excitement.  No, it wasn't a shark. Or a sharknado.  There was a gustnado!  And it wasn't even raining.

And, unlike a sharknado (a tornado that rain sharks down on us) - a gustnado is a real thing.  It's a short lived gust front tornado.  Yesterday afternoon a little whirlwind formed on the beach sending umbrellas and other debris flying up into the clouds.

Very scary but apparently no one was seriously hurt.  But I have a feeling we'll soon see a TV show based on this strange event.


***

Happiness

Happiness is just a thing called Joe.

You must think I'm obsessed with happiness.  I write about it a lot.  And I sort of am obsessed with it.  Can folks over the age of 60 be happy - until death overtakes us?  I think "yes."  But it's not going to come in the form of some guy named Joe.

One of my favorite writers Joan Chittister, thinks it possible as well.  I'm currently reading her Nautilus /Book Award winner, "Happiness."

Happiness is a warm puppy.

But don't think Sister Joan is going to tell us that happiness is a warm puppy.  It's way more complicated than that.  She's written a book that digs into sociology, biology, neurology, psychology, philosophy, history and the world religions to develop "an archaeology of happiness."

Until the United States of America was founded happiness wasn't even a personal concept.  But it says right in our constitution that we should "pursue it."

Happiness is a trip to the mall. 

Here's a hint.  It has nothing to do with buying stuff and owning stuff - other than meeting our basic needs. Following are some quotes from Joan Chittister's "Happiness" book to help us get a handle on what it is.

It is the point at which we reach a sense of fullness of life, of needing nothing else, of being complete in ourselves. 

Using the personal responses of people across 178 countries...researchers rank Denmark as the happiest country in the world, along with Switzerland, Austria and Iceland.....The U.S. ranked...twenty-third.

...happiness...can't be pursued as if it were a product of something outside ourselves.  It must be chosen and developed and cultivated beyond things the surveys survey.  It is both in us and beyond us.  It is the elixir of the spiritual life. 

The cellist of Sarajevo, playing his instrument dressed in black tie and tails atop a mound of bombed-out rubble because it was the only way he knew to lift the spirit and touch the souls of the battered and beaten people of the city begging for bread.  This is an icon of ecstatic happiness in a brutally unhappy world.  It is the ultimate sense of purpose in life, of gift to be given, of a person's awareness of the reason for which they have been born. 

Somebody asked me this morning if I thought they would like this book.  I didn't quite know how to answer them.  The quotes above give you some sort of clue.  If you do decide to read the book, prepare to go deep.


***

Florida Water

When Dave first started flying into the Orlando International Airport, he was amazed at the amount of water a person can see when the plane first breaks through the clouds.  And that's saying something for a man who was coming from the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Florida is a tourist destination.  And possibly the biggest draw is our water.  Lakes, rivers, pools, parks, resorts - we have them.  So come on down and enjoy our beautiful water.

But please be sure that you and your kids can swim.  As columnist Beth Kassab tells us, "Drowning is the number 1 killer of young children in Florida. And Florida has the terrible distinction of leading the country in drowning deaths."   What can be even worse is the near drowning.  Children and adults who survive but never wake up.

There was a scary article in the paper this week about what a quiet death drowning is.  There are no arms flailing or voices screaming.  We pretty much just go under - and we're done.

I almost drowned once when I was a kid.  How was it?  I remember it being quite pleasant.  I was lulling around on the bottom of a lake in Indiana when I looked ahead and saw my uncle swimming toward me.  I wondered what he was doing in the lake with his clothes on and things like coins and cigarettes streaming out of his pockets.

So please come visit us and our abundant water venues.  But learn to swim first.


***