There Are Seven Letters in Wavicle

On Mother’s Day yesterday, Caitlin and Shannon cooked me a wonderful dinner:  beet salad, braised chicken with olives and capers, and molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.  And they indulged me by playing four games of Scrabble.  They have both gotten good enough now that they are perfectly capable of trouncing me at the game, and are much less likely to be cowed by my knowing smile when they consider challenging a word I’ve played.

I learned Scrabble during long wintery Indiana evenings from my Mom and Dad, who were both excellent players.  My Dad’s strategy was setting himself up to play bingos (using all 7 tiles at once for 50 extra points).  My Mom’s strategy was short, tight plays leveraging high scoring tiles on triple score squares.  My Dad’s plays opened up the board, and my Mom’s plays closed the board right back up again.  I tripped along behind both of them, grasping at any and all opportunities that presented themselves along the way.  The best part was looking up a word I’d challenged and discovering I was right.

When you look up a word, there’s an irresistible urge to peruse adjacent words in the dictionary (if you love words the way we do).  That’s how Shannon discovered a very good word last night while looking up my play of “waver” (which he was sure had to have an i in it, despite my knowing smile):

Wavicle:  a subatomic particle that can act like both a wave and a particle.

And, as it happens, a 7-letter word.

Loops

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about loops—defined particularly as circular repetitive thoughts in my head that cause anguish and prevent joy. In my case it is a loop-the-loop, really. The two loops are: 1) how can I keep the people I love happy and 2) how can I keep the people I love safe (read: alive). Yes, these are both noble thoughts in moderation, but the loop-the-loop comes in when I obsess on them. These people I love—they are all grownups now, so it is primarily (or solely) their job to keep themselves happy and safe. By the ways, sometimes the happy/safe goals are in conflict; just ask my 21-year-old rock-climbing devil-may-care son if you don’t understand this.

And so, I spend a lot of time in the loop-the-loop coming up with new schemes for keeping the people I love happy and safe. And many of these schemes are irrelevant, impractical, invasive, inconvenient, impossible, idiotic, irrational, ill-advised, or some other word beginning with “i.” So…here are the top ten ways to get out of an unproductive mental loop, or for the really unfortunate, a loop-the-loop:

Top 10 Ways to Escape a Loop

10. Switch to another line of thinking or get a new perspective. Change the subject. This is the basic principle behind “The Work” and “Feeling Good” or CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) – see previous blogs on this. However, make sure the new line of thinking is not another loop.
9. Argue with the loop. Counter the loop. Find the flaws. Another principle behind “The Work” and “CBT” – but be sure the argument does not itself become a new, even more obsessive loop.
8. Do something physically demanding that requires effort and concentration to stop the loop. Clean out the fridge. Dig up the dandelions.
7. Write the loop down, and keep writing about it until the pain of writer’s cramp distracts you from the loop and you start to see beyond it.
6. Do something mentally demanding that requires enough concentration to stop the loop. A timed game of Scrabble is one example – have I mentioned Scrabulous lately?
5. Have a conversation with someone else (but not about your loop!). Really listen to them, even if it is about their loop, for a while. But don’t try to fix them or their loop, especially if that tendency is part of your loop.
4. Read a really good book (for example, murder mysteries and the Harry Potter books work well for me).
3. See a really good movie, preferably one in which people are not dwelling unproductively on their loops (perhaps the latest Indiana Jones movie – Roger Ebert loved it).
2. Perform a random act of kindness for a stranger. Pay it forward.
1. And the number one way you can get out of your loop – be aware that you are in a loop to begin with (this is the hardest part). Hint: if people are telling you that you are in a loop or mentioning concepts like broken records when in conversation with you, this is a strong indication that you are in a loop.

Comments? What is your loop? What is your last act of random kindness? (If you can’t remember, it’s been too long.)

The Supper Table

One of the best memories I have from growing up and well into my college years was the family suppers—conversations and connections after a full day that we all had around the dining room table.

My Mom managed to put a home-cooked, balanced meal on the table every single night despite the fact that she worked full-time. At dinner we were all (including any visiting guests) expected to have and contribute interesting conversation (a lost skill), stories from our day, amusing jokes we had heard, and clever guesses when playing word games. There was frequent laughter and, sometimes, intense debate about current events. After dinner we would often linger talking and joking for quite awhile. The television, that monster of the modern age, was never on during or after dinner.

It was always the kids’ job to clear the table, do the dishes, wipe down the counters and put everything away after supper. It was my special job to boil the water and make the instant coffee for Mom and Dad. They both took milk; Mom took a quarter teaspoonful of sugar and Dad took a teaspoon and a half. Disgusted protests would occur if I got them mixed up. I would bring it to them as they were still sitting at the table conversing, or often they would be doing what they called “stooping”—sitting and having further quiet conversation about their day on the back steps (in the old house in Ellettsville) or on the deck looking out over the woods (in the newer house in Sugar Lane).

After coffee often my father would pronounce, “I am the greatest!”—a claim borrowed from the great fighter Mohammed Ali. The proper response to this (if you had any guts at all) was to confidently proclaim, “No, I am the greatest!” And then the Scrabble board would be hauled out, and all who were willing would play.

My Dad’s Scrabble strength was 7-letter words, which he often took many long minutes to produce. Patience was a virtue during these games. My Mom’s strength was diabolical, tightly interlaced plays leveraging triple-word or triple-letter scores, never leaving openings. House rules were that you could not play a word unless you could clearly define it from memory.

Close to the dining room table in the Sugar Lane house was a hutch, and on the hutch were some nice pieces of glassware, various fishing memorabilia of my Dad’s, an old German mug brought home from Europe after the war. Our gray cat Shadow would sit on the hutch gazing alertly at the Scrabble board as if he were formulating his own play, and would occasionally reach out his paw and quietly lay it on the shoulder of the person sitting with his back to the hutch, as though to offer some form of support during difficult moments. Also on the hutch was a collection of windup toys from past Christmas stockings, ranging from pink plastic pigs to green spotted frogs to little shuffling red sneakers. To liven things up, especially if Dad was taking forever with a 7-letter word, we would wind up the toys and get them going all at once, hopping and shuffling and lurching across the table, and then laugh uproariously when my Dad looked at us askance over his glasses.

When my sister got married at the house one year and her wedding cake was sitting on the supper table, a windup frog ended up decorating the cake and I remember laughing about this so hard I got tears in my eyes. I’m not sure what the groom’s family made of this.

I have tried to encourage the supper table tradition with my own family, and am thrilled and happy when it ends up working out. It brings back some good memories.

My daughter Caitlin says that I am a "mombie" when I am playing Scrabble on-line. This is probably because I am totally focused on the game, and less than responsive to queries or comments while I'm playing. The Scrabble site I favor, Scrabulous.com, has timed games. That means I have only about 10 minutes total for all my plays (this is configurable), and my opponent also has 10 minutes for his/her plays. If time runs out, I lose, even if I am ahead. Since I do have a competitive streak, I want to avoid losing and thus the concentration, resulting in my "mombie" behavior. If you want to play a game of Scrabble with me on-line, go to Scrabulous.com and look for my handle: lweather

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