Spoons: A game of cards, laughter, and blood.

October 1, 2009
Where to start, where to start! Today we woke up early to see Uncle Krishna off. He’s leaving for England and will stay there for a month. In addition, Chloe is leaving on Sunday, so, life could get exciting here. And by that, I mean, no one over the age of 16 to talk to. Not that that’s bad, just, ummm different!

But after he left, we ate breakfast and then Chloe and I walked to the Post Office with Asha in tow. She’s the only one left who will go walking with us :). Although, the other girls have now figured out that every time Asha goes with us somewhere, we get some sort of treat on the way home! I imagine my walking partners might increase in number soon! But, after the 90 minute round trip walk (yeah, it’s a little far!), we came home to find most of the children zonked out in front of the TV. If you thought American channel surfing was bad, imagine surfing through Nepali, Indian, Chinese, Korean, and English channels. All in a matter of seconds. It’s enough to drive Chloe and I away after a matter of minutes!

But Laxuman was outside washing the car, so I opted to join him. He was washing it well, but the windows remained spotty. Excited, I realized that I finally had a piece of practical knowledge to share! I bounded upstairs and grabbed one of the old newspapers off the pile from our room, and ran back downstairs. I said, “Laxuman, use this on the windows. Then there will be no streaks or mess!” With a doubtful look at me, he took a piece and started rubbing. Slowly, his doubt faded into the wide eyed trademark grin that I’ve come to know so well, and he said, “Very nice, sister! Very nice!” So we finished up, and decided that we were long overdue for a game of spoons.

So, we gathered around the table, Chloe, Laxuman, Ranjita, Asha, Joshua and I. Out came the spoon-forks (far more dangerous than spoons, let me tell you!) and the fun and shouting began. For those of you who haven’t experienced the amazingness that is Spoons, basically, you’re trying to be the first to get 4 of a kind by starting with 4 cards and passing one around the table as fast as you can. Once someone gets 4, they grab a spoon, and everyone else attempts to as well. Problem being there’s one less spoon than people. When we played the other day, we were all so nice, but today, everyone was out for blood, and blood they got! Ranjita has a scratch down her arm from the fork part of the spoon fork, and I’ve got a gash in my pinkie that’s slightly swollen! Oh, and the cheating NEVER ends! Laxuman proceeds to look at EVERYONE’S cards to see what they have and what he should collect; Asha just turns over like 30 cards and finds 4 that match if the game goes for more than about 20 seconds; Chloe discreetly trades cards with whoever’s next to her; Ranjita and Joshua tell each other in Nepali to get ready to grab a spoon because one of them’s going out; I say at the start of every game, “NO CHEATING this time!” To which everyone laughs at the thought of playing without cheating. It might be the best game EVER! I have to keep cards on hand, though, because at this rate we might destroy a deck every week!