Happy Ladies Playing Cards
There were twelve of us today, filling all three of the tables in Miss Margaret's large living space. There's a fourth table in the formal living room, but we have yet to expand there. The woman is prepared for every eventuality. The snacks are whatever we bring; today there were strawberries and cookies and homemade snicker doodles created by the birthday girl, herself. We are always celebrating something or other. We sing, loudly and off-key, and make the celebrant blush, then pick up the cards and continue the games. It's Hand and Foot, a variation of Canasta, that keeps us out of trouble on Tuesday afternoons. In partnerships at tables of 4 or as singles at tables of 3, we shuffle five or six or seven decks of cards over and over and over again, sharing health concerns and weather woes and grandchildrens' triumphs (okay, that's mostly me bragging about FlapJilly, but really, can you blame me?) Red threes are special in this game, and they accumulate in...