Like Minded Individuals

"Were you a teacher in Chicago like the rest of these girls?" was the first interrogatory from my right.  We had been strangers until we played mah jongg together last Monday.  Now, we're old friends.

And yes, we are girls, because, as we agreed over the clacking tiles this morning, somehow it's the right word to use when playing mah jongg.  Rosemarie, to my left, was reminiscing about the sounds the women who played when she was a girl, and we laughed about the perfectly polished nails and the extra long Virginia Slims which were part and parcel of what mah jongg was to us, as young onlookers.

Now, as a much older but not much wiser player, I'm enjoying the fact that I can make a mistake and Scarlett, a veteran of NYC and Floridian games, tells me "not to worry... girls who've been playing forever mistake flowers for one bams."

I promise, in the context of the game that makes sense.  It would be a lot simpler if the tiles were congruent between sets, and if the flowers looked like flowers, and and and.....  It's only my second time ever; I'm trying to be patient with myself.

Some of us went to lunch after the lesson.  We are all readers, often of the same books.  I can't remember another time when three of my companions were able to discuss Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, or A Gift From the Sea.  They belong to book clubs, which I eschew, but that small difference didn't seem to matter much.

We like board games, and bemoan the fact that there are so few venues in which to enjoy them.

We have gone to the Festival of Books in the past and we're going again this weekend and most of us are volunteers for the Festival, as well.

We laughed at the use of the four-fingers-together-thumb-outstretched hand to describe where one of us had moved around in Michigan, and shared memories of New Buffalo and St. Joseph and Chicago.

Someone's sister lives where someone else once worked.  Someone's moving into an Independent Living situation where another's good friend resides.  Road trips were described and ideas were shared and there was a lot of We should do that happening.

There are times when the Happy Ladies Club is just the very best place on earth to be.