I love playing cards. Not the intense, clever stuff that my brother Chris does, doing Sooooooo well at the Beijing Olympiad, just cards, rubbish stuff like Nap and patience. I learned to play patience at my mother's elbow, watching her, learning, getting hooked. Oh how she would have LOVED the computer version, with all the shuffling and dealing done in a moment. I love to play Spider, and the score is recorded by the number of moves to win, the fewer the better. I was deeply upset to discover that if I undid a move, it counts towards my total, and didn't subtract. GRRRRRRRRRR!
This reminded me of a recent incident which revealed how we sometimes have strange ideas about how things work. (not prepared to reveal how recent, to save embarrassment). There I was in bed, enjoying my first cup of tea with Neil and listening to the radio. A news item revealed that a young woman had been apprehended by police for driving for miles IN REVERSE! When asked why she was doing this, she explained that she had borrowed her mum's car and done more miles than she cared to explain, so she was just 'unwinding' some. I thought this was very enterprising of her, and I looked at Neil blankly, unable to fathom out why he found the story so amusing. My punishment was a 15 minute lesson (with drawings) of how a mileometer works!
I must admit, when it comes to how things work, there are MANY things about which I have only a hazy grasp of reality. Like how electricity works, and how come when I light the gas cooker, it doesn't ignite all the gas in the pipes, and really understanding how I can talk on my mobile phone, without any wires. And how TONS of ship can float, when I find it so hard.
I guess there are things in life which I just have to accept as fact, without understanding the fundamentals, as one person can't know everything. And my advice is to make damn sure that you partner up with someone who understands the things you don't, and can explain them to you, with drawings, at 7am over the morning tea
