Increasing light
Dec. 10th, 2018 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livThe last bit of chanukah was generally much better than the first half!
Sixth candle was my usually Friday night date night withjack. (This is why I never do Friday memes, btw, either Friday Five or Follow Friday. I work for eight hours and then I come home and cook dinner and make Shabbat with my husband and we pay attention to eachother.) We made Delia's French onion soup. We've started including the poems in praise of spouses, which is a tradition I assumed would never be part of my life after I agreed to marry a non-Jew, and it's making me feel really loved and connected.
We also accidentally made up a variation of multi-round Red7, because the rules are absolutely terrible at specifying when you're supposed to shuffle and deal between rounds. So we played that when a round is complete, both players retain their palettes, except that the winner turns their best cards into scoring tokens. And the most recently played rule remains in place as the next round starts. When we went to look up how you're supposed to play, it seems you are in fact supposed to reset between rounds. I think that's much more boring, because it means the advanced game is exactly like multiple rounds of the base game except with a slightly quirky scoring mechanic rather than just 1 point per round won. Our way means that there's an interesting balancing effect since winning a round handicaps you in the next round, and lots of strategy in balancing between immediate scoring and setting yourself up for the next round.
So, house rules:
When the round ends, the winner scores as specified in the Advanced game.
All players discard what remains of their hands.
All players keep their palettes in place, with the exception of the winner removing the scoring cards.
The rule which ended the previous round becomes the starting rule for the new round.
Deal new hands.
Iff there aren't enough cards in the draw deck to deal 7 cards to each player, shuffle in the discard pile, including all overridden rule cards. Leave the topmost, current rule in place.
If there still aren't enough cards to deal 7 to each player, the game ends as specified in the base rules.
The new start player is the person seated to the left of the player whose palette wins by the current rule, after removal of the previous round winner's scoring cards.
Saturday there was a cheder-led service in synagogue. The Sunday school children led some of the prayers, and the teaching assistants, mostly teenagers who were recently bnei mitzvah, read the three Torah portions for Shabbat Miketz, the New Moon, and Shabbat Chanukah. And there were latkes and lots of happy people. And I may have accidentally volunteered to lead the December Friday night service.
Saturday night I did havdalah, the ceremony for the end of Shabbat, and seventh candle, with OSOs and their children. My chanukah presents were successful, and we played a bit of Red7 and a game of Battle for Gotham City, which is a boring round-and-round game with a lovely flavour and a cute 3D board. And the children asked excellent questions about the process of halachic change, and it was just the perfect family Chanukah.
And Sunday I got to have a lie-in, since cheder is now over for the term. In the afternoon I did a super brave thing, namely attending a social music-making event. An acquaintance invited people round to eat mince pies and sing carols in multi-part harmony. I brought my recorder because I'm slightly less terrified of playing recorder in front of people than singing in front of people. A few songs just weren't suitable for recorder, or were too fast for me to sight read, and there were enough singers making enough noise that I felt my voice wouldn't be too audible. So I did some actual singing, in front of people I don't know very well. I'm extremely grateful to my partners for supporting me in doing such a scary thing, especiallycjwatson who attended the event and shared a score with me and was super encouraging.
C and I went home to light the eighth and final candle and eat dinner and have some time together. Today I'm working on a major project report with a short deadline, so obviously I'm procrastinating by updating DW. But writing is happening even if slowly.
Sixth candle was my usually Friday night date night with
jack. (This is why I never do Friday memes, btw, either Friday Five or Follow Friday. I work for eight hours and then I come home and cook dinner and make Shabbat with my husband and we pay attention to eachother.) We made Delia's French onion soup. We've started including the poems in praise of spouses, which is a tradition I assumed would never be part of my life after I agreed to marry a non-Jew, and it's making me feel really loved and connected. We also accidentally made up a variation of multi-round Red7, because the rules are absolutely terrible at specifying when you're supposed to shuffle and deal between rounds. So we played that when a round is complete, both players retain their palettes, except that the winner turns their best cards into scoring tokens. And the most recently played rule remains in place as the next round starts. When we went to look up how you're supposed to play, it seems you are in fact supposed to reset between rounds. I think that's much more boring, because it means the advanced game is exactly like multiple rounds of the base game except with a slightly quirky scoring mechanic rather than just 1 point per round won. Our way means that there's an interesting balancing effect since winning a round handicaps you in the next round, and lots of strategy in balancing between immediate scoring and setting yourself up for the next round.
So, house rules:
When the round ends, the winner scores as specified in the Advanced game.
All players discard what remains of their hands.
All players keep their palettes in place, with the exception of the winner removing the scoring cards.
The rule which ended the previous round becomes the starting rule for the new round.
Deal new hands.
Iff there aren't enough cards in the draw deck to deal 7 cards to each player, shuffle in the discard pile, including all overridden rule cards. Leave the topmost, current rule in place.
If there still aren't enough cards to deal 7 to each player, the game ends as specified in the base rules.
The new start player is the person seated to the left of the player whose palette wins by the current rule, after removal of the previous round winner's scoring cards.
Saturday there was a cheder-led service in synagogue. The Sunday school children led some of the prayers, and the teaching assistants, mostly teenagers who were recently bnei mitzvah, read the three Torah portions for Shabbat Miketz, the New Moon, and Shabbat Chanukah. And there were latkes and lots of happy people. And I may have accidentally volunteered to lead the December Friday night service.
Saturday night I did havdalah, the ceremony for the end of Shabbat, and seventh candle, with OSOs and their children. My chanukah presents were successful, and we played a bit of Red7 and a game of Battle for Gotham City, which is a boring round-and-round game with a lovely flavour and a cute 3D board. And the children asked excellent questions about the process of halachic change, and it was just the perfect family Chanukah.
And Sunday I got to have a lie-in, since cheder is now over for the term. In the afternoon I did a super brave thing, namely attending a social music-making event. An acquaintance invited people round to eat mince pies and sing carols in multi-part harmony. I brought my recorder because I'm slightly less terrified of playing recorder in front of people than singing in front of people. A few songs just weren't suitable for recorder, or were too fast for me to sight read, and there were enough singers making enough noise that I felt my voice wouldn't be too audible. So I did some actual singing, in front of people I don't know very well. I'm extremely grateful to my partners for supporting me in doing such a scary thing, especially
cjwatson who attended the event and shared a score with me and was super encouraging. C and I went home to light the eighth and final candle and eat dinner and have some time together. Today I'm working on a major project report with a short deadline, so obviously I'm procrastinating by updating DW. But writing is happening even if slowly.
