Cards

We were in Chapters today buying a card for an upcoming anniversary. Picking out a card isn’t as simple as it was when I was a kid, back then if I needed a Birthday card, I would pick one with a clown or a cake on it and that was that. Over the years it has become more and more difficult to pick out a card for a variety of reasons.

 

It turns out that when you give your wife a card, she expects you to have put at least some thought into the message and look of the card. A card with a flypaper roll covered in flies which says “We’re stuck together, like it or not!” doesn’t have the romantic quality that women want. I have always opted for humorous cards over the sentimental ones, but I suspect that is because I figure Louise knows how I feel about her and having me for a husband she is in desperate need of a good laugh.

I don’t even like the idea of cards that much. I like to get them of course, but after I have them, I don’t know what to do with them. Should I just toss them out with the used wrapping paper from the gifts? Should I put them on display? How long should I display them? What if they are crappy cards, I don’t want crappy cards on display for an indefinite time. What I do is display them until there is a pressing need for the space they are taking up and then I stack them together, largest to smallest, put an elastic around them and lovingly put them in a drawer or a box. I will forget about them of course and years later I will come across this pile of birthday cards with a stretched out, wrinkled elastic around them.

 

Now I have the problem of what to do with them all over again. I will go through them and if I am lucky I will come across one that says “I love you Daddy” or “to Poppa” and I will remember the day I got the card. I’ll get a new elastic and put the pile back in the box for another few years.

The cost of cards is ridiculous! Well, I think it is, but I know that I’m in the minority on this topic. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when I got a card making program for the computer. With a minimal investment, I could print all of the cards my heart desires and say anything that I wanted to. The way it worked out though is that those computer printed cards weren’t up to snuff when it came to giving to loved ones. They were okay for work events, but a lined piece of paper torn out of a notebook was good enough for a work event. I still have the program and card stock, but I haven’t used it in years.

 

Some good friends have gotten into Scrapbooking and over the past few years and I have received some amazingly lovely cards. I’d like to think that I could make a card just as nice, but I just don’t have the patience or the inclination to do so. They must take hours and hours to make, and you can’t leave any glue fingerprints or put the picture on crooked. It has to look like a professional job which is why I think I will stick to the store bought Christmas cards.

 

The cards are so funny these days that I could spend hours just reading them, and I have.

My dad used to be in the card section with my mom and hand her a card which told her just how much he loved her. She would tear up and then dad would take the card and put it back on the shelf. He didn’t need to spend $2.50 on a card to tell her how much he loved her. Tonight, Louise did the same thing to me, but the difference was that now, cards are $7.50 and I know she really loves me because she put the card back on the shelf.

Crokinole

The other day I decided that it was time to take the air conditioner out of the window. We are still having some warm days, but the temperature at night is cool enough for a comfortable sleep. I have done it often enough that it isn’t a big job, but the conditioner itself is pretty awkward to carry. This spring I enlisted my son Brendan to carry it up the stairs for me, but that kind of made me feel like I was getting old. I am getting old of course, but I’d like to think I have a few more air conditioner lifting years in me.

I started out thinking I would just take it out of the window and then Brendan could carry it down the stairs for me. I felt good and managed to get a good solid grip on it and carried it down to its winter home in the storage room. I wouldn’t want to do it on a daily basis, but now I can use Brendan’s strong back for something else.

While I was down in the storage room, I noticed an old crokinole board that had seen better days. It was a modern board made of pressed cardboard, stapled and glued together, with a painted on surface. It worked, and when we got it, that was the best you could find on the market. My parents passed away in the meantime and I inherited the crokinole board that had been passed down from my grandmother. It was made of real wood with proper joinery and polished to perfection. I hang it on the wall in a spare bedroom more as an art piece than a game board. It is beautiful and of course whenever we play, that is the board we use.

 

The poor press board one in the basement has been pushed and kicked around for years. Very probably it has had an air conditioner balanced on it once or twice. There were a couple of gouges in it, some scratches and the playing surface has come unglued from the backing board. It was in sad shape! I decided that I should either through it out or try to repair it. We don’t really need another board, but you should always try to fix something rather than just tossing it out. Maybe that’s just me getting older and having a few gouges, scratches and coming a little unglued myself.

I took it out to the workshop, made some measurements and decided what would be the best way to fix this old board. I took the pegs out and gave it a good sanding so that the contact cement would adhere better. I found some laminate and glued it to the old top and then trimmed the excess laminate away. Holes were drilled for the pegs to go through and I drew new lines on the surface with a felt marker taped to a large compass. I drilled out the centre hole and that is where I have stopped for the day. Tomorrow I will repair the backer board and glue the two together. I will give it a good wax and it should be ready for playing.

I doubt if we will use it, because we have another board that is far superior, but I have a friend that used to play when she was little and I will ask if she wants to give it a good home. Otherwise, I will probably put it down in the storage room or donate it to the thrift store. No one plays crokinole anymore, well there aren’t many and unless you can use an iPad it will never regain its popularity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquinole

http://worldcrokinole.com/