March 19, 2014

• False Alarm, There Was No Burglary

  Barbara found her jewelry.  We apologize for alarming everyone.

  Oh, and it's a good thing we didn't get around to calling the police.  More details when I get a chance to expand this.

  THURSDAY UPDATE

  When Barbara told me late Monday afternoon, upon my return home from North Carolina, that all of her jewelry was missing and must have been stolen, I found it impossible to believe.  The only thing that convinced me was Barbara's certainty.

  "Is it possible," I asked, "that you gathered up all of the jewelry and set it aside to be cleaned, or something?"   No, she said.

  (I remind you.  It turned out, there was NO burglary.  Except, Barbara still has suspicions that the one or two items that are still missing might have been stolen.  More about that later.) 

  So we were of the belief that EITHER someone we'd trusted with a key was a thief and not trustworthy, OR someone had found a way into the house and was clever enough to keep from being bothered by our five dogs (which I still can't imagine).

  So the whole story was as untrue as it was unbelievable in the first place.  Personally, I feel foolish.  But as I said, Barbara was "certain."  (She feels foolish now, too.  Except, as I said, she still thinks an item or two might have been stolen.  I disagree.) 

  We STILL don't quite know the whole story.  One thing we DO know, and which I've never mentioned until now at this blog, is that our cars WERE violated a few months ago.  We lock them now, but back a few months ago when they were sitting in the driveway unlocked through the night, someone did get into the cars and make off with our CDs and a few other items.  We did call the police on that occasion, and some of the CDs (mine, anyway; I'm not sure about Barbara's) actually were found and recovered.  That's another long story and no need to go into it here. 

  I'm only mentioning those thefts to explain why Barbara DID gather up all of her jewelry just before a weeklong trip to the North American Veterinary Conference.  She placed it in a location and forgot about it, then accidentally discovered the bag of jewelry while housecleaning.  This was just moments before she was getting ready to report the (supposed) burglary to the police.

  Tuesday morning, she called me at work to put my mind at ease.

  So if you've read all of this, you deserve some entertainment for your troubles.  Here's a YouTube link to Tony Bennett singing one of my old favorites -- "There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight" -- a song originally written by Hank Williams.

  Actually, you don't need to stop reading.  Here's more about the Scrabble tournament I won.  (If you read all of that, all the way down to the end, you'll know exactly why I thought of Tony Bennett!)

  From an email I sent to a friend:

  I'm still on Cloud Nine after scoring my first tournament victory (No. 39 of my career) in 12 years.   Interesting thing about that number twelve.  I'd played in exactly 12 tournaments where I finished lower than first place, since my last previous win in Lubbock, TX, in March of 2002.  And it was during my 12 years of "retirement" -- between 1990 and 2002 -- that my Scrabble heyday occurred.  During that time, I was the only U.S. Scrabble player to have competed in six consecutive world championships (held biennially between 1993 and 2003).  Best results for me were fourth in London in 1995 and sixth in Las Vegas in 2001.

   

  So let's get back to the subject of my latest triumph, accomplished in Wilmington, NC, over the St. Patrick's Day weekend.  Just four of us were brave enough to compete in an event where the allowable words were from a tome called "Collins Official Scrabble Words," which is the bible for world championships and contains words from Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and even more exotic places where English is frequently or occasionally spoken.  One of those words is ZO, defined in Chambers English Dictionary as a kind of hybrid domestic cattle, a cross between a yak and a cow, found in the Himalayas.  "ZO" used to be the only two-letter word with a Z in it, until the Americans added ZA (short for pizza!) in 2007.  ZO is still not playable in American tournaments.  More about "ZO" later.

   

  Although I had only three opponents to beat in Wilmington (we played a quintuple round robin for a total of 15 games), that opposition was very strong indeed.  Compare my lifetime record (1,268 wins, 717 losses, 7 ties for a winning percentage of 0.638) with that of whiz kid Matthew Bernardina (318-176-3, 0.643 winning percentage) or with that of veteran Steve Polatnick (2,293-1,470-23, 0.609) and you'll see I had my hands full.  The fourth player was Ryan Fischer, more experienced than Matt but less familiar with the foreign words.  Even Ryan's lifetime winning percentage is 0.600, so he's no soft touch either.  He actually beat me the first two times he played me in Wilmington, before I swept him in our final three games.

   

  After finishing 3-2 vs. Ryan and 4-1 vs. Steve, I was 2-2 vs. Matt going into the last game and didn't even need to win the game to win the tournament, but I beat him anyway, winding up with a 10-5 record.  As usual, the prize money failed to pay for my expenses.  Golfers, tennis players, even bowlers, do a lot better when it comes to success equaling profitability.

   

  I was especially proud of how well I played, particularly in the endgames where I have a deserved reputation for being careless.  For example, I said I'd talk more about "ZO."  In one game against Steve, my remaining letters were G-I-O-O-R and Steve was holding E-E-R-S-T.  It was a very tight board but I found a good-scoring play into an open R -- RIGOR -- such that the O crossed a Z for ZO and the play would have been worth 18 points, giving me a 14-point lead in the game.  Unfortunately, to play RIGOR would have given Steve an opening to play TREES for 16 points, emptying his rack while I still had an O left.  I solved the problem by first playing off that single O for three points and preserving my go-out play of RIGOR.

   

  Would you believe the full story of how that game ended is way, way more complicated than I just made it?  I say that so you won't accuse me of being overly technical.  {{grin}}

   

  So how do I feel?  Kind of the way I imagine Tony Bennett felt when he started winning Grammys again back in the 1990s.

   

  • 5:50 am
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