I think I've explained before how "65" works. There are 11 rounds in one game. First round you deal 3 cards, second round 4, third round 5, and so on. In the 3 round 3s are wild. In the 4 round 4s are wild, etc. Deal rotates around the table. The person who won the last game starts the next game. So If I'm the winner (which I was, twice, this Cousins Day), I start dealing 3s, then Kathy deals 4s, my mother deals 5s, Peach deals 6s and then back to me again. I'll tell you among the four of us we can't remember anything. We can't remember who dealt last, how many card need to be dealt this round, or what's wild. We are forever stopping to count. "Bev started so she's 3 and then counting around the circle until we get to the person whose turn it is to deal to figure out how many cards that person is supposed to deal.
This was probably our primary activity during all of our card playing this time--trying to figure out who was supposed to deal, how many cards she had to deal, and what was wild--even during the middle of the hand.
Very depressing for a family which has a history of Alzheimers in it!
Ah, but this was a victorious Cousins Day -- and I don't just mean because I won more games than anybody else.
We arrived at my mother's around 11 and finished lunch in time to play one and a half games of 65 before Peach and I took her off to Kaiser for her appointment with, first, the wound nurse and then the surgeon, and then the wound nurse again.
There has been great improvement this week, probably not in small part to Peach riding herd on her and making sure that she kept her leg up above her waist for most of the time. In fact things apparently got quite testy about that. I was at the supermarket getting food for dinner for Cousins Day when my cell phone rang and it was Peach saying "You have to talk to your mother."
But after a visit with Kathy (the wound nurse) and Dr. Safanda, my mother got the permission she had been waiting for...she could get rid of the detested boot she'd been wearing since surgery and first thing she did when we got home was to put a shoe on her right foot. She was a very happy person (of course she still isn't keeping her foot elevated as much as we would like, but that is between her and the wound nurse from now on.
We played a couple more games of 65 and then Peach made appletinis. She had been staying at my mother's this week and so went through all the liquor we've left behind on previous Cousins Days and decided it was time for appletinis.
(I'm doing drinks next time and I have to figure out something to do with chocolate vodka, since we have two partial bottles of it!)
Kathy made some sinfully delicious roll ups with cream cheese and ham and spices,
which we devoured, and then I put together my chicken with sherry cream sauce for the main course.
(Note that I cleverly chose a slotted spoon to spoon up the sauce!)
We had one last game of 65 after dinner, the first one I'd won (which meant that we had each won one, so it seemed a good time to quit). And we all must have been sleepy because it seemed that we started to retire to our own corners of the house shortly after 10 p.m.
In the morning I made ham omelettes for everyone, we had one last game of 65 (I won again), and then we packed up the car to come home. We're supposed to meet again on May 11.
As we drove off, my mother, looking positively ecstatic, had a hose in hand and was putting water into the bird bath on her front lawn. We left her the car keys and no restrictions. She's very, very happy.
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