Kaikoura Rainy Day

09 February 2011

I am in the midst of a losing streak.  Things were looking better last night when I beat Gina at her own game, i.e., Yahtzee!  Who would have guessed that with three fours in the kitty, I would toss double-fours on my third roll, completing that perfect Yahtzee! moment?  But today, on this grey, drizzly day in Kaikoura, dubbed Game Day as we have nothing better to do, my luck has turned.  Despite missing her Bonus by a single point, Gina still kicked my bum.  Then things got even worse.  I suggested a game of Rummy 500, thinking that my rookie rummy foe would fall from her winning pedestal.  But I severely underestimated her rummy skills as she racked up a 140 point lead after just the first hand.

I have an excuse though.  I am contributing the Rummy 500 drubbing I took to post-earthquake anxiety.  Yes, post-earthquake anxiety.  As we sat playing games, an earthquake shook our wee campground cabin.  We are only a 2 hour drive north of Christchurch, which is clearly not far enough away.  I suppose the locals would consider it to be a minor tremor or aftershock, but it was a major event to us.  Like all well-prepared folk, we simply sat at the table staring at one another while the cabin shook.  Coming from Seattle, you like to think that you know exactly what to do when a quake hits, all that grammar school training of Duck and Cover.  But when the ground unexpectedly starts shaking, all training is tossed out the window and the dog-with-tilted-head look takes over as you try to process exactly what you are experiencing.  I’m sure if it had been worse we would have jumped and jockeyed for the doorway, or at least run out into the clearing shrieking with fear and four-letter words, a proud moment indeed for our grade school teachers.

The only saving grace to my Game Day losses is that I am STILL the Pinball Wizard of Cabin 5.  Someone complains that the screen hurts her eyes and that somehow the game is rigged, but let it be known that she has yet to crack my Top Five scores.