THE SONIC BOOMER
Although I’m not as careful as my sister, who only leaves her house once a month for groceries, the virus is still taking its toll on me as it drags its way through my year. I am clinging to the hope that a safe, reliable vaccine will be on the market by spring, even though my daughter is skeptical.
“I’m not injecting something into my veins that’s been rushed to market,” she said.
“I am,” I said. “I’ve lived a full life already, and I’m sick of this. If I die, don’t get the shot.”
I think the reason I don’t have more patience is that I’m a gypsy at heart, and staying in one place doesn’t agree with me. My suspicions were confirmed recently when I found out I’m part Bohemian. I always thought the name Welky was German (it was originally spelled Velke), but it turns out I am part Bohemian.
Art, music, dance — sounds like my fine arts minor in college. Traveling down a road with a caravan of clanking pots — sounds like me bringing inventory to my antiques stores. Banging on a tambourine while whirling around a campfire — well, not so much.
But this sitting around the house is making me crazy. First thing I did, I gained six pounds. Second thing I did, I lost two pounds. Then I started playing games on my phone simply to keep my mitts out of the potato chip bag.
But these gaming apps are a slippery slope. You start out with Candy Crush, noodle around Blockudoku for a while, and then you stumble across Scrabble and you’re done for.
The Scrabble game I’m playing pits me against other players, some of whom are better than me, some of whom are worse. There’s a little thumbnail photo of each of them, and the name they’d like to be known by. I had been playing for about two weeks when I realized I had created a whole world around these people.
Keith, Marc and Joseph are probably nice enough people in real life, but in my little Scrabble world, I have deemed them grossly unworthy of my attention. I mean, who hangs an E out right next to a blank triple word square? You do that, you deserve to lose.
James, Lily and Rhonda make me think, which is good when I’m really into the game, and totally infuriating when I’m tired and lazy and really should just go to bed.
Gina has a photo of her dog instead of herself, and I’ve decided to quit playing her dog.
But Fiona, Ben and Albert — ah, those are the names I like to see come up as challengers. They are each ranked higher than I am, although I am not quite sure how you attain your ranking. Right now, I’m a 17. Fiona and Ben are 20s and Albert is a 24. I have no business playing Albert at all. In fact, I am probably the Keith, Marc or Joseph of Albert’s world. But if he keeps slapping down the first word, I am surely going to slap down the second.
My best word so far was worth 93 points, getting me into the top 10 percent of players, so there may be hope for me yet. Heaven knows I’m working at it — hours and hours a day.
Hours and hours and hours.
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I think we are all attached to our phone and social media in our modern life.