Gratitude

Formidable Ceilidh
plays this game with
"no mercy".

It's quiet here at my house this evening. 

This afternoon I baked an apple coffee cake. I wanted the smell of cinnamon and brown sugar  to fill the air, and my stomach.

I also wanted to bring us all together for some family time. I had chosen a table top game that I thought we could each manage with one hand (and a fork with the other). Doral's family introduced us to the game "No Thanks!" a few summers ago. We had yet to break in our copy.

David, Joaquim, and I ate the cake just as the recipe suggests - "cut into squares and serve warm." We sat around the table, each with a square of crumbly cake in a bowl to one side and red tokens from a game to the other.

Although "thanks" is in the title of the game, I vividly remember the game is not inherently  polite. The goal is to have the least number of points when the game ends. (Points are the sum total of all "single" cards you have added to the lowest number is each series.)

One at a time, you flip over a card. If you choose not to take that card, you say "no thanks" and deposit one of your initial 11 red poker-chip-like tokens beside that card. The next person must pick up that card, or also say "no thank you" and deposit one of their tokens beside the card. The person who takes the card adds the now accompanying tokens to their personal stock pile (subtracting them from their point total at the end of the game).

We hadn't played the game in a while, so we each played somewhat conservatively. There were many "no thanks" said on lower numbered cards at first. The no thanks became more emphatic as the cards with higher numbers surfaced. Lots of worry or groans when a player realizes they are out of red token, and so must pick up the next card. These regret sounds can get drown out by chortle sounds from players who see another player has saved them from an unwanted card.

The biggest regret, perhaps, was that not one of us said "no thanks" to a third serving of the cake.

Thanks to Brenda for
the gift of this book.

I guess I will write beside the recipe that it is a keeper, but next time to half the recipe. 

If we couldn't say no thanks after being so heavily primed by the title of the game, we will have to admit defeat to politely declining more cake than we should have consumed.

A big "yes thanks" to family, to a warm home, and to a quiet evening in Salmon Arm.

Post cake activities:

Last chapter of Jinx, David's school library book 
he loaned to me.

Watching the newest videos on my favorite
YouTube channels.

Discovering new ways to build with old pieces.