screen – Nancy Tart: Writing for Life

December 9, 2018

Thoughts on Sunday

Louis has this gas card that does reward points but you have to spend them at a specific restaurant. Usually, this ends up being our “date night money” every two or three months. This time, he said there was a special at one restaurant for kid’s meals and he had enough reward points to cover almost all of the meal.

Cool. So we went out. Party of eight. This was the first time Becky (who, in her new “sweet” wedges she “found” for $4 at a resale shop, is the same height as Christina!) was not assumed to need a kid’s menu.

My teenagers (that’s a scary reality!) are sitting all dressed up at one side of the table with Jillian and Jaquline in their Sunday best across from them. Louis and Kimberly sat across from me and Lucas was sandwiched between the wall, me, and Becky (wise waitress to give us the corner wall). The three older girls have been working odd jobs to raise “Christmas money” (and saved “birthday money” so they can buy presents). When they went shopping yesterday, they bought Christmas presents from several resale shops and a few small “scores” for themselves. Kimberly was wearing her new pair of beautiful triangle clip-on earrings that complimented her stone cross necklace and her favorite dress and pumps (another “sweet find” from a clearance rack last year that she purposefully bought one size too big and can now fit). She looked so like a young lady. I love how my girls are growing into young ladies. (It’s also a bit overwhelming to realize each of these three are sporting make-up, high heels, and share at least one adult size with me.)

Lucas couldn’t get over one thing… the restaurant had dozens on TV screens and five games going at the same time. Lucas must have counted those TVs fifty times. One fellow patron periodically would glance and smile at Lucas after he would gasp, “look, more football! One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eleven!”

“Mom!” Lucas exclaims as we walk to the bathroom, passing the other side of the restaurant and multiple other TVs, “more football!” This amuses the few tables we are passing. Lucas gasps, “a real football girl!” (This is as he notices our server wearing a football jersey – she’s had it the whole time.) One gentleman asks Lucas if he’s about to be a big brother. “Oh yes, this is my baby I get to keep.” Lucas taps on my belly. He asks if Lucas wants a brother or sister. Lucas says very seriously, “I want this baby to grow big and come out. This is my baby I get to keep.”

His baby. Lucas is so excited about not having to leave “His Baby” at church. Back to our seat and he’s counting TVs and football games all the way there…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

August 10, 2018

Growing Up Gaming

When you are born into a family that loves board games (Risk, Catan, Life, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Poker are serious around here), discusses Star Ocean and Nancy Drew mysteries as if they are reality (if you walk in and we’re discussing Ned, Bess, and George and whose clue to follow, that’s Nancy Drew, but if we’re debating the character traits of Claude, Dias, and Leon, that’s Star Ocean), gets into serious nerd debates (you know, book versus movie for classics and bouncing theories about Rey’s parents, Gandalf’s childhood, or what cool stories Superman had as a youngster doing chores), and it’s pretty routine to hear someone say, “no, no, he’s a book person,” (unless both parties know the book, which is more common) you are likely to grow up gaming, reading, and being rather serious about such fun.

This is a family thing, since there has probably not been a get together where the verbatim replay of “Meat’s back on the menu” by the uncles and the older cousins didn’t happen. (It’s entertaining, but a bit freaky if you don’t know the movie!)

For me, it was Zork, Teddy Boy, and 3D Adventure (Atari, the huge ducks or dragons that ate you and the castles where you saved the blocks).

My younger siblings introduced me to Playstation (Star Ocean and Legend of the Dragoon) as an 18-year-old. That was cool, except I kept trying to look around the monitor screen instead of turn the view with the controller! My kids know both of those… with their Playstation 2.

We are rather old school when it comes to games… the newest is probably Minecraft. It’s a building exploration game that the girls create elaborate homes and castles in since they can’t run out of bricks (we have a finite amount of Legos and their imaginations are way bigger than the few bricks we have). We actually have two old computers and keep them up because they run our 90s games (and the educational software I own runs on 32 bit instead of the new 64).

It’s always easier to learn something when you smash your head in between their head and the screen…

Lucas considers himself very independent. He likes to load the girls’ Minecraft lands and explore their castles (they call it “destroy” the castles – just like with Legos).

He is very happy when someone discovers him doing this.

(Game rules say electronics after dark… notice the daylight?)

Christina thinks it’s hilarious and calls him “gamer dude” when she sees him with the game phone that was put away for the daytime.

I’m going to slide back into the gaming world… a furious game of Pictionary is happening on the kitchen table right now – and even Lucas is jumping around as Becky sketches two triangles, a round thing, and dozens of dots… this is supposed to represent “Star Wars.”

And this is supposed to be peanut butter… Becky yelps, “Can’t you see Peter Pan?” and circled it…

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Tag: screen

Thoughts on Sunday

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Growing Up Gaming

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