A Message from
Your Director
Wow! This exceptionally cold winter is sure sending us lots of visiting Scrabble players who want to escape the snow blizzards in the north!
We were very happy to welcome three players
from Ontario, Canada this month.
GEOFF GIBSON ZEV KAUFMAN
and LIBERO PAOLLA
Also, JACK EICHENBAUM from Flushing, NY,
ARNIE SCHLICHTER, from Philadelphia, PA
and
MIKE WOLFBERG from Westford, MA
To acknowledge the upcoming Superbowl between the Saints and the Colts, our first prize during the month of February was a football-shaped chip and dip bowl complete with a bag of munchies to be enjoyed on the big day! It would be awarded for the player scoring the highest "F" word. "F" words were called out left and right during the first two games, but the winner of the evening was ELAINE PATTERSON when she played "FISTULAE" for 76 points. It almost sounds dirty, doesn't it? But it means a duct formed by the imperfect closing of a wound.
But the best "prize" that Elaine was presented with during the month of February was when her first grandchild was born! Mazel Tov, Elaine. Our best wishes to you, Bill and the proud new parents!
On February 10, Valentine pencils were presented to the first twelve players who arrived at club. The prize winners were (in order of arrival) JED MARTINEZ, MARTY ROSEN, OSSIE MAIR, TRIP PAYNE, JUDY FORD, JOHN SCALZO, MAXINE SAPERSTEIN, JEFF GARRETT, ROBERT KAHN, JACK EICHENBAUM, MARY CAPALBI and HOWARD PISTOL.
In addition, we had our best word pertaining to Valentine's Day contest. As usual, we had some excellent words, some silly words and some sexy words (moon, jo, wive, zing, adores, blow, pointer, box, flirted, bam, lustiest and neurosis, among others). But the winning word which was voted upon by an overwhelming majority was "LOVERS" played by yours truly, SANDEE BLOOM. Usually I don't enter my own contests, but since I was visiting ANN ROBIN the next day and giving her a card that our club members signed that night, I thought that if I would be perfect if I could also give her the prize teddy bear with the chocolate long stem red rose. And things worked out perfectly.
The next day, Ann had the biggest smile on her face when she read the card from all of our club members and received the teddy bear! She sends her love and a big "Thank You!" to everyone.
On February 17 we had a prize in celebration of the Chinese New Year. This year it is the Year of the Tiger. I hunted high and low looking for a tiger to award. Tiger Woods was still in seclusion, so I couldn't get him. Finally, I had a breakthrough and awarded a box of Frosted Flakes with Tony the Tiger to the player who scored the highest word beginning with a "T." IAN WEINSTEIN played the highest T-word when he scored 85 points for "TIMEOUS."
In observance of the little-known holiday, "No Brainer Day" which is always celebrated on February 27, the last prize of the month, a SCRABBLE PEN with its own built-in Scrabble board and tiles was awarded for the person who scored the lowest losing game during the first two games of the evening. And the winner of the lowest scoring game was DOUG HALPER when he lost his game to Donna Forman with a score of 247 points. As Doug happily accepted his prize he apologized to all of the players who didn't have a chance to play with him. Doug, you have a fun sense of humor. It's good to have you back at club again after such a long absence. We hope to see you more often.
During this past month, ROBERT KAHN and OSSIE MAIR had an game in which an eleven-tile word was created. Here is the board.
Ossie played "WEAVE" through the open "E" of "HAE."
Then Robert added "INTER" and "D" to make the 11-letter word, "INTERWEAVED." As Robert said, it didn't score a lot of points, but it is unusual to form such a long word.
CELL PHONE FUND STATUS - STILL AT $3.00
I'M HAPPY TO REPORT THAT FOR THE SECOND MONTH IN A ROW, NO ADDITONAL FUNDS WERE COLLECTED!
Happy tiling,
Sandee Bloom
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