Games People (I) Play

Taking My Mind Off Things

Hi folks, I am in the middle of a really depressing work assignment for which I was trying to find an article that concerns recantation rates among domestic violence victims. That rate, in case you’re curious, is around 85%. That’s right: 80-90% of DV victims recant their initial statements reporting violence and then refuse to cooperate with the prosecutions of their abusers.

Anyway, the article. I googled the basic facts and learned that there are MANY search results for law firms who offer services or advice on how to recant a DV statement. “Helping” domestic violence victims recant their stories to protect their abuser is a lucrative cottage industry.

Depressed yet?

“Meet me at the hill where we used to park”: Interpersonal processes associated with victim recantation, by Amy E. Bonomi, Rashmi Gangamma, Chris R. Locke, Heather Katafiasz, and David Martin is worth a read if you would like to know more.

Instead of going deeper on that topic, I thought I would share some lighter fare. First, a Magnin update. Here he is with his new owner Heather, who is the director of the Northern California Writers Retreat. Magnin is working as a companion to Heather’s teacup Yorkie and generally being a supportive little dude. Heather, meanwhile, is the tireless organizer of a great literary community. If you are a writer, please check out all the great retreats and workshops she offers. That’s Heather on the right (her left). If you’ve never seen me before, that’s me on the left. My hairdresser tells me that my hair is still 40% brunette, so I’ve got that going for me.

Now I want to confess to you my daily game ritual, in case you also need a lot of distractions from (waves hands around).

First, I do the puzzles in LinkedIn. Were you aware that LinkedIn has puzzles? There are five, and I do them in this order (from least to most liked): Pinpoint, Crossclimb, Zip, Tango, and Queen. It takes under a minute to do each of them and when you do it really quickly, LinkedIn tells you (me), “You are smarter than 75% of all CEOs.” This is nice to hear but I actually think the number is higher, and not because I’m that smart, if you know what I mean.

Then over to the NY Times game app, where I do, in this order, Wordle, Connections, Strands, Mini-crossword. I don’t do the spelling bee any more because I got tired of long word lists that were 50% past tense verbs or gerunds or participles or whatever. Even though I spend too much time playing games, I don’t do the Crossword because I think it takes too long. Maybe someday. I don’t really like Letter Box either, but maybe I should put it in my rotation. I play Sudoku but only in a paper book of puzzles I bought when I was pregnant with my younger son 19 years ago. I’ve played Tiles but I don’t play Tiles, if you know what I mean.

You probably think I’m done, right? No. Next I open the browser on my ipad and play Colorfle, where you have to guess the colors that make up the color of the day. For a while I played Order Up, but for some reason it’s paused right now. If you like Wordle-style guessing games, I also recommend Heardle, where you have to guess a song, and Worldle, where you have to guess a country. There’s also Quordle, where you have to guess four words. Nerdle: Guess a math equation. I used to play Waffle but then I forgot all about it. Maybe I’ll start again.

Another great source of puzzles is Krazy Dad. He actually has printable puzzles too. Mainly I play the interactive Two Not Touch on that website when I remember it’s there. You may be familiar with this game as Ken Ken in the NYT.

Finally, I play 368 Chickens, which I have never won and find endlessly frustrating. Now you can share my pain.

Do you have any good puzzles or games to recommend? Do you want to join the NYT Leaderboard with me? I am a little afraid to find out that my friends might be routinely kicking my ass at these games but I did promise to accept invitations from friends this year so I won’t say no if you ask me.

As always, thanks for letting me distract you!