I Yell Out Dunr

My stepdad wasn’t impressed.  We tried to employ his help on our jigsaw puzzle last night during Christmas dinner.  I’d bought a fifteen-hundred-piece rendering of Van Gogh’s ‘Peach Blossoms,” along with all the presents, so we could have something to work on together.  My wife reminded me too late,  to ask my folks to bring over a deck of cards.  Playing the simple Chinese game of dunr the night before had been high tone.   I yell out "dunr" a lot when I win.

We’d gotten the outer rim done and now we were confronting the arduous task of all those pink and white blossoms and as he sat down to lend his hand he noticed that my older one was assembling things upside down according to the match the coordinating letters, which were printed on the underside of all the pieces.  To him this seemed a bit like cheating.  To us though it proved an important steel-rail to steady my daughters into doing enough of the map so they became obsessed and wouldn’t stop. 

Today we crowded around, determined to finish things.  Even with the letters, it takes forever to find what you’re looking for.   But it certainly helps.  I had a mound of H’s and Y’s and X’s near me, trying to find the other pieces that shared two letters, like Y and Z.  Then you need to look for particularly odd shapes and find run one piece after another trying to find the female for the twisted, spade male of the H-piece you have in your hand.

Late in the evening it became clear that we’d finish soon.  And when we did we discovered that we were missing three pieces of blue sky.  How much time had we wasted trying every piece twice, trying to fit that shape?  And when it was done, the three pieces of sky notwithstanding, we were glad to have finished and consider our work.  It held together nicely.  It had its own fragile beauty, the missing bits notwithstanding, and we’d let it sit here now, so we cold admire it a while, but soon we’d put it away.  It was simply a convincing way to work on something together for a while. 

Thursday 12/26/19