Uncle Wiggily

Have you ever heard of Uncle Wiggily? If you're not a member of our family, I'm guessing not. He's a children's literary character created around 1910. My dad has lots of Uncle Wiggily books. And... wait for it... the Uncle Wiggily board game--the same one he played seventy-five years ago as a kid!

A few nights ago a bunch of us were all at my parents' house, and five of the six grandkids, ranging in ages from 6th grade to recent college graduate, were all hanging out in the family room playing board games.

Now that in and of itself should be a blog post all by itself, which I will do when I'm done with this one. THIS one, however, is specifically about kids playing the Uncle Wiggily board game.

Now, just for comparative purposes, here is the Uncle Wiggily game next to the Candy Land game.



You know when you play Candy Land how fun it is to get the cards that sends you to the Lollipop Woods? Or you get to go the Peppermint Forest? Or best of all you end up getting to take the Gumdrop Pass shortcut? The entire game is all pretty delicious sounding and very kid-friendly stuff. What kid wouldn't want to play and win Candy Land and end up being King Candy in the Candy Castle? That's a pretty kid-friendly reason to want to win the game.

The Uncle Wiggily game, on the other hand, has as it's destination for the winning player:
Dr. Possum's office. Why, you ask, is getting to Dr. Possum's office how you win the game? Because, and I don't know how you didn't think of this, the purpose of playing Uncle Wiggily's game is to help Uncle Wiggily get help for his nagging illness of rheumatism. I'm not making this up. That's an actual direct quote from the instructions.

Given that you now know the objective of this game designed for four year olds, ask yourself what might the cards that you would draw to move around the board say? Buckle up. You're gonna love this. For your amusement, here is a sampling of some of the cards:

"For Uncle Wiggily there are two jumps. I hope he hits no jagged stumps." Watch it, guy with rheumatism. That's not all you have to worry about apparently!

"A cabbage lollypop now and then will gain Uncle Wiggily a hop of ten." Yum. Cabbage lollypops.

"Uncle Wiggily sees a cabbage and goes back seven hops to get it for Nurse Jane Fuzzy his Muskrat Lady Housekeeper." I'm not sure there isn't something slightly dirty there, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

"Oh my! Uncle Wiggily's rheumatism crutch catches in the crack of a log and you lose one turn." For a guy with rheumatism Uncle Wiggily maybe shouldn't be out hiking over logs and jagged stumps.

I can't imagine sitting down with Olivia and Steven when they were little and getting excited about getting to Dr. Possum's office so Uncle Wiggily can get help for his rheumatism, which is already so bad that he's using a crutch. First off I think I would have had to look up rheumatism to explain it to the kids, and I think just the premise might have made Olivia cry.

And also, who makes a kids' game with the objective of getting to the doctor's office?

A different era in games, I guess. It probably didn't phase my dad at all to play the Uncle Wiggily game as a youngster, especially since he had read all of the Uncle Wiggily books. The rheumatism was probably just part of the storyline.

I guess I should just be thankful that the five grandkids weren't all playing a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity.

Things That Make Me Happy

It occurs to me that we (and by "we" I mean generally all of humanity) spend a lot of time thinking about things that bother us. We ruminate extensively on things gone wrong.

For example: that guy who cuts us off in the parking lot... how many different people do we mention that to? And why do we keep talking about it... we can't do anything about it. It's over and done. We should be moving on. But we like to linger on the irritation. Why do we like to do that?

Wouldn't it be great if I had the answer to that question?! I don't, unfortunately. I could probably posit a lot of theories, but I would have absolutely no evidence to back them up. It would just be me pretty much doing a little armchair analyzing of the American psyche. 

So instead of doing that (because there'd really be no point to that), I thought instead I would ruminate extensively on things that make me happy. Which I think we should all do more often. It's way more fun than talking about that guy in the parking lot.

So here we go... things that make me happy!

When my kids call to tell me about some fun thing that happened to them that day. First of all, it just makes me happy that my kids call. And also it makes me delirious how happy they actually are. You know when you are listening to someone and you can tell, even though you can't see them, that they're smiling really big? That's the kind of phone calls I love from my kids.

Watching Dave teach himself a new woodworking skill. The man has more patience than a saint. I'm sure he gets frustrated at times and he probably makes mistakes, but he never seems to get rattled. He just approaches things with such a deliberate expectation that he will eventually succeed that I find it inspiring and that makes me happy.

Random texts from my best friend, Lynda. The texts can say anything. It just puts a smile on my face when I see her name on my phone screen. 

Driving my car. I just got a new Subaru Outback in December, and I absolutely love it. Like no other car I've ever had. I can't explain it. I just thoroughly enjoy driving my car no matter where I'm going. Kind of weird, I know, but true.

San Francisco. Everything about that city makes me happy. I love the weather. I love the Ferry Building. I love the food. I love the bridges. The skyline. The Embarcadero (my favorite place in the world to run). The hotels. Just everything. I could spend months there just hanging out.

Stories about people who do nice things because they are just very nice, decent people. I just read this blurb about a family that was driving home one warm evening, and the dad has the mom pull over and drop him off and he tells her to just head home, he'll walk the rest of the way. The mom didn't know what was going on, but she stops and lets him out and as she's driving away she looks back and the dad has walked back a couple of houses and has taken over mowing the lawn for an elderly gentleman. What a great example for his kids. 

Daisies. I like their simplicity. 

The smell of the ocean.

The feeling of a summer morning when you walk outside really early and it's not yet hot but it's not even close to cold. 

Every. Single. Song. of. "Hamilton".

The late-night sound of Steven and Olivia laughing their heads off together.

Airplane travel. I know, right? Didn't expect that did you? Who loves airplane travel? I do! First of all there's the fun of going somewhere. And then the day you leave it's like you get to go through an entire checklist of things that need to get done, which is always satisfying... security clearance, check your gate number, get a snack, line up for boarding, settle in to your seat... it's all just exciting to me. And also, when you look around at airports, by and large people are pretty happy. Not everyone, of course (there's always that ONE family you hope you don't have to sit next to on the plane). But mostly. Look around the next time you're waiting for a flight. It's usually not random chaos and disconsolate travelers. It's the opposite. People quietly reading, kids looking out giant windows at airplanes, couples having animated conversations. Happiness.

Brandon Crawford. Because that guy is having just pretty much a frustrating year in the batter's box, but his fielding is still so Golden Glove graceful that regardless of how badly the Giants are losing, I still want to watch Craw at shortstop. 

I feel like I could go on and on and on, and what a nice feeling that is. 

We are surrounded by a world with no shortage of events, people, places and tweets that can effect us one way or another. Maybe the next time someone does something that irks you, or you see something that is disappointing, look around and try to find something uplifting that's going on, however small.

I think we tend to find what we are looking for.