Sunshine, at last

Spring sounded as distinctly as an alarm clock as temperatures soared under blue skies, driving us outdoors amid bird calls so musical and rich that we took the collective result as spring’s prelude and definitively swept winter into the recesses of memory. The buzz of human conversation drifted from the park, the street and the back to back yards as the neighborhood shook off a fitful winter’s sleep and we threw open the windows in every room of our homes so that spring might rush in and push all stagnancy away.

First one and then more mowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers worked to remove the visible traces of winter’s ire. Craig created one of the piles of dead limbs, dried leaves and tired grasses that dotted the edge of the street waiting for removal by the city calling, “here, take the long, cold winter away.” Across the street the newly trimmed yards seemed greener and fresher while flaunting daffodils and pansies that, merely by implication, radiated with intensity and depth.

My family stretched with the satisfying sigh that often comes involuntarily after waking. They scattered in the sunshine, Miren with a book on the back deck, pausing to declare the day perfect, her family perfect, even herself perfect. Lise sat on the sidewalk near the street in the front yard sketching the first offerings of the season and chatting with passersby. Rem, with a newfound sense of freedom and even more energy than usual, commandeered a ship in the back yard, practiced fencing techniques with a stick, moved his pinecone friends to new locations and chased Tam, the crocodile until the dog-crocodile returned to the house for some long desired solitude.

The evening arrived slowly and though reluctant to relinquish such a day, the promise of its successors nudged me indoors where Vivaldi ushered in a spectacular spring night.

And the Magic Word is...

“Poof!” Rem shouts to no one and everyone. “I am the Cat in the Hat!” Instantly transformed by means of a yellow hat and a Mardi Gras umbrella, he begins quoting lines from the book. “Have no fear! I will not let you fall.” And I watch him grab a book and put his foot on a ball to mimic the mischievous character before falling to the ground with a big grin. He embodies these characters of his with great conviction, never for a second believing that we could mistake him for anything other than the current personality he is portraying.


“Make that cat go away,” I improvise, as I continue folding the insurmountable load of laundry beside me on the couch.


“I will show you another good game that I know,” Rem says, jumping up before he vanishes.

Lise walks in and hands me homework to look over and sign. Rem, still wearing the yellow felt hat, returns to the living room with a Lego box and announces with great bravado that he will show us what is inside. He lifts the lid and eyes us expectantly as, out of the box, he explains, come Things One and Two. Lise reluctantly shakes hands with the invisible trouble makers before disappearing with her completed work.


The game continues until Miren, trying to practice piano, fortuitously cries that, “Our mother is near! I saw her. So do something fast!” Rem scrambles to retrieve his little push car and begins cleaning the mess and soon, we all hope, the game will end. Before I have put all of the laundry away I hear him shout again.

“Poof! I am Captain Hook!” He emerges from his room in a pink bathrobe with a foam sword sheathed in one of the belt loops and wearing Miren’s oversized straw hat backwards (the orange chiffon scarf dangling in front of his face). He is all fierceness and hilarity. He busily eludes the crocodile and searches for Peter Pan while trying to engage his sisters in a duel.


Later, Rem finds me in the kitchen and, discarding his pirate garb on the floor, reaches his arms upward so that I will pick him up.


“Poof,” he says, rather exhausted. “I am just Rem.”


After a long week of playing nursemaid to various family members (fate’s ugly retribution for my recent boasting of my family’s good health), I, too, want to say “Poof!”


Maybe I’d find myself in Paris, the feel of the city’s ancient and new dust on my skin, the smell of patisseries and boulangeries heavy in the air. I see myself as clearly as Rem sees himself in his many roles, sitting at a table on the sidewalk in the Marais, with the plat du jour in front of me and a carafe of the house wine nearly empty as Craig and I talk about our long, eventful day. Craig speaks with enthusiasm about the Pompidou Centre, the architecture and the modern art collection and we sigh over the works in the Louvre where we stood as close to the paintings as the masters themselves. Tired from the museum rush and the long stroll through the Tuilieres we still rise from the table anxious to meander along the Seine and enjoy the city as the moon ascends above the city lights.


“Poof!” Now I sit on the beach on an unusually warm October day. A book sits open on my lap but my eyes are fixed on the rush of water as it makes its way toward me over the sand. The ocean breeze, as it rustles through the grasses behind me and the rhythmic movement of water drown out any other sounds that may be floating in the air.The beach is empty apart from a dog running ahead of its owner some distance away, whose steps take them further and further from the scene until I feel quite alone and serene. I dig my toes into the warm sand and feel the mellow autumn sun’s heat press into my skin. Before long, I find myself ambling along the irregular, fluid edge of the water oblivious to measurable time and its constraints.


“Poof!” Rem wriggles free from my arms. “I am a fairy. And you are the fairy’s mommy. You have to find my magic wand!”

Home Tours

The promise of sunshine and Craig's casual mention of his plans for the day over a cup of coffee lead to Rem and I accompanying him to a current job site. The pleasant drive extends just long enough to feel like an excursion and Rem happily occupies himself with a pair of binoculars in the back seat. The home, near completion, greets us under a bright blue sky, most of the morning fog having burnt off of the slope. Craig brought me to this site once before in the evening after a nearby party. We walked through the skeleton of a house, just under roof, but still a collection of lines as if just risen from Craig's framing plan. And yet, I knew the spaces from the drawings Craig walked me through at length, even as darkness swept through the wood members that stood simply as a suggestion of the home to come. I am used to following Craig through spaces in his head and any amount of physical support brings a structure to life. The actual built spaces continue to surprise me in their amazing similarities to the earliest sketches but also in the revelations I never seem to anticipate.

Rem follows Craig from the yellow truck, forcing his hands into the mini-pockets of his toddler jeans to mimic his father as they saunter across the gravel drive to the house.

"Are we going to live here?" Rem asks, hopeful.

The scattering of ladders, empty buckets and unopened cans of finish and paint do not hinder my ability to fully see the home. The universal smells of new construction string together happy recollections of my own childhood and adult experiences of sheet rock and sawdust, wood finish and paint thinner.

Craig walks us through quickly before becoming engaged with the contractor and punch lists. Rem and I leave him and together search for Craig in the details of the house. The house, for this purpose, is for me at its most ideal: almost complete yet empty. Craig's vision still permeates, not yet obscured by the client's infusion of the personal accouterments that will make it his own.

Craig's own love of our mountains insures that the client will never lose his sense of this particular mountain setting. Roof lines, clean and pitched in harmony with the ridges beyond also allow the house to rise and fall with the slope, underscoring Craig's aversion to disrupting a site's character with excessive grading. I see Craig present in the prominent, dry-stacked, indigenous stone fireplaces that mark, in individual ways, the symbolic center of his homes. We admire the double sided fireplace that at once anchors all of the public spaces from its post in the living room and creates an intimate coziness for the screened porch on the other side. Rem likes that he can fit inside both. From the outer deck, I indicate the exclamation point, the monumental concrete cap.

Rem loses interest and we chase imaginary bears off of the stone floor of the screened porch and along the wooden bench of the outer deck. We pretend to picnic while enjoying the extensive view of the parkway and the layers of dense fog that linger in spots, suppressing valleys and the lower ridges from the blue sky we are already enjoying.

With the promise of a staircase to climb, I entice Rem back into the house and enjoy the play of light that the abundant glass ushers in. The living snapshots delight us in every room and I anticipate the change of seasons that will rotate through each window. I point to a turkey as it meanders through a stand of trees from one side of the house and catch my breath at the distant snow-encrusted peaks from a bedroom at the opposite end of the house. Craig refuses no one the pleasure of the natural beauty that surrounds the site and from the bathrooms and kitchen, too can the resultant joy of a dramatic sunset or the gradual gratification of the creeping spread of dawn be experienced.

Craig rejoins us as he snaps photos for a field report and Rem rejoices in his foresight to bring binoculars as they easily double as a digital camera of his own and he opens closet doors, snapping pictures for his own report. Too soon do we part. Rem sleeps as Craig and I alternately list the rest of the day's activities. Moments suffice for now. One day we will string them together into happy recollections and the rest, we'll smile over and wish we wouldn't have worried so much.

Longing for Spring

Rem, Tam and I alone occupied the park this morning, savoring the unexpected warmer temperatures. Suggestive, cold breezes wafted through the park, warning of more approaching cold and forced us to focus on the present. Tam sat on her haunches at the edge of the playground area, her ears perked, and surveyed the dull landscape before her with optimism. This posture is beautiful in a Brittany so full of expectant and harnessed energy waiting to be released. Alert though she patiently stood, no bird or squirrel moved over the deserted ground or through the bare trees to instigate a chase.

Rem's repetitive play as a man on a Mardi Gras float from atop the playground apparatus throwing imaginary beads interested neither me nor the dog. I did, however, raise my arms occasionally as a parade spectator in a half-hearted effort to share in Rem's play. We leisurely followed the creek bed, an endless restoration project due to the persistent winter weather and felt disappointed at the abandoned appearance of all but the creek bed itself. Erosion mats hold the ground at bay and although difficult to circumnavigate, they lead to the newly formed pools in the creek as it meanders through the park.

The empty park only momentarily lifted my spirits and by the time we walked home, the temperatures had dropped even more. The yard presented itself as long suffering and tired. The lyriope lining the walks and empty beds retained the burdened appearance of bearing the weight of snow. Scattered, leafless stands of trees towered over muddy wallows that remained hardened most of the day. Even the trellis displayed a pitiful scene of yellowing jasmine that acted as a sieve to melting snow, dripping icy water droplets onto the walkway below. Tight- fisted rhododendron leaves, in an exhibit of exasperation at the continued frigid temperatures, fade the memories of once lush bushes that filled the yard. Everything looks heavy and misshapened from the continuous pressure of a winter landscape that loses its charm with each new snowfall.

Some years ago I acquired the habit of devouring and scribbling in well worn copies of nineteenth century English novels during my bouts of winter blues. I have been particularly ravenous this year in an attempt to abate an acute case of cabin fever. The restorative powers that I sought have actually had the reverse affect upon me. Winters seem more bearable from within remote, mysterious manor houses and across windswept moors than from my humble hamlet and surroundings. Immersion in the bleak plight of those destined to lives spent in poorhouses or debtor's prisons serves only to enhance the desolate view from the window where I sit reading. Even though the diverse, well-depicted Middlemarchers resemble the personalities of many of my current acquaintances, (I know my share of Bulstrodes and Causabons, a Fred Vincy or two). I am not rewarded with the benefits of such interesting story lines as befell the people of nineteenth century England.

I turn to my old friends who have patiently pushed me through my many phases over the last twenty-five years or so but they are not as true to me as I am to them. The Bronte's, Dickens, Eliot and Austen deviously toy with my waning spirit. Devoutly, I read page after page, longing for the next revelation, a deeper insight into each complex persona, a new understanding of the human condition - while mine suffers. The hours spent each afternoon in the car waiting for children does not afford the same environment for self reflection or growth as a cozy room of thinking yet idle characters happy for lengthy conversations over tea or after dinner (before the dancing, of course). My kinsfolk completely abandon me during the gloomy months of winter so there is no hope of filling the house with family and except for the occasional dinner with friends (that aren't postponed because of impending snow) my evenings are spent as an outsider envious of the gatherings and relationships that unfold in pages. Even Craig, so often willing to humor me, hasn't attempted to profess his love in a hand written letter carefully sealed with wax though I must certainly pierce his soul on occasion. The evenings turn to night and still I read fervently until I am enveloped in a melancholy that only sleep can break.

An enlivened patch of pansies, the sudden appearance of daffodils, the purple fuzz of the redbud trees will release me from my torment. Warm afternoons will raise my yard from its desolate winter's sleep and its unkempt beauty will once again become a haven for me and the center of activity for my family. A day or two that begs me to linger in the direct, warm rays of a revived sun and the gradual return to contemporary literature by way of Henry James (both a nineteenth and twentieth century writer, both British and American) and I will be restored.

Dinner - A One Star Affair

Ah, I believe my children's fate is settled. No amount of outside influence, music or sports, studies or literature appear to sway them from their decided destiny. Such a constancy and commitment do they display in their daily pursuit of perfection that their frequent dissertations regarding my culinary efforts will undoubtedly provide seasoned future food critics for the rest of the world. Acerbic tongues wag incessantly, if not always eloquently, as each day I am subjected to their fastidious palates with only rare instances of unified approval and applause.

I hasten to defend myself. After all, I am no stranger to the kitchen and enjoy cooking (or used to), offering a diverse mix of Louisiana staples, ethnic specialties and fresh, healthy preparations. I happily frequent the farmer's market and have learned to discern the freshest ingredients in an aim to provide seasonally appropriate dishes crafted from scratch for my undeserving brood.

Lately, the long winter and economy have led me toward hearty comfort foods that would seem to hold great appeal to hungry children. But, alas, the burgeoning critics refuse to be quieted by such shameless bribes. Contrarily, even these offerings succumb to the superior tastes that inhabit my home.

Pasta, for instance, while generally supported as desirable, must also adhere to very particular preparations for consumption. Critic A enjoys pasta with a traditional red sauce and Critic B will reluctantly concede to the potential tastiness of such a dish but only if served once (leftovers tend to be universally scorned in my house) and with an accompaniment of Caesar salad and garlic bread. Baked macaroni appears appetizing to all except the youngest critic who uses no words but prefers the dramatic display of spitting the uneaten pasta back onto his plate. The addition of fresh vegetables tossed with the noodles apparently degrades the delectability of the pasta no matter how satiated with cheese or olive oil.

Critic B despises all but the most expensive of cheeses (save for the ones with visible mold). Critic A will obligingly consent to domestic slices on sandwiches but loudly shares her preference for brie and Camembert (and would easily consume an entire wedge in a single sitting if required). She steadfastly holds to the belief that cheddar causes dreadful headaches as does mashed potatoes and Gatorade.

Pad thai will receive positive reviews if half of the ingredients are left out. And the appearance of broccoli in the sweet and sour pork sours dinner for everyone. Gumbo produces cheers that are quickly supplanted with longing for my dad's richer, tastier gumbo and by day three this once acceptable dish prompts groans and complaints when served.

Although they have probably never seen a whole chicken (I tend to buy skinless, boneless pieces that require little trimming and no carving) the critics claim an expertise in poultry. The only acceptable way to prepare chicken is the one that requires the most attention. Actual boos arise when I bring forth a platter of chicken unless it has been through the process of having been lightly browned on the stove to which chopped onions are then added and sauteed in the pan. This is followed by a de-glazing with sherry and a sauce is created with some stock to be poured onto the chicken so that it can finish cooking in the oven under low heat and constant basting for another couple of hours. The grill, a favorite of mine for quick, tasty meats and fish, receives no praise and is often chided as taking the easy way out.

I dread the inevitable question each day when I am marooned in the car with these disparaging connoisseurs of good cuisine. "What's for dinner?" is never left unsaid or forgotten. I take a deep breath and using only the most favorable adjectives tally the dishes that will sit before them on the dinner table later that evening. Yesterday, I slowly listed the items and braced myself for their response. Critic A focused on the sauteed chick peas.

"With spinach?" she asked evenly without a hint of her desire.

"Yes," I answered happily. This is the child who ate spinach pie for lunch at least two times a week in her pre-school days.

"I hate spinach," she surprisingly declared. "I'll eat it in a salad if I don't know about it but never cooked. I can think of better ways to use chick peas."

A sharp pain in my chest caused me to swerve the van a little.

"Anything else?" Critic B asked, hopeful with an underscored dread in her voice. "Dessert?"

"No," I answered defeated.

Later, I surveyed their plates and noticed that both critics had separated the chopped garlic and the individual spinach leaves from the chick peas and with most of the chick peas left untouched, they formed little piles of rejection on their plates as if their words hadn't been painful enough. I looked over at the youngest critic. Fresh fruit and bread products make up most of his diet but I continue to offer a variety of foods. He openly dropped his dinner to the dog sitting alertly at his feet. With a defiant air he asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I watched the dog relish Rem's dinner and lick the floor before getting up to make the sandwich. At least Tam indiscriminately enjoys my cooking!

Our Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Down in New Orleans where my folks all meet

My Asheville crew joined in their beat

Waiting on St. Charles before the sun

Soaking up some Schexnayder fun

With the Mardi Gras Mambo, mambo, mambo...

Down in New Orleans, unlike the days of old

Mardi Gras colors are black and gold

With Brees and Peyton doing their thing

Everyone knows the Saints are king

Doing the Mardi Gras Mambo, mambo, mambo...

We partied each day into the night

For beads and doubloons the kids did fight

Sitting on the ladder, running into the street
To the others and Rex with screams they'd greet

Singing the Mardi Gras Mambo, mambo, mambo...

Down in New Orleans!

This Hour of Calm

How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee night! - Lord Byron


The slow, dark hours that mark the end of each day and the beginning of the next without fanfare or distinct characteristics seem to exist for my singular partiality. The deepest realms of the day seduce me with sheltering shadowy grays and blacks dotted with ribbons of blue-white moonlight strewn randomly across floors, walls and pieces of furniture.


The purposeful hush that encircles my thoughts with a most undeserved reverence also heightens my awareness of self and place. Shed of duties and responsibilities, the core of me rises from the minutiae that every day life sometimes brings. I relax most comfortably in the embrace of the insular hours that share my prediliction for solitary reflection. Typically overpowered by the drama and beauty of sunrises and bright blue skies bathed in light, the darkest hours give up the collective cheers of theatrical spectacle and replace it with the intimacy of poetry. A venue most suitable for my taste.

The remnants of the day's activities linger in the house and I often drift in and out of rooms to savor the sweet enchantment of sleeping children. With the recent addition to our home, Craig fashioned a frame for this favored stretch of time encased in glass at the foot of our bed. I can now enjoy the scene from the warmth of comforters and coziness of pillows or, within steps, open the door and immerse myself into the picture. The night lies exposed but enclosed by the studio and wooden fence.

Not surpisingly, my favorite snowscape is a night one. The impenetrable sky, still pregnant with precipitation reflects the white of the snow back onto itself over and over like mirrors in a dressing room. The snow creates an even heavier silence in the night air absorbing all residual sounds so that the ear strains to catch the audible quality of falling snow. I'm drawn to the open air church of my own flocked backyard and the purity of snow momentarily undisturbed by footprints or snow angels. Alone, I can be totally engulfed without having to attempt to search for the words that would describe or explain the emotion of the moment.

I will surrender long before the stars and the sun will reclaim the sky long before I open my eyes. Giddy children will impatiently dress and scamper out into the undulating white landscape early in the morning. The picturesque scene, the funny lopsided snowman, the laughter resonating from the red-cheeked imps will call me to join their ranks and the present will press the night's solace into the deeper recesses of memory to allow the space for the chaotic bliss of family.

And the Winner Is

Lise, Craig and I sit on the floor of the living room finishing a game of Blockus. These January days that rush into darkness along with the gradual return of sports and extracurricular activities provide an unusual leisure hour or two at the end of the day before the children take to their bedrooms with books. And so the stacks of board games that fill the girls' closet have been making winter evening rounds at the dining room table and on the living room floor. Tam watches quietly from where her head rests on Craig's lap, the rest of her sprawled on the rug beside him while he obligingly rubs her head between turns. Rem, not so quietly, hovers over us as I play my last blue piece and end the game. He bursts into tears.

"I wanted to win," he cries, large crocodile tears streaming down his face. Though it appears he has inherited the appropriate competitive gene for survival in our family the cart is really before the horse here.

"I know you wanted to win," I sympathize. "But you have to actually play the game to have a chance to win."

Lise, satisfied with a second place finish packs up the game and leaves to put it away allowing Miren to safely reappear without having to play. She prefers word-centered games like Scrabble and Boggle and would rather not risk losing at the more spatially minded games. Lise excels at games like Blockus and Mastermind but will, unlike her sister, good-naturedly continue to hone her skills at the other games even though she typically loses.

Mostly, they both like the long, involved games of pure chance. I groan at the sight of Monopoly but even more painful is the current favorite game of Life. Time passes idly as money gets sorted, cars get drivers and stacks of cards that will determine our fate get arranged. Questions arise as I watch the girls busily ready the game, questions like: do we really need to be reminded of the chances and luck that often govern our real lives? Or the surpise of the unexpected bills that send us struggling to get to the next step? Is it only the status of millionaire that will save us from a retirement home at the end of our lives?

Roped into playing with them anyway leads to further disturbances. Lise, for instance, NEVER goes to college. She ALWAYS chooses the vocational route and happily collects a hair stylist's salary or a mechanic's pay. Is this some foreboding of her future plans? If so, then equally disturbing is Miren's penchant for gambling. All game long she risks large sums of money on something called Spin to Win and typically amasses millions. The game of life, like my own often leaves me befuddled. Once I was congratulated on the birth of my grandchild despite the fact that I had gone through life childless.

Games filled the nooks and crannies of my childhood. My grandfather taught me to play checkers at a very young age and in doing so laid the groundwork for my family's cutthroat approach to various tabletop diversions. We sat across from each other over the glossy wooden coffee table in the back room of his home. CBS soap operas blared on the TV beside us as his thick, hairy fingers swiftly glided red checkers across the board. Occasionally he'd get caught up in a love scene or in a particular character's episode of amnesia and I would have to wait until a commercial before his next move.

"Eldon," my grandmother called from the kitchen where she tapped around in her black pumps preparing dinner. She sometimes needed him to reach inside cabinets to retrieve pots or pantry items.

Grandpappy ignored her. He didn't trust me alone with the board. Grandmama had to wait until the game ended. Luckily for her, this didn't take very long. I received little instruction beyond the basic rules of the game and sometimes a little criticism.

"That was a stupid move," Grandpappy responded to my careful, hesitant push of the black checker toward his red ones.

"King me!" He shouted on his next turn, scooping up the checkers he'd jumped and started attacking my pieces from the other side.

Mom, clearly raised in this environment, continued the same kind of sink or swim immersion into games we played at home. Her competitive nature coupled with that of her children's created a sort of street atmosphere around the game. Sometimes it was ugly. Often there were tears. Always, there was a winner and a real loser (we played for second place, third place, etc. until one person remained to absorb most of the humiliation). We took our first steps into the ruthless environment with no one holding our hand. The others hovered like vultures, waiting happily for a new fall guy to take the brunt of the losses. Forget that we were related. All that meant was that the same cold blood coursed through all of our veins.

Memories abound of Mom deftly adding Scrabble scores on a sheet of loose leaf paper near the board and smiling encouragingly, the way I might look at Miren or Lise in a similar situation, as I struggled to compose words out of i's and r's. More difficulty ensued as I tried to find a place for my meager solutions among words that had provided her with at least one hundred more points than I had.

Some of us, on our quest to win, cheated. A game of Battleship with Kris nearly dictated a chase involving ghostly battleships that miraculously avoided hits until Kris literally pinned his ships into a stack in the corner of his board. Usually, his board tipped accidentally and all pegs were lost with no possibility of a winner (or a loser). What did we expect? He had to jump into a pit of experienced snakes filled with venom. He survived any way he could.

Trivial Pursiut sat as a permanent part of our repertoire of games in the late eighties. The original version, it turned out, appealed more to the older generation than the teenagers in our house. Mom loved the game and convinced us to play over and over. She tried to sweeten the pot by suggesting we play on teams. She'd grab a token teammate (we were all equally lacking in the general knowledge required for success at this game) and the rest of us saps plied our brains for answers that she'd giddily spout out when we answered incorrectly. She collected pieces of pie like my brothers at a Gramercy Christmas party.

Dad, however, equally frustrated us from a different angle. Usually, he did not play games but when he did he spent more time arguing about the printed answers on cards than actually playing. Angry and full of disgust for the game, he rambled off long dissertations about the REAL facts until we asked him to quit. He happily obliged and retreated to bed.

Now, our extended family plays on equal footing. We retain the competitive spirit of old and want to win with the same ferocity as our childhood selves. Together we gather in my parent's family room, on a late summer evening or at the end of a long celebration with pencils ready for a cutthroat game of Balderdash or Scattegories. Siblings and spouses show indomitable spirit as we body up against each other arguing at will over vacation places that start with P (is Pakistan really a vacation spot?) and items found in a lunchbox that start with W (who needs a wrench at lunchtime?). We pause, ready to unleash unrelenting wrath at whoever stands in our way of having the most points (this includes our mother). Our late nights of "fun" now welcome the next generation into our sadistic tradition. Koby and Miren pass out pencils while Lauren sets up the board or assimilates game pieces. Dad will even team up with a young person if it isn't too late and we try to exhibit patience as Dad explains his team's famous duo, an old cowboy and his horse from a serial Western that no one has ever heard of or some characters from the radio show Let's Pretend of his childhood while his nine year old partner helps him argue his case.

Rem, however, has much to learn. He wipes his eyes and retrieves his pirate game from his room. The idea is to place little plastic swords in slots along the brown plastic barrel that houses the pirate without getting the pirate. A plastic pirate with a painted patch over his eye that sometimes doubles as Rem's baby sits with his head poking out of the barrel while Craig and Rem take turns plugging the slots with the colorful weaponry. Rem sends the pirate into the air with a yellow sword and screams, "I've won! I've won!" Really, he has lost but with the road ahead we smile knowingly and give him a high five. Craig resets the game for another round.