It's 3:30 AM, Do You Know Where Your Z Tile Is?

Scrabble was one of the most lovely elements in my past marriage. Lin and I were both scrabble fiends, the proud owners of one huge delux set (Naor's gift for our wedding) as well as a groovy little travel one featuring its own elegant case. My top score in a two-people game was 450, I don't remember hers but it may be higher still.

I didn't bring scrabble into my current relationship until yesterday. Downtown lover studied at an American university, she translates from English and in short - is quite fluent in the language. Nevertheless, whenever I brought up scrabble as a possible way to pass an hour she refused, claiming she was afraid of losing miserably to me.

Yesterday I called her in the afternoon. "what's up?" I asked, "Where are you at?"

"At the emergency room".

"What? What happened?"

"I hurt my eye. I leaned over to pick up an extention cord at the hardware store and got it pricked by one of the hangers. Now I'm waiting for the doctor to take a look. I may be stuck here a long time."

I told her I'll be rushing over, slipped on my sandals, searched for my keys, then a thought flashed through my head: Did she just say she may be stuck there a long time?

"I've got you," I said out loud to the walls of my bedroom, "Now I've got you". The little groovy travel scrabble was placed in my bag and I headed out to Ichilov hospital.

We bever ended up playing there. She was discharged quite quickly. The hanger hook did wound her eyeball, but not the cornea, so the healing should be quick and the eyelid serves as a natural patch. DL even managed to watch the cup finals (albeit with one eye shut) and then headed out happy as though never hurt to celebrate the Spanish triumph with a glass of cava. That glass led to a beer at the Riff-Raff bar on Gruzenberg street, which is where I decided to pull out pandora's little travel case.

The game began indoors with three players: DL, Flashky and myself, and two spectators: filmmaker Ari Liebsker and his date. It ended on the sidewalk way after the Riff-Raff had closed down, with only the bats in the trees to watch us. We were just having too much fun for anyone to quit, though the board was quite knotty (is that a legitimate word?) the sidewalk filthy and the dawn at hand.

DL scored 89 points by placing the word "whistler", featuring all her tiles, on a triple word square and assuring us that she isn't referring to the proper name of the renowned painter but rather to someone who habitually engages in the act of whistling. I finished at less than 200 with Flashky trotting not far behind me. The one eyed lady was declared victor. she also got to keep her beer glass, compliments of the bartender too tired to bring it in. Some wounded people get all the luck.