Maren's Birthday

Prior to tonight, I had not played an honest-to-goodness board game in a very long time. I'm not sure why, because I love board games. Except Monopoly. Classic it may be, but I almost can't stand the sight of the weirdly-green-colored box. Unless it's Star Wars Monopoly. Then I can tolerate a few hours as long as I get to be Princess Leia, simply because I aspired to be her as a young child. I even dressed up as her for Halloween once, complete with the side-braided bun things she frequently styled. But that's neither here nor there.

The reason I tell you this is that tonight, I played a board game called Power Grid. I'd heard quite a lot about this game; it's a favorite of my roommate Maren. Well, today happened to be Maren's 20th birthday, and she received the game as a present from her parents. She was so excited about it that she managed to talk me and our other roommate Hanna into playing with her tonight. (It didn't take too much convincing; Hanna and I were happy for a break from actual work, so after a few "please"s and "we'll eat Strawberry Romanov first"s, we caved.)

I've never taken so long to set up a game before, and it's never taken me so long to learn the rules. This should give you some sense of how complicated the game is. But, after about forty-five minutes, Hanna and I understood the majority of what we were doing (though not all, as I found out at the end), and we had a grand old time playing. There was a lot of math involved, which was pathetically difficult for my English-major-who-hasn't-taken-math-in-two-years brain, but it turned out to be a fun game. Somehow, I managed to win, and I chalk that up one-hundred percent to beginner's luck because at first I didn't even realize I'd won. I feel rather bad that I did, especially since it was Maren's birthday, and it's usually good etiquette to let the birthday girl win. Sorry Maren! Overall, it was two hours very well spent.

Beyond this board game extravaganza, I thought Maren's birthday was fantastic for me, so hopefully she found it even more enjoyable. We sang to her in Relief Society (which I'm sure was a highlight); her mom made an excellent dinner; she spent time with cute kids; we ate all sorts of yummy desserts; and she had two willing friends to play one of her favorite games with. I thought it was a day well spent: delicious food, a fun game time, even more delicious food. Birthdays are just so special - and I wasn't even the birthday girl! A detail; the landscape is that I'm grateful for Maren's birthday, because it was the perfect day to top off this very fun weekend.