Favorite Book Friday

My feet still hurt.

Yesterday, I took our niece, who is visiting from Philadelphia, and our two sons to a rocky beach nearby. When our boys swam so far off I couldn’t see them, I left my sandals and my good sense behind and ran along the sand – the hot sand – the scalding hot sand – to find them and tell them to come back before the undertow swept them away or they were smashed into the jagged rocks or a shark ate them for a midday snack. The farther I ran, the faster they swam. Tall, jagged rocks separated me from them. The boys couldn’t see me or hear me. Up ahead, I noticed the end of the rock formation where I could enter the water and, I hoped, find our boys swimming safely. Once I saw the boys emerge from the water, I called to them and plopped down in the sand. My feet were burnt so badly it brought me to tears.

In the end, everyone was fine. (Except my sore feet.)

There are some things I love about summer in South Florida – the relaxed pace of life with no school schedules, the ability to get a table at my favorite breakfast spot without waiting in line and no traffic because tourist season is still several months away.

But there are some things I do not love about summer in South Florida – scalding sand, slithering snakes and shocking storms. (We’re the lightning capital of the world.)

But there’s one thing I love any time of the year – Scrabble.

Hubby and I play competitively with each other whenever we get the chance, studying two-letter words, working puzzles from our Scrabble calendars and keeping the scores of each game we play in a notebook, marking who won and if either of us got any bonus (7-letter) words.

Oh, look. Here’s one of our games now:

Even Vanessa, the flat-chested, forever fumbling, spelling bee whiz in my new novel, loves to play Scrabble with her mom (when she’s not busy campaigning to become president).

Vanessa learned that the man who invented Scrabble was named Butts (B-U-T-T-S). Alfred Mosher Butts. To learn more, check out this site.

And for all you Scrabble Word Nerds, have fun at this site.

And because it is Favorite Book Friday, my character’s favorite book about Scrabble (and mine and hubby's, too) is Everything Scrabble by Joe Edley and John D. Williams Jr. (I’m going to go study it now so I can get an advantage over hubby. Sh (acceptable Scrabble word) -- don’t tell!)