Collectorator Game Night 101

Well, I think I've officially entered into a new exciting era of life! Maybe it's because I am about to have one of those milestone birthdays (do not want to talk about that!), or maybe it's because I am on the brink of moving and it's becoming real as we are starting to plan out the early stages. Ultimately, though,  I think it's because we had an official game night the other night for the first time in a really long time and there are more such nights in our future! CollectoratorOne and I used to have infamously fun game nights but after boyfriends and friends came and went we were down to just two of us who love to play games. Not that playing games with just us two is no fun (trying to beat CollectoratorOne at any game is fun enough to make it last a lifetime), but games turn into a party when you have three or even four at the table. We recently lucked into finding our new third, a recent transplant to our fair city who I think may love games just as much as us (not to mention shoes.... you know you want to give me those shoes!!!!), and my sister visiting for said milestone birthday gave us a lucky fourth!  So of course I couldn't resist planning out a game night this week!

So what do you need to throw a Collectorator Game Night of your own? Funny you ask... Snacks (always good, and I forgot about that one!), party ware (would have been nice if I had remembered the snacks AND if it hadn't all been packed way!) Champagne (it is requisite and I remembered that), but really you just need one lovely hyphenated word... Skip-Bo!

Oh Skip-Bo, how do I love thee? Is it your velvety red box with the divided built in tray? Is it your sailboat-backed cards that seem to make no sense of why the sailboats are there? Or is it 30 plus year old memories of playing it with your grandmother... probably the latter although the sailboats on the back of the cards are pretty nifty. I don't know officially when I learned to play, but I remember playing it all the time when I was a kid with my great grandmother (whom we called mom), my grandmother and my auntie.  Later in life, when I met CollectoratorOne we discovered that we had the same Skip-Bo upbringing. How weird is that especially given we grew up on opposite poles of the united states (me in Texas and her in Illinois), and it was a game made in Texas! So you can only guess what ensued next. At the time though, I only had the new version of the game. And I tell you right now if you have that version from Uno, throw it out now and buy yourself the official 1967 version. You might pay a little more, but it's worth it as the new version does not have the right number of cards!

Because of our obsession we researched all we could about the game and found out it was produced by Skip and Hazel Bowman in Brownfield, TX in 1967, so you see where the Skip and Bo come from now! I don't know the reason for the sailboats other than maybe he liked to sail?  It's a super fun game modeled after Spite and Malice consisting of blocking, getting on a roll, and revenge. Of course CollectoratorOne beat us all at it the other night!  We also played another favorite game that we hadn't played in a really long time because you have to have three players at least. It's a German card game of bean bartering (yes beans) called Bohnanza. I won that one some how... =) Game night 1 of the new era is in the books! Let's schedule Game night 2!!!

Sharkskin and Velvet

Hey y’all sorry I disappeared! It’s been super busy at the CollectoratorToo camp. First and foremost I broke my phone which caused all sorts of problems in and of itself, but I entered into the modern age and got a super smart phone. This phone has a PhD whereas my other phone had probably dropped out of elementary school! What I love about it most is I can blog from anywhere, post fun pics on the road because  I have a real camera on the phone now, and do just about anything I want to do when I want to do it. I am left wondering why I did not do this sooner.

I also got sucked up into the baseball playoff/World Series vortex. I am not a big sports fan at all, but I am a loyal fan to the Texas Longhorns and Texas Rangers.  See the Rangers were in the World Series this year and last year, which is a huge miracle if you grew up with them like I did (literally down the street). Because it was something I may only see once or twice (now) in my lifetime, like a chance to see a comet, I had to tune in. Never mind the fact that we lost, it was worth the pain of loss to see the experience. Baseball is one of those sports though I really do like in general. Something about it is still so old school and vintage America. I love that they have not modernized it too much other than the crazy ballparks. If only people would still dress up to go to games. You look at baseball crowd pictures back in the 1940s and they have suits and day dresses on. Heck yeah. Most people just seem to have lost the desire to look put together at all in public anymore…

Anyway, I digress. We also have had some our friends from overseas visit so we had a party. It was challenging in a fun way to figure out how to have a party with all my party-ware packed away, but I managed  through it although it wasn’t up to my usual par. We even played Skip-Bo as the party wound down (here’s my Skip-Bo card case by the way in all it's red velvet glory, I’ll write a whole blog on Skip-Bo soon because it totally deserves its own blog). Playing Skip-Bo made it close to my favorite kind of party. As I said before I always long to have the Dick Van Dyke style party where it breaks into a mini variety show or games ensue so this was pretty close!

Even with all this going on, I did manage to make it back to the flea market in town and once again my husband had better luck than me. No wonder he keeps agreeing to go with me to this flea market! We got this awesome sharkskin coat for his stage outfits for $3.  Course the lady also had this lambs wool wrap and muff I wanted, but it was $60. Hello. Not fair. In any case, we bought the jacket and the next day I found the tie to go along with it. He’s lucky he has me to design his outfits for his shows!! 

I’m back though now and I'll back to packing… more soon!