Gin Rummy

We go down to the shore to my friend's mom and dad's house for lunch -- all the leftovers from last night's 20-person Thanksgiving ended up over there -- I wondered where it all went, it wasn't crammed in their fridge this morning. It's a rainy foggy day, their house is on the water but you can't see the 5 feet off the porch to even see the sea.

A houseful of people and I'm playing cards with a Mexican guy, an Israeli guy, my friend's sister and thinking how often these days I'm with people who aren't American. Another reason foreign policy just doesn't feel the same, when you are always sharing the table with people from the whole wide world. World wide web. Whole wide world. Thinking about this notion.

They are confusing the hell out of me with the rules for all these new variations on rummy. Open rummy. Gin rummy. 7-card rummy, 11-card rummy.

My mom taught me to play gin rummy. We argue about the rules and one of the sisters says, "We better give up and google it." She comes back to report the real rules, which I smile inwardly to realize were my mom's rules. In other words, my mom taught it to me straight, right out of the book. I should have known. For all her funny zanny attitude (my genetic legacy) she was rather classical in her approach.

I keep winning and they're getting irked with me. I have the blond way of looking like I don't know what I'm doing ... and then winning.