June 21st, 2018

Isn't this just so thoughtful?  It came in my newspaper as a special section.  Pages and pages and pages of all sorts of puzzles.  Crosswords and jumbles and word searches and more!  Just the sort of thing to keep someone occupied inside during a hot humid summer day outside.  Or a rainy day. Or a do-nothing weekend. Or a nothing on TV evening. Or anytime I want to torture myself.

Yes, that is what I said.  I was so tickled when I found this puzzle bonus section of the paper.  I made it a point to take it out and put it on the table in the family room so it wouldn't accidentally get thrown away.   I thumbed through it and, in my head, saw hours of funfunfun!  I need to give the inside of my head a reality check.

First of all, I am not going to attempt a crossword puzzle or any other sort for that matter without both a pencil AND an eraser.  Mistakes will be made.  I know this for fact.  This is not my first puzzle rodeo.  Eventually I found a pencil sharpener, which was a surprise to me.  It took a lot more searching but finally I even found a set of pencils.  They are have Mickey Mouse cartoons on them. I'm guessing it was, at some point, a Christmas Stocking gift.  So I have pencils (4) I have pencil sharpening (1) I have the erasers on the bottom of the pencils.  I am set. Ready to puzzle my little heart out.

By the time I found everything I needed, it was time to start dinner, and the clean up from dinner, and then walk to the beach to make sure the sun set properly and walk back.  And by the time I got back, there was something on TV that I wanted to see soooooo.  Okay. No big deal, can work on the puzzles another day.  It's not like it's going anywhere.

But then things got busy and then even busier and when I did have time to work on the puzzles, I was too restless, too distracted. I couldn't focus on tying my shoes, I certainly was in no shape, mentally, to work on puzzles!

Last night, I couldn't sleep. Instead of reading or watching any of the shows I have recorded for just this purpose, I decided to use that "extra time" instead to open the puzzle pages and maybe get to work on some of those. Awesome!  Again, in my head, I saw neatly filled in little crossword puzzle boxes, tidily circled words in the word search games and perfectly unjumbled word jumbles.  As it turns out, the inside of my head is dead wrong about me.

The first few crossword questions weren't bad,.  #20 across:  Admit openly.  Well obviously that's confess right?  And hurrah, it was!  #37 across:  Robin's place.  Hey, I know that one, Nest!  Yay me!  But then we get to #13 down: "It's Gonna Be Me" .  What the heck?  Is it cheating to google?  #66 down:  East in Bonn.  I have no idea.  Do they mean Bonn Germany?  I'm sure there are many things on the east side of Bonn.   #111 across:  Classic Tune.  Do you KNOW how many classic tunes there are?? 

I sighed and moved on.  To be a little kinder to myself, my eyes were too tired to do the word searches.  D's and B's kept mixing themselves up.  F's and E's were trading places.  Okay I will save the word searches until another day.  What's next?

Sudoku?  No thank you.  Althogether too Mathy.  

There is something called a Point and Solve.  It's sort of like a crossword puzzle but not exactly.  I was too tired to try to figure out how it all works.  I'll save that one until I'm more awake too.

There was something else I'd never heard of, Wuzzles.  Ever hear of that one?  They define it as a "word riddle which creates a disguised word, phrase, name, place, saying etc.  For Example :  Noon Good =- Good Afternoon".  oookkkaaayy.    One of them has two boxes. In one box it says ing bear.  Bear was written under ing.  Bear undering?  Overing bear?  Ingover Bear?  Ing Overbear?  The second box had just the word RALLY really big. Filled the entire box.  Big Rally?  Huge Rally? Large Rally? Rally filling a box? Rallybox?  Boxing Rally? Ingover Bear Big Rally?  I have no idea. And I was getting alittle pissy about it. That doesn't help me sleep at all. I moved on.

Cryptoquip was next. In the past I have actually been quite good at this type.  I felt hopeful.  My hopes were dashed to the ground and shattering into teensy pieces.  Even with the one clue that they gave for each puzzle I did not complete even one last night. Ratz.  Maybe by dawn's early light, it will all be crystal clear to me. I'll save those for later. 

There were more puzzles but at that point I was too aggravated to bother.  And certainly it wasn't helping me sleep.  Because I was unable to complete one single puzzles, I felt as if my brain had let me down.  Instead of that "Woohoo I still got it feeling" that comes with accomplishment,  I was feeling very stupid. And I hate feeling stupid.   

So mental note, do not attempt puzzles when very tired but unable to sleep.  Good to know.  I will not try them again until I'm wide awake and feeling sharp :)  I predict that those puzzles are going down!