You know, life is kind of like a game of UNO. Fates change quickly. Sometimes a Reverse card gets thrown down and everything goes backwards. Other times you’re holding that one last card and poised to win when the person before you slaps down a Draw Four. Other times you get a hand that’s all the right colors with ample Wild cards and wam-bam, you win without even inflicting card-drawing harm on fellow players.
I suppose in Uno terms, the whole COVID-19 thing was like all of us getting slapped with a Draw Four-Hundred card. Any game plan we may have had up to that card has changed a wee bit since.
But hey, we keep taking each hand one day at a time and taking joy in every time we get to sneak in a color change because the card on deck is a red 6 and it so happens you have a green 6.
And with that, I’ve officially pushed the whole UNO analogy as far (and likely farther) than it can possibly go. Now that I’ve beaten that into the dust, I’ll now pivot to a poker analogy and concede that I do know when to fold ’em, when to walk away, and when to run.
Anyway, I got off on this UNO tangent because the classic game was indeed a part of our day on Tuesday. After a busy day at work, with a few conference calls weaved in, we had some family Zoom communications to look forward to. The first was connecting with Grandma and Pop-Pop Liddell, and also with their neighbors, Nick and Wanda. Nick and Wanda have become like another set of grandparents to Amelia and Henry and they were super excited to see them.
It was nice seeing their friendly faces and the kids really got a boost from it. Amelia read them stories, we caught up on life a little, and Henry ran around making funny noises and faces, which is preferred method of showing off at the moment. The call was definitely something we need to do more often, and of course Amelia was asking pretty much immediately after it was done when we can do it again.
And after dinner, we also Zoomed with our good friend Kallin in Chicago. “Auntie Kallin,” as the kids called her, had the inspired idea of setting up a game Zoom with us. All of us were able to play long-distance UNO together.
It was a lot of fun, and I’m not just saying that because I won three hands.
But winning three hands was pretty cool.
So we’ll definitely be doing more of that in the future, too. I doubt I’ll doing so much of the winning next time, but that’s cool, too. The amount of laughter Amelia gets after hitting me with a Draw Four is actually worth it.
