Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Breakthrough!!

It turns out, the game I've always called "Blotte" is actually known by the rest of the world as "Belote." In fact-ue, it has it's own Wikipedia entry.

Here's another page with Belote rules. I'm not remembering doing the whole Declaration bit. I think after the deal and the trump picking, we played out the hands like we would with Diminishing Bridge ...

Monday, January 12, 2009

How to Score Blotte

We're cleaning. We have lots of stuff. I've emptied the baby's room of almost everything, but I'm left with piles of stuff that doesn't have a home. One of the items in the piles are notes on how to keep score in blotte. I've kept them for more than a decade, because you can't play blotte without them, and I'm not sure any of us play often enough to have committed it to memory. Rather than trying to save the papers, I'm posting the scoring info here, for posterity.


For Trump
CardPoints
Jack20
913
Ace11
1010
King4
Queen3
8 or 70
For Non-Trump
CardPoints
Ace11
1010
King4
Queen3
Jack2
9,8 or 70
..


Of course, I would still need someone to remind me how to deal the hands. :) I also have a note that indicate the lead goes to the person sitting to the left of the trump picker. I remember you play in pairs, sitting opposite your partner, and that all the cards 6 and below are removed from the deck before dealing.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Visit to Dallas

We didn't take too many pictures of our trip to Dallas, because we were so busy sleeping in, watching the HBO "John Adams" series, and generally relaxing. But there are a few photos documenting our visit.

I was going to take a picture of the fantastic food at Joe T. Garcias, an amazing Mexican restaurant in Fort Worth. When the food came, though, I was waaayyy more interested in eating than in taking pictures. A great place to eat when you're pregnant. Nathan did capture this shot of me looking sad after the meal:


From Dallas Jan 2009

Some shots outside the Amon Carter Museum in Forth Worth:










The day we went to the museum, it was 82 degrees out. Two days later, icicles were forming on Lou and Cheryl's awning. The high that day was 36 degrees.



We walk every day though, no matter what. Sometimes we get other people to walk with us. Even when icicles are forming outside.