puzzling activities

Because I drive into the university for my Spanish class with Rob to save on the exhorbitant parking fees, I end up sitting in the cafeteria about an hour before my class starts, and at least thirty minutes before just about anyone else is there. I've started using that time to read the morning paper, and to do the daily sudoku and crossword.

I got into the habit of doing the morning crossword the last couple of years I was teaching, when a few of us who arrived to school early would photocopy 'the daily' from the staff newspaper, and sit, silently and semi-competitively, filling in the squares as the staffroom likewise filled up and became noisier and rowdier around us. We took a fair bit of ribbing for our concentration in the midst of our caffeine-fueled colleagues, but I always felt that some of the comments came from people rather jealous that we were able to pursue a somewhat cerebral activity so early in the morning. The math teacher who was part of the group got particular attention for his participation, almost as though it was unfair that he took an interest in words as well as numbers and somehow 'let the side down'.

Since I've retired, I've continued this morning practice: in fact, I can't start my day without filling in the crossword puzzle...an activity that is usually quite easy now that I've mastered those words that only ever appear in crosswords and scrabble games, like 'taw' and 'ogee'. I look forward to the extended puzzle on the weekends, which might take me up to an hour to complete, and I'm often a little disappointed, as well as smug, when the last square is filled in.

I started doing the sudoku, or at least trying to, when I retired. I've always considered myself a logical person, and not numerophobic in any way, so I thought it would be a puzzle I'd enjoy, and in time, master. That hasn't been the case. I enjoy it when it's easy, as most people do most things, but I'm rather too quick to place a number in a spot without sober second thought, with the result that, too often, I end up making a fatal error that causes the rest of the puzzle to fall apart. And then I stop. Not for me the white-out and redo; I simply shrug and move on to the next thing. Like the "Jumble" puzzle. Or the dishes.

Rob is different about puzzles than I. Knowing he's not a number guy, he quickly forsook the sudoku, but is quite addicted to any games or puzzles involving words. Anagrams, scrabble, boggle, and particularly the cryptics are his games. He taught me the basic principles of cryptic crosswords when we started our relationship ('started dating' sounds silly for middle-aged people to me), but, although I can fill in a few of the words, and do better if we work on a puzzle together, I don't have the keen right-brain that allows him to unscramble anagrams and decode complex puns and other wordplay. He quite astounds me with how he can get, "disobeying" from "princess shed tears watching bad behavior" in a matter of seconds. He finds regular crosswords boring; I find his brain a strange and sometimes peculiar place. Cryptics being only one reason.