It is amazing how quickly group dynamics can change. We had a tight knit, serious group of mah jongg players in last year's club, and we played twice a month, without fail. After the last board year ended last summer, a couple of the key players moved away, and it has been like pulling teeth to find anyone interested in filling those slots. We had one last ditch effort tonight, to hold a training session at night, and still it did not work. The master and I have decided it's not worth it to try to keep drawing from a shrinking pool, and we are turning instead outside of the club. She has neighbors down at her end of the development (really, it's the neighboring development to mine, but I feel like it's all one big neighborhood) who have approached her about wanting to learn to play, and we are going to switch it to a location-based event. It makes much more sense to go where there is interest rather than try to drum up interest where there is none. I told her that I still don't want to gamble with real money, but she warned were are actually going to have to get better about adding up points. When last I was in Colorado, I found her a great little book on the history of mah jongg, and it has been giving us a lot of interesting ideas, and it informed us that there are even such things as cruises devoted to the game. We may find it is worth our while to travel, to reconnect with the old core group. The only problem is that when we go out of town separately, we often watch each other's animals. Who will feed my cats and make sure her dog gets a daytime potty break if we go on a mah jongg weekend?
While we sat and waited for no one to show up from our club, we actually had a great time scheming, and laughing over the instruction booklet from her travel set that she has never fully unpacked. It was obviously written by a non-native English speaker, and typeset by an inattentive transcriber. If I had had to rely on this booklet to learn the game, I would have chucked it in the trash and never played a single round. It was painful. I'm so glad I learned from the master instead, who is imminently patient and has an endearing dry wit.
Today was graduation day of a sort from physical therapy. I remember very well the disappointment I felt in December when the first therapist made me feel like I had failed her, when I now know it was the other way around. I had a chance to thank my doctor last week for referring me to the smartypants I see now. He said that he has gone to that clinic himself, and had unbelievably good results as well. When I filled out the end-of-therapy survey forms, I was able to say in all honesty that I had no difficulty in performing the tasks that were so trying a few months ago, like getting out of the car, climbing stairs, and rolling over in bed. On Thursday I go back, but to address a different problem: the soles of my feet. Bones has promised me that he can help me with the heel pain that has been my constant companion for the last decade or more. My pie in the sky goal is to be comfortable in a pair of sexy shoes for the time it takes to get from the house to the car, and from the car to a restaurant or show somewhere. But I will settle for no pain on the bottoms of my feet when I'm sitting with them up on the couch, at rest.
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