Bored Games

Hi there. Ozzie and Harriet took off for the holidays. I suppose I should say Christmas since that is the holiday in question. But they went to England where holiday also means vacation and they are on vacation. I don't know if Ozzie celebrates Christmas, cuz I don't think he celebrates anything. He's a big ol' grump butt. Of course, Ozzie doesn't take vacations either. He's always working. Well, sometimes he is helping us blog. I'm not sure whether that counts as work for him. He treats it like a chore, so it might. I dunno. Anywho, feel free to use Christmas and holiday interchangeably. You will keep people guessing that way.

So the bears are home alone. Given the chaos that erupted last time we were left alone, we decided to keep things low key this time. So we're just relaxin'. Nothing special. Talkin'. Nappin'. ... Kinda boring when it comes down to it.

Buffy decided to get things going and started agitating for a game. She's kind of our social coordinator. Actually, I don't know if that is strictly true. She doesn't do a whole lot of coordinating. Really, she is more of a dynamo. She just gets everyone moving. Not in the same direction, mind you, but doing something. There was some trouble was picking a game. Everyone wanted Pudgie to play, but Pudgie is a mite opinionated about the games a bear should play. We all have our favorite games, but Pudge cared more than anyone else, so the good Professor more or less dictated the terms. Here were the ground rules:

1) The game had to involve more than two people since there are so many of us;
2) The game had to involve some degree of skill;
3) The game couldn't involve too much action, since we were all feeling a little lethargic;
4) The game should not involve cards, since they are difficult to hold;
5) The game should not involve a lot of small pieces that needed to moved, since they get stuck in the fur.

Somehow, this seemed to lead us to select Trivial Pursuit. I don't know how this came to pass. For starters, Trivial Pursuit has cards. It also has pieces. Moreover, Professor Pudge Bear does NOT like to play Trivial Pursuit. In fact, Trivial Pursuit would seem to be the worst possible game, based on the criteria above. However, Trivial Pursuit was open and right next to the bed. Reminds me of one of my rules of paw, "when in doubt, bet on the status quo."

So Pudgie starts complaining about how Trivial Pursuit is really a game of chance and involves no real skill and is an affront to intellectuals everywhere. At this point, the game was on the bed, so he wasn't going to win this argument. He then says that he won't play if Platy plays. You see, Platy whipped Pudgie pretty good the last time we played Trivial Pursuit and Pudgie is still sore about it. Normally, we would ignore Pudgie's demand and let Platy play because we're an inclusive bunch. But since we couldn't find Platy (he went missing again), we decided to let Pudgie have his way. I don't know why he is feeling so ornary. I think he's upset that he isn't making much progress on his book. Too busy helping Ozzie with papers.



So we pursued trivia. I suppose it was okay. Buffy got most of the entertainment questions right. I nailed pretty much all the leisure questions. Pudgie did okay on the geography, history, and science. But when he missed one, oooh did he start to sputtering and saying it wasn't a real history question and who cares what year the first brassiere was manufactured. And Wagsy? Well, Wagsy enjoyed rolling again and again. He didn't answer many questions correctly, but he probably did more rolling than any of us. All in all, it was okay. Nothing to write home about, which makes me wonder why I am blogging about it now.



After all the pursuiing, I decided that it was time to take a serious nap. No cat naps for me. I was going for an all out, belly stretching, toe wriggling, soft breeze blowing, deep sleep having power nap. Moose and Squawky joined me. I figured why not? My belly is soft and just sitting there, other people might as well enjoy it.

It's been a busy year for the bears. I think we deserve a little time off for relaxing. Here's to hoping that you get the rest you need to tackle 2006.