It sounded innocent enough.

“You’ll love it,” she said. “It’s a lot like Scrabble.”

I’m a Scrabble-lover from way back, so I couldn’t download it soon enough. After all, it’s free (money, not time) and before I laid eyes on it, I convinced myself it was “educational” and would probably make me eloquent.

Besides, Scrabble holds fond memories. Growing up, I remember my dad tossing aside work in favor of a hot Scrabble game. Some of our most spirited debates were over high-scoring words like “Unjar.” Without Scrabble, I would never have realized that anything capable of being jarred could also be unjarred. And I wouldn’t have wondered if the same principle applied to canning or dancing or even applauding. In a family that normally discussed the price of potatoes, Scrabble took us to a whole new level.

So it was with sentiment and passion that I downloaded Words with Friends, assumed the code name zyngawf19892 (which I couldn’t figure out how to change), and electronically planted WART, a measly seven-pointer, across the star in the middle of the board. I should have realized right away that if WART was the best I could do, WWF might be a humbling. But it didn’t take long to find out.

In the very first game, my daughter came up with the word OUTWHIRL for 72 points. In the old days, under the family rules, I could have said, “What? Outwhirl?” and jumped up to consult Funk & Wagnall’s or Merriam-Webster. If it was there, fair enough. If not, the burden would shift to her to explain exactly what an “outwhirl” is. Not with WWF. The game takes away the fun by either instantly accepting the word or declaring unconditionally that “outwhirl” is not a word. No arguments.

Right away, we’re bidding sayonara (a high-pointer, I bet) to the educational component. No need to look up the word. It either is one, or it isn’t. And no built-in advocacy training. Thanks to WWF, probably fewer and fewer English majors will succeed in law school. S’long (not a word) to eloquent briefs.

I, however, am doing my best to profit from the (considerable) time spent with WWF by looking up words such as “outwhirl” and finding out what they mean. FYI, it is possible to outwhirl someone when you whirl better than they do. It is only from WWF that I know that “cloot,” which won me 54 points, is one of the divisions of a cleft hoof – knowledge that one opponent points out will come in handy if I am ever a veterinarian in Scotland.

But mostly, I have learned that in two of three games, I have been considerably “outscrabbled,” a condition that WWF tells me is not a word but that serious players tell me I can overcome with much more practice.

Maybe. But with the new semester starting, it occurs to me that FLUNK is probably a word. And so reluctantly, I am turning it off.

Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder

Whatever your style, a useful exercise is to take inventory of your time, your stuff and your relationships.

Here are a few sample questions to get you started:

* What am I spending my time on? Does it still have value for me?
* What would I like to spend more time on? How can I do that?
* Is there stuff I no longer want or use? How and when will I dispose of it?
* Are there people I’d like to reconnect with? When will I do that?
* Are there relationships that no longer serve me? How can I change those relationships or let them go?
* Is there someone I need to forgive? Express gratitude to?

Finding the answers and acting can lighten and enrich your load in 2012.

I hadn’t planned to start the season with such an ambitious, time-consuming de-stresser, but the professor in a positive psychology class I’m taking thought it would be a great idea. More accurately, he required it – along with a pedometer and daily reports on our class blog. Since the unit was on the mind-body connection, I figured the expected reports were on the mood-altering properties of a good walk.

“Be sure to wear your pedometer,” he said gaily, which suggested we already owned them. I did not mention that the closest I’ve come to a pedometer was a couple of years ago when I placed one in my son’s Christmas stocking. Or that the closest he came to it was when he handed it over to his wife.

Since I refused to confess to pedometric ignorance, I set out without a roadmap to find one. It is not a simple task. There are cheap analog ones that simply count steps and more expensive digital ones with stopwatches that count not just steps but miles and calories, tell time and I think play music.

When the salesman started pointing to some that “counted every single step,” I got curious. “You mean some don’t count every step?” I asked.

“Well, “ he said, “the digital ones are better.” Better meant you could attach it to your shoe and get credit not only for walking but also pedaling a bike, tapping your foot and – ta-dah! – possibly driving? I quickly sprung for the “better” one and after two trips to the store for technical assistance was wracking up digital numbers with every step.

I’ll admit it put a positive spin on holiday confusion. Shopping in mega-malls was suddenly a plus, and I was thrilled when I couldn’t find close-in parking. Suddenly, I had an advantage over the younger students. Every time I misplaced my shoes, my glasses or could not remember why I walked into a room, I was sure to log another 2,000 steps.

Still, in addition to the more positive real one, I was mentally posting another daily report on the class blog. “What sort of sadist would assign this extra work during the holidays?” I whined. By the 9,000th step, it had morphed into a newspaper headline: “Student Collapses. Professor Indicted.”

In the end, like a child who threatens to run away but comes home before dark, I stopped with the fantasy notes and surrendered. I am proud to announce that on one momentous day, I wracked up 15,000 steps. That’s a lot even if it was in response to a challenge from my daughter’s boyfriend, who promised lunch and dessert.
But I will never match the joyous report from one of my classmates:

“15,000 steps today. I have no idea how this happened!”

My theory was it happened because he fell into a coma somewhere around 9K and experienced 6,000 involuntary twitches in his right foot. I’ve made a mental note to see if he has a digital pedometer.

Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder

“Why not let her test the toys and see what really appeals to her?” was the theory. It turned out to be a good one because it turns out that Taylor is not as enamored with the Fisher Price “Sing a Ma Jigs” as the online reviewers were. In fact, she was much more taken with a $2.00 violet vinyl ball.

But the real surprise of the trip was my discovery that toddlers now have laptops. Or can have them if there’s a willing buyer. “My Own Leaptop” comes with a USB cable which magically – only a two-year-old could understand how – would let her personalize the entire set-up to receive e-mails from grandma. She can also do blog posts of some kind, apparently with an electronic dog (sold separately) and create her own playlists. I don’t even have my own playlists.

I think soon she will be writing my blog posts, which is really fine since I am quite far behind. But maybe she won’t have time because she will also be pressing letters to learn the alphabet and common facts about animals. Or, more likely, playing with the $2.00 ball she was actually interested in. Or (don’t tell…I found this on my own) reading the Peter Rabbit book that lets her push a button and hear Peter eating the carrots in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

The real question is whether a two-year-old who already has three cell phones needs a laptop or should simply keep practicing with that vinyl ball. I think I know the answer.

After my last column – in which I confessed to owning a Kindle and cast a wishful eye toward the latest (as of that moment) techy device, readers were relentless. “You’ve GOT to have one,” they said. “You will LOVE it.” Although one admitted using hers mostly for Scrabble and TV fact-checking, others raved about the 10-hour battery life and portability (only 1.3 pounds). Most important, they said it’s “intuitive,” a happy word for “You don’t have to read the manual.”

I cannot blame readers alone for this electronic indulgence, though. The iPad bug had been building over two months of schlepping a laptop to graduate school classes in positive psychology – a field that ironically (1) teaches that buying more gadgets does not bring lasting happiness but simply sentences us to a “hedonic treadmill” and (2) warns against being a “maximizer” – that person who goes nuts trying to make the right choice out of way too many choices.

“Are you someone who has trouble choosing just the right dish on the menu?” the professor had asked. “Do you get stuck looking for the very best solution?” He urged us to become “satisficers” instead – people who do not agonize but go for the “good enough” choice.

At the time, I was dragging the laptop in an old roller bag that flipped and banged into my ankles every time it hit a bump. By far the oldest student in the class, I felt like a klutzy version of Grandma Moses. Fellow students, who had heard the same lecture, rushed in with their very best solutions – an obscure brand of roller bag from an online store I’d never heard of, a backpack custom-made in San Francisco that came in hundreds of styles, or an iPad.

To my credit, I “satisficed” and borrowed my daughter’s backpack. “You should really get an iPad,” she said when I picked it up, about a half second before adding, “Then I could borrow it.”

After a weekend with a laptop and several notebooks strapped to my back, I became nostalgic for the genius of Steve Jobs and decided – tentatively – to honor him in a very personal way. “If I really hate it, how long do I have to return it?” I asked the clerk as she handed me the razor thin notebook with a dual-core A5 chip, 10-hour battery, over 200 new features and 140,000 possible apps.

“Fourteen days,” she said.

I am now in Day 3. So far, I have spent a couple hours finding exactly the right purse to carry it in and learning to touch type with one finger. I marvel – thank you, Steve – at the magnetic cover that puts it to sleep when I snap it on, but worry that I’ve never turned it off and don’t know how. I love turning the pages of my calendar by swiping my finger across the screen and taking class notes on something that looks exactly like an old paper notepad.

Which, come to think of it, might have been the very best solution of all.

Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder

After telling my book club, my children, and the English major in me that real books are better, I’ve been sneaking around with a Kindle.

I’d like to say the confession is about integrity. But actually I owe my honesty to the public library. Last month, they finally added the Kindle to the e-readers where they’ll plant your book for free.

Before that, I felt purely self-indulgent having one. I hated fessing up that I was a person who couldn’t delay gratification. But the fact was I couldn’t wait even three days for an Amazon shipper to send me a book. And I sure couldn’t wait for the library to announce, when I was in Timbuktu, that the book I requested two months ago was finally back on the shelf – please pick it up in five days.

With free downloads from the library, all that has changed. I can be impatient and a paragon of fiscal integrity at the same time.

“The Kindle is less expensive than some,” I can say. “And the downloads are free. I could be at an airport somewhere needing a book and get it for free right from my library!”

The explanation will be impressive. Everyone associates airports with day-old $12 sandwiches swathed in Saran wrap.

“She’s obviously saving a bundle,” they will think.

I will probably not spoil the good news by letting them know what I was pained to discover. You have to get on the library wait-list for the most popular e-books, too. I assumed that since they travel through the air, they are sort of like molecules – in unlimited supply.

Not so. Each library has just so many licenses for each book. A quick look online tells me I’ll still have to wait for the hottest business books by Daniel Pink. But ta-dah! I can download Frommer’s Cambodia and Laos today.

I also pictured these e-books living on my Kindle forever once I captured them in mid-air. How could there be due dates or fines?
Again, not so.

The cruel realty is that the e-book, like the real book, has a due date. When it comes, Poof!. The book is gone. On the happy side, there is no book inside to amass fines or guilty secrets. A Kindle, left under the passenger seat of the car, does not become a guilt trip or a second mortgage.

Imagine, though, that I’ve been so engrossed in some 500-page mystery that I’ve missed the e-mail notice that my book is about to go Poof! And just before I find out who dun it, it’s gone.

No more can I just read on and pay the fine. I must rush back online and pray no one has requested my digital copy, so I can grab it again. If it’s spoken for, then back to the old delayed gratification dilemma. Can I wait to know who dun it? Or will I pay Amazon $12 or so for an instant answer?

Who knows. With a little restraint, maybe I can splurge on an iPad.

Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder

What’s more, it had plenty of bedrooms, plenty of beds, a washer and dryer and dishwasher.

“Our kind of roughing it!” I told the kids. So with hope in our hearts we set off for one of those fairy tale long weekends where grown children and their families set out to bond over a pile of poker chips and a game of Taboo.

The first night of togetherness, I congratulated myself. Not only had we pulled off a soy-free, nut-free, gluten-free cook-out that worked for both vegetarians and meat-eaters. Someone else was rinsing the dishes. I had raised them right.

What’s more, we’d found a nifty place to install the two year old’s Pack and Play and located the perfect spot for the music-playing, duck-footed potty chair. With a sticker chart displayed prominently behind it, it seemed the parents’ goal of potty-training in a single weekend might become a reality.

Unfortunately, the tide turned before the first poker game started – with a giant toddler sneeze. And another. And then another.

Within 24 hours, the sneezing had spread, and so had our desperate, contradictory explanations.

“It’s an allergy,” we first said in unison and cursed the ragweed count. At the same time, we started darting outside, to escape from the germs.

As the sneezing persisted, we chugged both juice and Benadryl and passed a homeopathic something called “olive leaf” – tablets that are supposed to ward off viruses if you take them soon enough.

In case it was a virus, we began to disappear mysteriously for walks and solo car rides (but with the windows up in case it was ragweed) when we weren’t inside washing our hands with antibacterial soap.

Apparently, the olive leaf did not come through quick enough for most of us because in half a day, my son (dad of the Toddler), his brother and then his sister had also taken to glassy-eyed sneezing fits.
The fully equipped kitchen was soon engaged not in meal-making but in tea-making and chicken-soup-making. Instead of playing Taboo, we huddled in front of the TV wrapped in blankets.

Meanwhile, our collective distraction seemed to suit the Toddler, who, though sick herself, was well enough to learn how to climb out of her Pack ‘n Play, over the bed, through the closed pocket doors of two rooms and down a steep set of stairs, all while the nursery monitor stayed as silent as the potty chair.

Still feverish but with great charm, she made her grand entrance downstairs among the huddlers, who by now were too doped up with Benadryl to pay much attention.

One of them later said it was a great vacation. “Don’t sell it short,” he said.

And he needn’t worry. I know it was perfect in its imperfections. I will definitely remember it long.

Copyright 2011 Pat Snyder