Playing Solitaire

I play a lot of solitaire. I have no idea why I find this particular activity soothing, but I do. I used to play with real cards--and cheated like hell--but now I play on the computer, where I can't cheat. (At least I don't think I can--I don't know enough about computers, let alone developing programs for them, to figure how).

The games we call "Solitaire" used to be called "Patience." I discovered this because I loved Georgette Heyer novels (the original Regency Romances) and wondered what the elderly aunts were doing when they "played endless games of Patience."

Linus says that she plays solitaire when her life is messy because cards are something easy to control and organize. There may be something to that--I play more when I have too many things to do and not enough time to do them, which should add to my stress level, but somehow doesn't.

I also suspect there's something genetic to my playing. Grandmother Wilson (my father's mother's mother, who was "grandmother," not "grandma," and "Wilson," not her given name, "Ethel") smoked and played solitaire and cheated like hell as well. When someone challenged her cheating, she told the accuser in her best mother-of-an-impertinent-six-year-old voice, "I play cards to relax and, if I don't win, I don't relax. Therefore, I cheat."

End of questions.