Puzzle Time

When I was in America in December I stocked up on Walmart-priced jigsaw puzzles in preparation for the electricity-less winter ahead. Turns out I didn’t have a chance to open the box before mid-February. And I can only recall one afternoon that was electricity-less.

Anyway…
I had mentioned to my landlady during one of our kitchen chats that I had all these jigsaw puzzles downstairs. She said that when her youngest son was small, jigsaw puzzles had been something of a fixture in their house. So when my landlord came home the next week for a two-week vacation, I brought a puzzle upstairs and we set about putting it together.

We quickly discovered winter landscapes are not the best jumping off point for out-of-practice puzzlers. But we had our 300-piece snow covered masterpiece assembled within an evening or two. Then we worked our way through another two puzzles in the five days before the relatives arrived for Novruz. 2000 pieces in 5 days.

My landlord eventually abandoned our puzzle evenings in favour of trying to figure out why our DSL router still wasn’t working. My landlady and I laughed at his frustration as we were quite happy to continue living a internet-less life. My landlady became mildly obsessed, leaving dishes to pile in the sink and housework undone in favor of puzzle putting together. When Skype was up and running (a week behind schedule), Mom wanted to know exactly what my landlady was doing puttering around the table in concentration.

I just enjoyed spending quality time with the people I live with. It was fun work together creating something. And I was quietly celebratory when my landlady exclaimed night after night: I’ve missed my TV show again! (She watches far too much TV.)

Good old-fashioned fun is under-rated in these technological times.