Hi Canasta Lovers,
Leni and I are just back from our great adventure to the only dune ranch in Amagansett, New York. As most of my followers know every summer the girls of Rho Kappa (our 40 year old canasta group) meet up at Maralin's wonderful house at the beach. After settling in and having a delicious lunch, the five of us picked teams and sat down at the card table to begin the Canasta Marathon of 2014. Unfortunately, the Canasta Gods were not sitting on this girl's shoulder this trip. I could barely make 125 points. If ever I did make it and melded with SIX wild cards, my partner could not close the canasta. Woe is me, it's a good thing I love my friends and love the game.
My New York friends play different table rules than we play in Paradise. The biggest difference is here in Paradise we play a five card base, in New York the girls play with a three card base (the way we learned all those years ago.) For those of you who don't know about the five card base, the rule is that after your initial meld you MUST have at least five of the same face cards showing before you can add a face card to your meld.
Example: King, king, king, king, sorry no wild cards allowed.
King, king, king, king, king, wild cards welcomed.
With the five card rule in place, it is much more difficult to "go out" because you cannot lay your wild cards off on existing melds, you also can not put you pairs down with a wild card unless it is your last pair and you are "going out."
As we are all getting just a little bit older and our memories are not what they use to be, a few of the girls like to look back in the discard pile ALOT. They had to be reminded that you can only look back once a hand, four cards at your turn.
What else did we do at the ranch? Lots and lots of talking, lots and lots of eating, including our old standby Bobby Vans for lobster on Tuesday night, Wednesday, it was the East Hampton Grill (yummy ribs). Max's delicious soft shelled crabs on the menu Thursday. Friday night, a fabulous clam bake at the ranch including a birthday celebration for the guys who all turned OMG seventy this year. Saturday night at Muse in Sag Harbor ended a week of great picks. Thank you Mar.
After all that eating I must mention our morning power walks into the town of Amagansett, then a few hours at the beach with a good book and canasta before and after dinner. I may live in Paradise but our week at the ranch is always heaven!
Stay cool, goddesses, Season will be here before you know it.
Love to all, Barbara
