We’ve been saving for living room furniture for a little while now; in the last few weeks, we finally made some purchases! We did considerable hunting for a couch, figured out what we were basically looking for, and ended up finding what we wanted – at Costco! It was too much like what we were looking for and too much cheaper than what we’d found thus far to pass up. It also happens to be a sleeper sofa, which will hopefully come in handy some day.

With the money that we saved, we followed up that purchase with a trip to Ikea this past weekend, where we found a nice new coffee table and end table that better match the couch and the other furniture in the living room. With a new paint job and new curtains to follow, we’re definitely snazzing up our living room a bit! All credit goes to Julie, of course, for all of her planning and dreaming and doing; any blame goes to me, for sometimes being too conservative to really let her creative juices flow.

The living room is definitely coming together. If you ever stop by, be sure to give your compliments to the designer.

The highlight of my Christmas holiday was having my parents at our house. I particularly enjoyed playing a lot of Pinochle. Euchre is fun, but I wanted to play something a little more challenging, and Pinochle definitely fit the bill.

So, I’ll bet you’re wondering how you play Pinochle. (No? Well, move along, then.) You can certainly find rules on the Internet, but, like many card games, there’s no telling what your “house rules” are going to be. So, I thought I’d teach you how to play our family’s rules for Pinochle.

Pinochle is a typical four-player partnership game, where players on the same team sit across from each other. It is a “trump” card game – that is, the winner of a trick is the highest card of the suit of the first card played, unless a card of the trump suit has been played, in which case the highest trump card wins. Each player must follow the suit of the first card played, unless he doesn’t have a card of that suit, in which case he can play any card in his hand (but see below).

The game is played with 48 cards of two standard decks – the Nine, Jack, Queen, King, Ten, and Ace of each suit from each deck. You’ll note the odd position of the Ten – that’s because the Ten ranks higher than the King, though not as high as the Ace.

There are thus two cards of any given rank and suit, which adds a twist to the standard rules for who wins a trick – if the card that would win a trick is played by two players, the first player to play the card wins the trick.

One other item of note – in Pinochle, if you can legally play a card that beats the other cards on the table, you are required to do so, even if your partner is already winning the trick. If you have a choice of cards that will beat the other cards, you can play any of them. If none of your playable cards will beat the cards on the table, you can make any legal play.

The Aces, Tens, and Kings are the point cards – each is worth one point for the partnership that won that card in a trick. The winner of the last trick gets one additional point, which adds up to 25 possible points.

At the beginning of each round of play, the cards are shuffled by the dealer, cut by the player to his right, and then dealt to each player, traditionally three cards at a time. Each player looks at his hand, and the player to the left of the dealer starts the bidding. The minimum bid is 15; each player must either bid higher than the previous player or pass. When all but one player has passed, that player wins the bid. If no player is willing to bid, the cards are reshuffled for the next dealer.

The winner of the bid declares trump. He then must exchange exactly three cards with his partner. Neither partner gets to see his three new cards before deciding which three of his own to pass. Finally, the winner of the bid plays the first card of the first trick. The round is over when all 12 tricks have been played.

If the partnership that won the bid scores at least as many points as they bid, the number of points that they scored is added to their total. If they don’t reach their bid, their total score is decreased by their bid. The other partnership gets whatever points they manage to take. The first team to score 150 or more points wins the game; if both teams reach 150 points after the same round, the bidding team wins.

Now, that would be a perfectly fun game right there, but it’s the meld that makes Pinochle interesting. I omitted a step in the description above. After the team that won the bid exchanges cards, but before the first card of the first trick is played, all four players lay down their meld, which are combinations of cards that are worth bonus points:

A Run is the Ace, Ten, King, Queen, and Jack in the trump suit, and is worth 15 points. A Double Run is two Runs – that is, all of the non-Nine trump cards – and is worth 150 points.

A Royal Marriage is the King and Queen of trump, worth 4 points, or 8 if you have double. (If you have a Run, you don’t get a Royal Marriage for the King and Queen participating in the Run, but you get 4 points for each additional King or Queen.)

A Marriage is the King and Queen of the same non-trump suit. Each Marriage is worth 2 points; double is worth 4 points. (A “run” in a non-trump suit isn’t worth anything but the 2 points for its Marriage.)

A Pinochle consists of the Jack of Diamonds and the Queen of Spades, and is worth 4 points. A Double Pinochle consists of both Jacks of Diamonds and both Queens of Spades, and is worth 30 points.

Aces Around – an Ace in each suit – is worth 10 points. Double Aces Around – every single Ace – is worth 100 points.

Kings Around is worth 8 (double gets 80). Queens Around is worth 6 (double gets 60). Jacks Around is worth 4 (double gets 40). But strangely enough, Tens Around isn’t worth a thing in meld, single or double.

Each Nine of Trump is worth 1 point. (Nines Around doesn’t give you any extra meld.)

The same card can participate in multiple types of meld. (For example, you can use the same Jack to score both Pinochle and Jacks Around.)

Points from meld count toward the bid, which explains why bidding generally exceeds the 25 points that could be earned from the tricks alone. One other thing: The non-bidding team gets to add the points from their meld to their score – as long as they take at least one trick.

So, that’s the game of Pinochle. I’ll give you a few basic strategy tips before I go:

When bidding, pay close attention to your meld, and don’t forget that your partner will be passing you three cards. Choosing trump is critical to making your Run a meld.

When your partner wins the bid, you want to pass him cards that he may need to complete a Run. Often, this will be all of your trump cards. If he called Spades or Diamonds, be sure to pass him your Jacks of Diamonds and Queens of Spades. Beyond that, you’ll want to give him Aces. If you don’t have any of those things, you can give him non-point cards. (You’re keeping the point cards to play when you know he’ll be taking a trick; you don’t want to risk passing him a point card that he’ll end up losing.)

When you win the bid, you want to pass your partner any non-trump point cards for which you don’t have sufficient coverage. If you called Hearts or Clubs, you should pass him your Jacks of Diamonds and Queens of Spades.

When you lead after winning the bid, you should generally play all of your winning trump cards (stop if your opponents run out of trump), followed by all of your winning non-trump cards. You certainly don’t want to lose the lead before playing all of your non-trump Aces, because a leading Ace beats a following Ace.

If you need that extra point to make your bid, be sure to save a trump for that last trick! Have fun!

This past week was not a favorite for our family – this was the week of the dentist. On Monday morning, I had a dentist appointment. On Tuesday afternoon, I took Sarah and Bethany to the dentist. And on Wednesday morning, Julie had a dentist appointment. I don’t actually mind the dentist much. The girls put up with going to the dentist, but just barely. Julie… let’s just say she’s “not fond” of the dentist and leave it at that. In any case, I won’t go into all of the gory details – our dental health is acceptable.

This weekend was better – all three girls got to spend Saturday night at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and Julie and I got to start painting the kitchen and dining room and then hang out together for a while. In fact, she actually watched Gattaca with me, even though she finds it a bit boring. Inconceivable. Anyway, I think everyone had a great time. Still, it was nice to see the kids again today when we drove up to Lynden for Sunday dinner. Now we’re all back together again and ready for a new week.

Did I mention that we’ve been under the weather? We’ve all had various stages of a cold in the last few days, though we also seem to be getting better. We’re also under the weather in a real sense – I’m beginning to wonder what a cloudless sky looks like, not to mention the nearby star around which this planet revolves…

Yes, Christmas. I had a great Christmas holiday, and I feel bad that I never managed to tell you about it. Not that you care terribly, of course. So, considering that you don’t really care, and Christmas is long over, I won’t blame you in the least for not reading the rest of this summary of our Christmas joy.

• We had a fun Christmas party in Coupeville with Julie’s mom’s family.
• Julie put her back out quite severely while reaching to pour milk.
• Pam and Jeff, good old friends from Michigan, stopped by for a visit.
• Mom and Erik visited for five days – not nearly long enough!
• Mom, Rebecca, and I forged a new walking path in the bitter cold.
• We had a nice dinner at the Skagit River Brewery.
• Mom and Erik taught Julie and me how to play pinochle! (It’s a card game.)
• Rebecca had a fairly high fever with no other symptoms through Christmas.
• We ate great food and opened great gifts on Christmas Eve.
• We went to church and then to Lynden for a nice Christmas Day.
• Julie’s dad made his “famous” salmon – I love brown sugar…
• We opened excellent gifts from Julie’s family on Monday night.
• We attended a Christmas party with Julie’s mom’s mom’s extended family.
• We finally opened our last but not least gifts on New Years Day.

I hope that your Christmas was as merry as mine! Glory to God in the highest!

Wondering what to do with that Best Buy gift card you got for Christmas? Well, wonder no more, because, this week and this week only, the best science fiction feature film available on DVD is now on sale for only $7.49! I’d been waiting for just the right moment to buy Gattaca on DVD, and moments don’t get any better than this. This is one of the very few movies that I would actually bother to own; if you haven’t seen it, you must! Come on over and we’ll have a little Gattaca party!

Winter is here! It started to snow up in Bellingham on Thursday – enough, in fact, that I left early so I wouldn’t have to drive in it in the dark! By Friday morning it was bad enough up there that we felt it prudent that I work from home instead of braving the elements in my pickup truck.

Well, last night the snow came here as well! We woke up to a winter wonderland, so of course we had to spend plenty of time outside in the snow. Not as much as the snow storm we had last winter, but enough to get a few decent sled runs down the street, and to make a few snowballs, and to build a very short snowman. The girls had a great time with their neighbor friend, a young girl about Sarah’s age that we hardly ever see – except when it snows!

Much of the snow has already melted away – but the forecast calls for possibly more tonight, so we’ll see what the day brings!

I don’t get really sick very often. In fact, I was feeling quite confident that I’d made it through another family illness unscathed. That is, until Sunday afternoon.

Don’t ask what I had for lunch on Sunday, because it is unlikely that I’ll ever be able to eat it again. After lunch, I started feeling cold, even though the house was reasonably warm, and I started feeling sore, and tired, and needing-to-lie-down, and needing-to-get-up-again. It soon became clear that I was ill, and that my illness was going to demonstrate itself in a most unfortunate manner. So, though I could not determine the time of said demonstration, I at least was able to determine the place. The rest of the evening was no better, as I was too sick and sore to fall asleep, and thus spent the entire night in a horrible daze, no doubt keeping Julie awake, who caught the same bug during the night.

And so it was on Monday that the kids had no parents, because Julie and I rarely had the energy or stomach to stand, let alone move. Fortunately, sleep came easier Monday night, so the kids had about one full parent with both of us home on Tuesday. Wednesday was a reasonably normal day – I even made it to work – and we’re both feeling a lot better today.

Because I’m so seldom sick, I easily forget how miserable it is – the horrible violence of your body rejecting its contents; the constant shifting of positions in a feeble attempt to find physical comfort; the inability to form a coherent thought or do anything productive. I realized my lack of compassion for the sick, even when they are my own family members. Many sick and elderly live like that, or worse, day after day, with no end in sight; how blessed I am to generally live in good health, with a healthy family.

Unfortunately, it’s not been as happy as I would like. I’ve had a nasty sinus infection for the last few days, but I could have easily managed enough happiness for the new year if not for the fact that the rest of my family hasn’t been feeling well, either. We did manage to have our own early evening New Year celebration with the kids – right before Bethany demonstrated that she wasn’t feeling well all over her bed, followed closely by a similar demonstration from Rebecca all over me. Repeated demonstrations were the theme of the evening, until about 2 a.m. this morning, when all was finally quiet. Sarah and Julie weren’t feeling well either, but they fortunately had no demonstrations of their own.

So, we missed the celebrations, the fireworks over the Space Needle on television, etc. We also had plans for today that have been replaced with rest time. Still, it’s 2005 today, and we’re praying for a good year.