Words for thought

The other day my friend Lorna and I were talking about our deteriorating brains. As "women of a certain age," we know it goes with the territory to lose some cognitive function. Luckily we are not yet women of another certain age -- the one when you have lost the capacity to even remember the mental symptoms and focus only on the physical ones.

We compared notes, and spelling was near the top of the list. Both of us have noticed of late a tendency to type a word, look at it and know there's something wrong, but not be sure what it is. Damn frustrating, especially for a writer/editor like me.

But being of a certain age has its positive cognitive aspects, as I discovered last night during a game of Scrabble with a bunch of Gen Y and Millennial friends.

When Gwen Bell invited to me to BWET (Boulder Women Engaging Tech) meetup, I hesitated because she described it as a place for young women entrepreneurs to get together and chat. But since I am an entrepreneur and devotee of The Cup it was irresistable, I mean irresistible.

After about a half hour of introductions, Gwen announced we'd be playing Scrabble. Since there were 10 of us, I suggested rather than split into two tables that we play with two or three women on a team.

Jamie and I were already sitting side by side at the west side of the square table, so we agreed to partner up. Goldie was more or less at the corner and could go with us or the team on the north side, so she ended up kibbitzing for both teams. But we never needed her help.

I worried about spelling, but as I told Lorna I try to keep my wordplay skills up by playing Scrabble on my Palm. He's quite good at it, knows all the two-letter words, and really keeps me on my toes.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Many of the ladies admitted they had never played Scrabble on a board, although many were familiar with Scrabulous, an online game I was unaware of.

Between not knowing the rules or strategy and spelling skills developed using texting instead of textbooks, most of our opponents floundered (did I mean foundered? These are after all entrepreneurs ...). The tightest competition was between Jamie and me and Gwen and Kari, but in the end age won out.

We beat the skorts off those girls.

For photos that at my advanced age I can't figure out how to include in this post, check out Gwen's flickr photostream.