Hand & Foot

Friday November 20, 1992

Frank is up early to make another cheesecake so he can take two to the potluck dinner at Pat and Jack's house tonight. I'm slow in the morning as usual but feel pretty good in the p.m. I read and dust the living room.

I call Roz in Palmdale. We talk over an hour. She has many complaints about their Mexican cruise to Mexico on Princess last week. Poor food and cabin service etc. Too bad, probably their first and last. Her bladder still falls out. She's new doing Kegel exercises.

Forty of our friends from square dancing show up for the card party/potluck. It's great! My partner Fred and I do very well as we play Hand and Foot. We have a great time and I'm tired when we leave at 10 p.m.

Roz was one of Mom's co-workers before she retired. Poor woman, I have never heard of a bladder falling out! I have never been on a cruise before, but always imagined if I did it would be wonderful. I don't know if Roz was a complainer or if the cruise really was horrid. I would never go to Mexico for my first cruise, but would like to try going to Alaska on a cruise ship some day. We have been to Alaska 3 times more than 10 years ago, but never on a cruise. I would love to take a cruise that goes into Glacier Bay someday.

I had never heard of the game Hand & Foot, so googled it and found they actually have a website called hand8foot. Here are the rules of the game from their website:

The aim is to get rid of cards from your hand (11 cards), and then from your foot (11 cards), by melding them. A Meld is a set of three to seven cards of equal rank placed face up on the table. A Meld cannot have fewer than three cards.

After a Meld of three or more cards has been started, you can add further cards to it until there are seven. Then it becomes a Book. You can meld cards of any rank from A, K, Q, … down to 3.

Deuces (twos) and Jokers are wild cards and can be used in melds, as long as there is at least one more real card than wild cards. You can not meld wild cards alone.

There are two types of melds:

A Clean(Natural) Meld has no wild cards and may become a Red Book.
A Dirty(Wild) Meld has wild cards and may become a Black Book.
A Meld of seven cards is complete and is called a Book.

Sounds like fun. Have you ever played?