Other than the ridiculously delicious baklava that we had the chance to make, I think my favorite part of the story of Diana’s recipe is the competition that she has with her brother for the best recipe. A little healthy competition is a lot of fun in a family. Competition that ends in a bloody brawl - maybe not so much.
Neither Kristen or I are incredibly competitive. In fact our game playing as a kid was always pretty civil except when it came to Monopoly. I mean it started out normal enough. I would pick the shoe (I loved to move it by the little sticky uppy thing in the back) and Kristen would select the Scottie Dog (I mean, we are of Scottish descent, after all!) Quick aside - I just learned that Monopoly retired the boot/shoe. What is happening? How is that even acceptable? How are people expected to pick up their pieces without the jutty outy part? My world is crashing down around me….the insanity!
You can buy these on Etsy! https://www.etsy.com/listing/1591147536/vtg-monopoly-game-pieces-monopoly-game?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=monopoly+boot&ref=sr_gallery-1-23&sts=1&organic_search_click=1
Ok, I have gotten the rant out of my system. After the selection of pieces, we would pass out the money to let the game begin. The last thing to decide is who was going to be the banker. This is where I should have seen the first signs that Kristen was going to be going off the rails. She would quickly and firmly announce that as the older sister, the rules required that she be the banker. While a little disappointed at Monopoly and their ageist rule making, I would not put up a fight and off we would go. Cue the endless slog that is the game play of Monopoly. Around and around the board you would go. You’d make money, you’d lose money, you’d pass Go over and over and over. Eventually, roughly 6.25 hours later, I would be ready to stop. Please, for the love of all that’s holy let it stop. At this point, Kristen and I would start to count up our money. I would proudly announce my grand total. Kristen would smile. This was no normal smile, this was a totally evil, joker-esque type smile. Now a normal kid would get the hint that something sinister was afoot. I, however, was not a normal kid. I was a head in the sky, all will go well, my sister loves me to the moon and back kinda kid so the next words out of her mouth would always come as a shock to me. It was now she would take the opportunity to announce to me that the banker always got to keep all the money in the bank…so she wasn’t done counting all of her money. The outrage! I recognized this to be total made up older sister behavior but I wasn’t sure how to combat it. As soon as I reached for the game instructions she would grab that sucker and check. Yep, it’s in there. After all, she would say, that’s how banks work in real life! (Hard to believe I didn’t grow up wanting to be a banker!) While I knew you couldn’t have the oldest person playing be the banker AND give them all the money in the bank - I was the Wile E Coyote trying to outsmart the Roadrunner. Doomed to be hit by the Monopoly anvil over and over again.
Watch Season 1 on Amazon Prime - https://www.amazon.com/Road-Runner-Coyote-Season-1/dp/B077XN2B6W
I, however, was a competitive pogo stick jumper. I always wanted to take turns on the pogo stick. Oh! And while we are jumping we should count to see how far we can get. This is fun, you go first, Kristen! You got to 10 - that’s cool. Let me throw some platitudes at you on what a great job you did. Mwah ha ha ha, it’s my turn! I would jump for about as long as a game of Monopoly took - or so I imagine it felt to Kristen. Turns out she didn’t find this to be near as fun as I did. How did I know you ask? The name calling - there was a lot of it, and it was a pretty big clue for me.
You may be surprised to hear that as an adult, I am not a huge fan of playing Monopoly. But if I have to play, you can rest assured that I always insist on being the banker!
