A Game of "Moon"

I wrote a blog entry in 2008 about my family playing the game "moon". Here is that entry:

For games, my family has a long history of playing a domino game called "moon". The game is similar to spades in cards though the "trump" in moon changes each hand and is called by the team that wins the bid. My grandfather and great-uncle Louie were great "moon" players as is my dad and a number of others from his generation in our family. My cousins and siblings and I all learned to play the game at an early age at family gatherings at my grandparents' home. Now my generation is playing and teaching the game to the generation below us. It was fun over Thanksgiving playing with my brother-in-law as my partner and taking on my nephew and my niece's husband. The game is in good hands with these young guys though we handed it to them on this occasion.

In January 2010 my brother-in-law who I had mentioned as my partner in this game of moon, Richard Basque, died in an oil field accident. I am currently visiting my family in Oklahoma and last night we played a game of moon for the first time since Thanksgiving 2008. My partner last night was the boyfriend (Robert Menchaca) of my niece Brittany Cagle. Robert had never played before last night so my daughter Gloria helped him out though she also has played only a couple of times. We played against my nephew (Ted Griffin) and another niece's husband (Kris Romines). Ted and Kris are the same two that Richard and I had "handed it to" a couple years ago.

Last night was bittersweet as we were playing a game that we are all very fond of and that has been in my family for a long time but also one which we all have lots of memories of playing with Richard. Last night's game was a marathon session that started around 10 pm. Kris and Ted won the first 2 games. I had mentioned to the guys about the earlier blog post (as they were trying to remember who won the last time we had played). After the first 2 games Kris and Ted wanted to know if last night's results were going into the blog. :)

We decided that we would play the best of 5 games. Robert (and Gloria) and I then went on a roll and won the next 3 games. At this point it was decided (by certain people in the game) that we were now playing the best of 7 games. Robert and I won the next game to go up 4-2 and it suddenly became a best of 9 games. I was thinking that it was around 12:15 or so at this time but when I asked for the time I found that it was actually 1:30 am. This was when the tables turned. Kris and Ted won the next 2 games to tie things up at 4-4. I was ready to call it quits at this point (as a number of us needed to wake up early to do some work this morning). However, no one wanted a tie so we kept going and Ted and Kris won the final game to win 5-4 and we finished the game at 2:30 in the morning.

Congrats and props to Ted and Kris (and to Robert and Gloria for doing great). As I have said before the game is in great hands in our family...