One bit of continuity in our move across half a continent has been Dennis's ability to find enough people with which to play board games.
As I write, he's unpacking a "new" game, which tends to follow the same ritual: Pop out all the cardboard pieces, sort out the cards, markers, tokens, dice, etc., into tiny plastic zip-lock bags, unfold the board (which, in tonight's case, looks like the Periodic Table of Elements moshed together with a map of Middle-Earth), and (finally) study the rule-book.
For all that I don't in any sense consider myself a gamer, it's still fun to watch that ritual. To hear the mental gears whirring as Dennis works out the mechanics (and with it, the underlying strategy). To be regaled with the adventures and gossip of the usual suspects after a gaming session. To watch the preferences (for what makes a good game) develop into full-grown snobberies. To appreciate, even at a distance, the craftsmanship that goes into the artwork (and in some cases the design of the playing pieces). To giggle at the silliness of some game concepts (e.g. "Evil Baby Orphanage").
Given the ancient gaming pieces I've seen behind museum glass (including what looked suspiciously like D&D dice--true story), I can only wonder if games are woven into our neural patterns nearly as deeply as language. Oddly, it seems that such pastimes live and thrive more because of the internet than in spite of it. And that, mind you, in an age of MMORPGs geared for the lizard brain. Which it gives me some hope that the ability to gather peaceably around a table may continue to be a selecting characteristic in our species' evolutionary trajectory.
