Lesson not learned, I’ve now decided to take on a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle monster
I received a handwritten personal letter the other day.
I can’t remember the last time that happened, but in keeping with the times, it wasn’t delivered to me by a mail carrier. It had been sent to the newspaper. Someone scanned it and sent it to me electronically.
It was a lovely note from a lady who wanted to chat about jigsaw puzzles. I had written about my struggle with a 750-piece puzzle.
I conquered it — finally. I didn’t keep track of how long it took but it was a while. We retired people tend to pretty much ignore time anyway. Or it ignores us. I’m not sure which.
There was only one piece missing. That’s amazing considering how much cat abuse it endured. I gleefully dismantled the puzzle, after taking a picture, and now it can rot in its box where its missing piece doesn’t matter.
Not having learned any lessons but having maintained my manual dexterity — which was the point of all this — I am now slaving away, piece by piece, hour by hour, on a 2,000-piece puzzle. I am pretty sure this unfinished puzzle will be a legacy for my family after I am gone.
“Give it up,” you might say. But this is a special puzzle. It has 24 pictures of our granddaughter from age 1 month to 1 year. Each month has two pictures — in the same outfit. There also is a 12-month calendar that shows up 12 times and a picture of my wife and I with Bella, our granddaughter.
That is all complicated enough but then there is the gray background for the whole thing. I’m pretty sure there are 1,000 gray pieces, each without a speck of any other color. Even a lot of the border is gray. If I could get the border together it is bigger than my puzzle board.
I’m not a long-run kind of person. I honestly don’t know if I will ever get it done. I know that every day I get a few pieces in place. But eventually I will run out of pieces of color and the gray will never end.
Come to think of it, The Gray Will Never End, might make a good book title. But as a way of life it doesn’t sound that appetizing.
Not to mention that this thing is 3 feet by 2 feet. The pieces are scattered all across the dining room table and on the floor, thanks to the cats. Only one piece chewed so far, and to be fair to the cats, we don’t know whether that was them or the granddaughter.
Puzzle control
Every morning starts with puzzle control — searching the carpet for fallen pieces. Then I can search to see which of the six bright red outfits a certain red piece might go to. Or maybe I can figure out which piece with a little blue squiggle of color goes in which calendar.
One of the outfits has little shamrocks which look a lot like the little green leaves that are in every part of the puzzle.
I have most of the gray pieces tucked away in drawers. There’s no room for them on the table and February has plenty of gray anyway. Maybe I’ll get to them by next year.
I should have plenty of manual dexterity by then.