rolling dice, etc.

 Today, according to my west coast brother, is National Sock Day, National Cookie Day, and National Dice Day.  Quite an array, I'm sure you'll agree.  I don't play dice games much, except Backgammon and Yahtzee, but the little guy that I tutor and I have recently discovered a board game using a large 12 sided dice and six ordinary six sided di.  Each player rolls the large dice, then the smaller ones and tries to find the numbers that add up to the number on the large di.  If you can do it, you get to move that many spaces. If not, you loose your turn.  This is such a simple game, but very ingenious, and tricky.  He doesn't even realize that he's adding.  This has become our 'play' time when all the reading work is done.  But enough about dice.  I am not going to comment on cookies because I'm trying to avoid food talk for the next couple of weeks.  Of course there are the cookies that show up on my phone, laptop and tablet - very annoying but nicely calorie free.  That brings me to socks. Notice that it's National Sock Day; not socks, sock, singular.  There is a reason for that.  One of my all time favorite humor writers, Erma Bombeck, once observed that it's a sad but true fact that socks do not mate for life.  It's so true!  Different people deal differently with this dilemma.  When I take my socks from the dryer, I match them up, two by two, setting aside any leftovers, and roll the tops down, trapping two socks together, then I stuff them in my tightly packed sock drawer, where they can't wiggle around and come loose.  My spouse, on the other hand, simply matches up his pairs of socks and folds them together - no rolling - and lays them on a shelf in his closet, where they can just hop off and run away if they want too.      I think he's taking a terrible risk, but at least I know what I can give him for Christmas.