(words with an asterisk* were the words we were given in the spelling bee, the other italicized words were given to other teams.)

At the risk of sounding narcissistic* or ostentatious, we did win the Neighbor-to-Neighbor spelling bee in Abilene last night (again). Seems to be the weekend for S.B. championships.

I strategically scheduled this post to be live at exactly 4:30 p.m. CST, an hour earlier the Super Bowl kickoff. Super Bowl/Spelling Bee, they are both highly important competitions and I don’t want one to overshadow the other.

The labyrinthine path we took to get there was a challenge at times, but we proved (once again) to be spelling aficionados. There were no belligerent epithets from the other contestants, just a spirit of ebullience and goodwill among the teams. There were only six teams this year, which made it a much smaller gathering than previous years.

We were all old enough to remember the famous outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease in Philadelphia in 1976, but we were forced to use one of our two mulligans when none of us could remember the correct spelling of legionnaire*. Coincidentally, 1976 was the year my precocity* with spelling surfaced, when I placed second in the Mitchell County (Kansas) spelling bee at ten years of age in the fourth grade. Despite four more years of chances, I did participate in the county bee each year, but never placed again to earn a trip to the state bee in Topeka.

Clearly, I never got over it.

Gail’s nephew was our guest. “Father Kade” as he is known to his parishioners and everyone else, is her husband’s late brother’s son, and he joined us at the Catholic parish hall for the evening. (Full disclosure, when I typed ‘parishioner’ above, I was alerted to a misspelling with the red line under it. Apparently, I wasn’t aware of the second ‘i.’ Good thing that wasn’t one of our words.)

Perhaps there was a scintilla* of divine favor with his presence at our table, but we like to think we would have pulled off the victory either way. He was indeed a delightfully divine guest.

As the evening progressed toward the twelfth and final round and the other teams acquiesced* to defeat, we realized we had quite the repertoire* of correct spellings, as we were able to complete the final round with no further mistakes. Any further misspellings would have been egregious and abhorrent* to us, which, coincidentally, was our winning word.

My neighbor Jordan wasn’t able to join us this year, but she was there in spirit. Gail, with her perpetual spirit of fun and generosity, brought table decorations and goodies for everyone. Slap bracelets, stickers, pens and other party favors were a hit among the whole crowd.

My raffle ticket matched the winning number drawn for the basket of yoga goodies, apropos of my love for the practice.

We claimed the title and posed for our photograph. We like to think we pulled it off with panache. Perhaps next year we should consider wearing our matching muumuus*, but our T-shirts are an annual hit.

The night wrapped up early and because there were no taquerias*, discotheques or bodegas open locally, we opted for a late dinner at a local restaurant. Father Kade was our guest for dinner as well.

We will be back in Abilene next year for another spelling bee rendezvous, and may your team win the S.B. today.