Did you know that QI and ZA are real words? Scrabble nuts like me do, and we had lots of opportunities to play these and many other odd-sounding words this weekend.

At my urging, the DC-area club of the National Scrabble Association (NSA) hosted a two-day tournament here in Rockville. Thanks to the generosity of VisArts, we were able to bring about 80 visitors from around the region and around the country to our great City. Players came from New York, Boston, Texas . . . and even Hawaii (!) to play in this NSA-sanctioned competition.

Fourteen games is a LOT to play in just two days! It's fairly easy to memorize the 101 two-letter words. It's quite a challenge, however, to learn the 1,015 three-letter words well enough to retrieve them in a hard-fought game. Oh, and did I mention that the games are timed? Each player gets a maximum of 25 minutes for the entire game, which means that one must be conscious of the time remaining when hunting for the perfect place for your "Bingo" (a word using all seven letters, which adds a coveted 50 point bonus to one's score).

In addition to the (generally) friendly sparring, Rockville was a big winner. All weekend, I was delighted to receive compliments on VisArts as a venue and on all the attributes of Town Center. 

Throughout the weekend, players enjoyed meals at Town Center's varied culinary offerings. Some of our visitors stayed at local hotels. A good number of the participants took time to shop at VisArts' beautiful store. As a modest "thank you" to Debbie Moser and her helpful staff, the Scrabble Club set aside a generous portion of the registration fees to make a donation to VisArts.

Perhaps a reader might want to know how I fared in my matches. Let's just say that the big victory I enjoyed this weekend was in showing off my hometown and one of its fine arts institutions! While I didn't leave with any of the prize money, I enjoyed every game. (Admittedly, I enjoyed my victories a lot more than my defeats!) This picture