More Volunteering, More Chess

Yesterday, I volunteered at Beit Avot, an old age home in Beersheva. The initial volunteer work was extremely depressing. We threw balls and played pretend sword-fighting with very old people, who had Alzheimers, or something, they were completely senile. It was as if they were five year olds. We had to smile and laugh and try to get them excited. It was very challenging. Only one of them was able to communicate with me at all, in Hebrew, many spoke only Russian or nothing at all. After this, I went to play chess with Simeon, an old Russian man who spoke only Russian. This was great, because he was a nasty chess player. He took it extremely seriously, he had his own board and everything. He won the first game after I blundered, eventually reducing my side to almost nil until I resigned. In the second game, I played white. I blundered early but recovered. I was down a knight, but we exchanged Queeens and then I fired off a combo to tie the game again. His improved positionally but I was able to find a sneaky check mate with two rooks. It was fun and I guess I'll go back at some point.