Merry Mah Jongg New Year

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year. It is the first day of the New Mah Jongg Card for 2016! Technically the real new year is April 1, but since tomorrow is the day my Mah Jongg Group plays, and we have received the new card in the mail, it will be an early happy new Mah Jongg card new year.
If you don’t play Mah Jongg, I’m sorry. You are missing out on an addictive, fun and completely calorie free great way to spend time with friends. Of all my addictions, Mah Jongg is the most healthy. If it were possible I would play everyday. I guess if I lived in a retirement home in Bocca it would be possible, but then my husband would leave me.
The excitement of the new card is that all Mah Jongg players are on the same level playing field the first day a new card comes in. We all have to sit and study the card as we are dealt our tiles since no one is quite sure which hand their tiles will fit best. This means that I can’t do my second most healthy addiction, needlepoint, while playing the new card on the New Year’s Day. That is fine. One day of just playing and not multi-tasking is fine.
I am most interested in how this new card plays since it is the first card since the death of Ruth, the head of the National Mah Jongg league, who create and sell the new cards every year. Will this card be balanced with hands that fully and equally utilize all the tiles, or will some tiles be favored and some become fodder for passing during the Charleston?
If this is just one big foreign language to you it is time to learn to play this game. I am happy to have another class and teach you. As long as you have not previously signed up for a class and not shown up. It is a game about fun, but I take it very seriously.
Now I need to get a good night’s sleep so I am ready for the big festivities of tomorrow. Happy Mah Jongg New Year. May the jokers be with you!