Third place finish and a Barbara defeat!

I had a great day at club on Thursday.
Sure, I got stuck playing Steve in the first round even though that is a fate usually reserved as punishment for those who show up late, and I was totally on time.
I held my own for a long time. Steve plays a very closed board game which stretches my knowledge of esoteric hooks and five/four letter words to its breaking point. But sometimes he gets a blank and he bingoes, which happened during this game, but I had satine + p and came right back with sapient.
I was down by 16 or so when he exchanges. I dump a clunky w and u for 12 points and now I'm only trailing by four. And then he gets the other blank and he bingoes with "blintze" with the b on a double word score and the z on the triple letter score for a million/billion points. Ugh. The only saving grace is that I didn't challenge the word, even though the "expert" players who saw the board later, said they would have.
I give up at that point and cruise to an easy defeat.
THEN Joel asks Steve to move up to the expert level to even out the divisions. Terrific. Couldn't have done that *before* I got blintzed!
Oh well.
My next match was against Ed Moran, who usually plays one bingo phony on me, one four letter word for a bingo-like total and then beats me by thirty even though I bingo out and he has all the over 8 point tiles on his rack.
I have beaten him a couple of times, but I wasn't holding my breath.
Sure enough, he bingoes on me early, I fish for a couple of rounds, then bingo back, but he still has a sizeable lead. I don't know why, but I then decide to shut down the board. I Steved Ed and it WORKED! He ended up with five consecutive turns of eight or less points, while I was using my tiles for steady 20/30 points. He then bingoed with talkers hooking the ess on liri, so I challenged it off. I had slavern on my rack, but 1) I wasn't sure if it was good and 2) it didnt play, so I dumped off the l and v. I made "lev" and stuck the v in the middle of Ed's prior bingolane.
He then played talks on the triple line, Tee on Triple word square, K on double letter square.
Ouchy.
I was down by 42 now, but my rack was aaenrss. I shuffled and shuffled but couldn't find anything. The bag was empty. "Man, if I had a tee, I could make...wait, a minute! "Talks!" I have a tee!!"
Yay!!
I bingoed out through his tee with santeras. He challenged. It was good. I got all the points for his tiles and won!
I was then matched up with Ellen P. She is really nice and was one of the first people whose names I learned because she has all her equipment labeled. Even her racks! I can't remember if I've ever beaten her. But for the last four months or so, whenever I'm doing well and am in contention to win, it is Ellen I have to face in the finals. And, well, you all know that you'd know IMMEDIATELY if I ever win tournament night at the New York club.
Anyway, I'm 1-1 and Joel announces I'd have to play Ellen.
"Noooo," I groan to the amusement of everyone in earshot.
"Gee, thanks Dawn," Ellen says.
Ellen always says she doesn't play rated one day tournaments because she is not a morning person and loses all her games in the morning.
"Okay," I offer, "How about we postpone this game till the morning?? 7 am! Yes, I insist!"
"Why, Dawn? So you can sleep through it?" an eavesdropping Matt says. Smart ass.
"Shut it! That only happened once...maybe three or four times."
Ha.
I told him.
Anyway, I go first...I try to play a five letter word, but can only muster a four. We both go back and forth with little plays until I get the rack einorxz. I look around the board and there is an open g!!! Oh my gosh! My heart is beating so fast. I. AM. A. SCRABBLE. GOD.
Ellen plays away from my g and I can barely hold the tiles between my fingers, as I slap down "zeroxing" for 140 points!
"Challenge," Ellen says pretty quickly.
Ha! I KNOW it's good.
Joel comes over "No. But ambitious."
I take the tiles off reluctantly...is this like that time you said "linkings" was good even though it isn't, I thought grumpily.
Whatever.
I got thirty points for my z and then set up an awesome spot so I could play the ex on a double word going two ways...Ellen didn't see it coming, in order to block, and I scored another 44. It was no zeroxing, but it would have to do. She and I exchanged bingoes and I was still comfortably ahead. I drew the second blank and bingoed again! Woo. There were only like ten tiles left, so I did my "no choking, no choking, no choking" chant. And I didn't! I beat Ellen! At night.
"I thought zerox had lost trademark status," I say to her as we're cleaning off the board.
"It did. But it's spelled with an ex."
"Huh?"
"It's xerox. Two exes."
Oh. My. God.
I. AM. A. SCRABBLE. IDIOT.
I spelled "xeroxing" WITH A ZEE!!!
Dude.
I can never go back to that Scrabble club. Ever.
As I was sitting there, thinking of where I will move to now that I was in the market for a new Scrabble club, Joel announced the final matchups.
I was 2-1 and he said the dreaded words "Dawn Summers/ Barbara Ep"
I groan internally.
Within minutes, the all too familiar voice descended.
"I think we're playing now."
"Yeah, that's what he said."
"Okay. You've only beaten me once, right? That one time."
"You challenged parsons," I said trying to move the story along.
"Right, but you haven't won me again, right? I played a phony on you and you took it. I played teglion, but it's only lentigo."
Awesome. Great. Shut THE HELL UP.
I smiled. "Okay, you ready? You're first."
It was annoying, she bingoed with the blank on her second turn and I had the promising eaetr followed by four consecutive turns of "aa" or "wp" and then "ee" COME ON, universe!!
WHY do you HATE me?! Finally, when I drew "br" I was ready to just give up the fishing and move on. But Barbara was taking forever to go and some bored shuffling brought up: rebater. I wasn't sure it was good, but I was down by 80 and when she finally played "mu on top of "en" I knew I had to try it. I bingoed with rebater forming emu/run on the end. She held the play for SIX AND A HALF minutes. I didn't say anything. Or look at her. Finally, she challenges it.
"It's good."
Woooooo. She starts her not-quite-under-her-breath carping.
"Okay, you got me. I shouldn't have challenged that. 'Rebater' I didn't know that one. You're good. Maybe you win this one. Blah blah blah"
I make my next move and take a 20 point lead. She then starts to play a bingo through an open a at the top of the board. She has THE OTHER blank, too! Grr.
She doesn't finish the word and pulls back her tiles. Another 7 minutes go by and she instead bingoes through the r. She plays raise?ts. She says "blank is an enn" 72 points, hits the clock with one hand and reaches for the bag with the other to draw replacement tiles.
"HOLD ON," I say grabbing the bag away from her.
"What is the blank?"
"An enn."
I write it out: raisents It's the nastier stem, one of the few eight stems that I know. There is only one word in that rack, and that ain't it.
I laugh. Out loud.
"Challenge"
Joel comes over.
"That's an enn," I say.
He laughs too.
Barbara has a couple of bingoes that she could have played through that a at the top of the board, so I decide to block that in case she remembers them since it's obvious she couldn't find retsinas. I play wanting through the a.
She takes another 8 minutes with the tiles and then plays ?asiest hooking the blank on top of "avo"
"The blank is an ell. 75 points"
She hits the clock, I start laughing hysterically and insta challenge.
"You really have no respect for me."
I tell Joel the blank is an ell. He just rolls his eyes and walks away.
Now I shut down the r lane.
She is in full on tempter tantrum/whine mode now. She is already three minutes over on her clock. We play back and forth and then at some point I guess she forgets to hit my clock, so halfway through my turn she notices her clock has now run over four minutes.
"Hold hold," she screeches. "My clock was running and it's your turn. I'm not counting that. I'm only taking off forty points."
I was stuck with pretty ugly ending letters, q being one and unfortunately, no u or a. I had qis, but no place to put it.
"Can you be quiet, I'm trying to make my move here."
"I'm only taking off forty."
"Shhh"
"Whatever, you won already."
I channeled my inner Adam.
"BARBARA! SHUT UP."
She was finally quiet.
Fine, she doesn't care? I played qis under pst. I hit the clock.
"Challenge," she screeches, "That doesn't take an ess. Joel! Challenge"
I roll my eyes and take it off.
She plays off her blank for 4 points.
I play off as many letters as I could, accepting that she's getting 20 points for my unplayable q.
She goes out and calculates the score. She only subtracts 40 points from her score.
"You're over by 5 minutes. That's 50."
"It shouldn't have been running. It was your turn."
"Not my problem. Hit the clock when you're done."
"You already won, what's the difference, I took off 40."
I wasn't arguing with her anymore.
"Joel!"
"Ok, okay fine."
She is like terrified of Joel banning her from club! Hahahah
I came in third in my division for the night. I also made the department of terrible cleverness for "rebater," because that's the *only* bingo in that rack!