Piece Out

One 1,000-piece puzzle: $5.99 Snacks and drinks: $45.00 Hosting 6 friends for a Puzzle Party? Priceless

Is it any surprise that a professional organizer (a.k.a. someone who loves order) would enjoy assembling jigsaw puzzles? Not really. What is surprising is when folks who are not so concerned about order in their lives love puzzles as much as I do.

At my puzzle party, as arms reached over arms connecting pieces, someone asked me, “What’s the largest puzzle you’ve ever done?”

“Four thousand, nine-hundred, ninety-eight,” I said.

“Not 5,000?” she replied.

In 1987 I began a 5,000-piece puzzle that I completed on New Year’s Day 1988. As ecstatic as I felt, I was devastated. There were two pieces missing.

“I hid them months ago,” my dad said, as he trotted off to retrieve them from a high shelf in another room. But they weren’t there. Eventually I got over the missing pieces. In the last few years I’ve stopped gluing them altogether, and just break them apart and give them to friends. My enjoyment was never the end result anyway. Whether its puzzles or closets, connecting pieces has always brought me peace.