And now my attempts to write about last weekend get pushed back by breaking news. Friday's likely to be preempted too, and I should warn you that'll be for a pet health report. But today's preemption is more wonderful and hilarious than that.
You may dimly remember me mentioning that JTK, one of our pinball friends, gave us something at the last league night before Christmas that we chose to open the day of. If not it's because I forgot to mention it here, or perhaps because like us you forgot about the fact within a couple days of it happening.
You may also remember me mentioning the most overwhelming wonderful present my parents gave us: a reproduced frame from Bambi autographed to us by one of Thumper's voice actors. We were blown away by this, having no idea how they thought of something so imaginative and perfect. Had we even told them explicitly that Bambi is ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's favorite movie? How did they know?
With those paragraphs you now know what we learned last night at pinball league. JTK was smooth about it, asking if we ever did get around to opening his gift and we were ashamed that we had forgotten it. ... Where was it? What had happened to it? JTK pressed a little, reminding us it was in the mailing envelope for an LP record, but was not an LP record. bunnyhugger had it long before I did. ``Was it in a frame?'' she asked, realizing but wanting to provide room to back down in case it was something else entirely. Was it cartoon-related? Was it autographed? And oh, goodness, but yes it was. Peter Behn (the four-year-old who voiced Young Thumper) was at the Grand Rapids Comic Con recently and JTK went there, thinking this would be a fantastic opportunity, and so it was.
We are embarrassed beyond our ability to say by not realizing this sooner. But our belated realization was at least funny to watch, if I know anything about how we looked. What we had done was forget about JTK's gift. When we found the package, in unfamiliar paper and without a tag, we supposed it was from my parents. I thanked my parents profusely for it, on the phone, all about how a perfect gift it was. bunnyhugger wrote about it in her thank-you card to them. And --- the thing is --- why did they not correct us?
I can rationalize it a bit. I think that I talked with my dad on the phone and thanked him for it. Surely what he thought was that my mother had wrapped the photo without telling him. I haven't had the chance to talk with my mother since she got bunnyhugger's thank-you card so we haven't had the time to talk that out. Well, it's good knowing the truth of the matter and it's amazing to realize how we got there.
That absurd story told now let's get some Crossroads Village pictures in.
One of the fixed cabooses, on the north side of the train tracks, with the light-wrapped tree reflected in the window.
And here's looking out onto the tracks with that tree in the background. But wait, shouldn't there be a Christmas train around here somewhere?
Oh, there we are! I always like getting a puff of steam from the train like that.
But here's a better-lit picture from moments later. They're probably going to stop the train soon. Also you can see the flicker of LED lights in the trail of that wreath on the left there.
Our train cabin, before they turned off the lights to start the ride. The things are a hundred-plus years old. Not enough people wore masks.
One of the early light displays, of a train illumination. How long did it take me to remember to switch my camera to low-light settings? Just you wait and see!
Trivia: William Bligh, later of HMS Bounty fame, was the master of the Resolution for Captain James Cook's third and final voyage. Bligh was 21 years old at the time. Source: To Rule The Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, Arthur Herman.
Currently Reading: A History of The World's Airlines, R E G Davies.
