Day after Motor City Furry Con I went to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's parents to pick up our pet rabbit. bunnyhugger had to work; I would have had to work but it was Presidents Day so I got to sleep in instead. Our mice we left in their cage as they had water and plenty of blocks of Boring Nutrition Lumps that they could eat if they had absolutely nothing else, and they did. I didn't stay long at her parents', though, nor did I take off my N-95 since there was such an obvious high risk. We never came down with any symptoms of Covid-19, to our mild wonder considering how packed we were in the elevators, and the following Saturday visited to celebrate their birthdays.
bunnyhugger had briefly seen her mother on her own birthday, since that was the day before the con when she dropped our rabbit off. And her father's birthday was the next day. But this would be a chance to pause and, you know, celebrate them and once again fail to let us buy dinner. Her father has a thing about it; we were able to get the check for their 50th anniversary and that's been it.
They had a cake, a two-layer white cake with frosting a bit sweeter than bunnyhugger's mother really liked, to share their birthdays, though it was inscribed to her for her 80th. After we sat down and ate too many potato chips and talked a while her father got a cake knife out and sliced off a couple for himself, as he was afraid he'd be too full if he waited until after dinner. I protested --- I was just shocked --- but bunnyhugger pointed out it was his birthday and his birthday cake too.
So besides the cake --- and the resolve that bunnyhugger's mother would do no cooking --- it was a fairly usual visit with her parents, pleasant and comfortable and somehow shorter than I'd expected. I guess I'm used to staying past midnight or so. Maybe if we had gotten out one of the games; we'd found and brought our barely-begun campaign game Aftermath, as well as the rolling-dice pinball simulator, but never did find the time for them.
In part, this because bunnyhugger had gotten an account for her mother with Archive.org's lending library for people with sight impairment, and was showing how to borrow books and use them on her iPad. In part it's because we had so much cake. We brought leftover cake home and didn't finish for nearly a week after. (Granting we didn't eat it every day either.)
But mostly it was because we wanted to spend more time talking with them about the convention (her mother was so sympathetic about the hat loss, and also said she felt bad for what a time I must have gone through trying to comfort bunnyhugger, which does show how she has both our numbers), and about what they've been doing, and, you know, all that being with family.
In pictures we're closing in on the end of our full day at Six Flags America so please enjoy considering these sights:
The Wild One running again now that the weather permits.
Pretty sure I could sell this as a postcard if amusement parks still sold postcards of their marquee rides. ... Also if the seats were packed.
Hey, turns out Gotham City is a swinging place! Who knew? (The silhouette is the park's Mardis Gras sign, on the other side.)
We had the idea that Blizzard River was going to be opening later that season, which seemed amazing considering (a) that's definitely a 1980s Comics Penguin design and also (b) they've known all year that the park was closing. And yet --- well, computer, enhance.
Yeah, their sign had 'frosting' chipped off the Z! ... Anyway turns out Blizzard River had been around since 2003, and it's a pity that it wasn't running when we visited since it was so hot we might have considered a spinning rapids ride.
The Superman ride's lift hill as it looks with stormclouds having passed.
Trivia: In 1971, the top five university conferences together awarded fewer than fifty athletic scholarships to women compared to over five thousand to male football players. In 1980, five years after Title IX regulations required women receive the benefits of educational programs or activities, women made up 30 percent of college athletes, though women's teams still received only about 16 percent of collegiate sports budgets. Source: With Amusement for All: A History of American Popular Culture Since 1830, LeRoy Ashby.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 20: 1958, Tom Sims, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
