When you find those chocolate bunnies that he's hiding everywhere

[austin_dern]

Happy Easter, for those who're aware of such things. My sister and her husband came to visit, enjoying a proper Easter dinner with ham as well as vegetarian lasagna because my sister is vegetarian. Actually, the lasagna was something of an improvisation because my parents had thought she would bring something vegetarian to be her main course. She hadn't. There being vegetarian lasagna around was just the side effect of my father had made a pan of lasagna a couple days ago and didn't put any meat in, and it takes time for two people to eat quite that much lasagna.

They had good reason not to bring anything to eat. She and her husband had spent the start of the day at Great Adventure, putting their season passes to fullest possible application and dropping in here because we're not that far away. They had a fine time at Great Adventure, braving the not-quite-warm nature of the early season and enjoying the not-quite-crowds that this implies, although they advised that the flying coasters are not worth it. (My brother-in-law is giving up on flying coasters as a concept, in fact.)

Anyway, my parents were glad to have as much of the family together as they could even if my mother referred to us kids as ``heathens'' for not celebrating Easter. (I think we're properly heretics, for having been baptized but not loving up to the basic religious obligations, or maybe apostates, with heathens being those who were never in the church to start with.) We spent the day, and a long dinner, talking over just the usual sorts of low-level stuff, including the Dog Cam by which they can now confirm, anytime, day or night, that their dogs are hiding underneath a blanket in the living room. They didn't bring their dogs, so the cats were very happy and two of them were even out in public where they might be seen.

After dinner we enjoyed chocolates from Lansing, courtesy of bunny_hugger, with my sister taking the chocolate my mother had been hoping to save for herself. My sister said my mother shouldn't have been so polite if she really wanted it. We also had some salt water taffy, courtesy of my jury duty letting out early back on Monday. The apple pie was, well, the apple pie of the meal.

Trivia: The official plan for a war with Spain, proposing a blockade of Cuba, the Asiatic Squadron attempting to capture Manilla, and an assembly of thirty thousand men in Tampa to invade Cuba and Puerto Rico in the month estimated for Spain to reinforce the Caribbean, was accepted by the United States as a planning doctrine on 30 June 1897. Source: The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898, G J A O'Toole.

Currently Reading: The United States of Arugula: The Sun-Dired, Cold-Pressed, Dark-Roasted, Extra Virgin Story Of The American Food Revolution, David Kamp. And hey, it even mention Zingerman's, although just the one time, in passing.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Flying coasters are pointless gimmicks. Of course, I'd love to ride any coaster, and if I could be sure I'd get to ride them for many more years now, I'd be very happy and not choosy at all.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I admit I don't quite get the pointlessness of it, but from my brother-in-law's description he's gone on a couple that were remarkably uncomfortable and gave a strong impression of being unsafe (too loose a strap for the chest, particularly, and too long a time spent waiting with the head tilted downward). Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 doesn't really get that sense across.

(I've grown less fond of things that put weight on my chest since my rib cage lost its padding. This includes a few yoga poses that have actually grown less comfortable as my body's become less of an obstacle to me.)

[(Anonymous)]

It's supposed to be like "flying" but it isn't really. It's mostly like riding a roller coaster face down -- or, all too often, face up, since a lot of them turn you face down for relatively short portions of the ride, with the rest being spent on your back. I don't find them unsafe -- I seriously doubt that since they have been running for years and years now and I've never heard of an incident in which someone was seriously hurt on one. I just find them to be gimmicky. Stand up coasters are the same way: more novel than fun. I'd rather have a really good wooden coaster or even a really good steel that didn't have any special distinctions outside of being well designed.

Oops

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was me. Forgot I wasn't logged in.

Re: Oops

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's OK, I get that too. For some reason LiveJournal likes to have me get logged out in the middle of a commenting session rather than, say, overnight when I'm away. It probably makes sense to somebody.

(Well, it's probably because I usually comment about the same time any given day, and the cookie for logging in is probably set to a whole number of days; if it were set to a whole number of days plus 12 hours then it'd expire in-between sessions instead.)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine there's any roller coaster operating any length of time that's actually unsafe (and I notice Singapore's Battlestar Galactica finally reopened after being shut a month after its grand debut), but the impression of being safe can be a more variable thing. My brother-in-law was really perturbed by one in (I think) Georgia where the chest strap on the flying coaster was just a loose vinyl belt with a buckle that didn't feel any too secure. He wanted one that at least felt like it held him snugly and couldn't be popped open without welding torch and hacksaw.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Both the flying coasters I've been on had a sort of padded vinyl vest over the chest that closed with a buckle. It's probably more comfortable than a hard bar restraint.

Of course, I'm someone who loves Skyliner at Lakemont, which has a single-position lap bar and negative g's so intense at the crest of the second hill that It feels like being popped halfway out of the car. Awesome.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

The padding might make it better. I'm just not in a good body shape right now for taking pressure on the center of my chest.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Most of the pressure isn't there, it's on your ankles and hands, really.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I hope that you'll show them to me in person, as soon as we can.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I've USArugula, and did enjoy. Though it seems a little rushed to the end as he tries to recap the Food Network era in one chapter.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's proved awfully interesting, but it does feel like it kind of missed the link between ``restaurants served a food that wasn't white boiled stuff'' and ``you can buy sushi at amusement parks'', which was actually what I was hoping would be the majority of the book. But the discovery of how there just wasn't anything interesting to eat before 1978 was eye-opening as these things are.