Weekend Redemption

Nine forty-five at night is a little late for me to start writing a post – I usually jam out these notes to Future Me on my phone at lunch, see. Since I wanted to put something out there I thank you ahead of time for your patience for not only dealing with the SnowUrchin-trademarked bad grammar and spelling, but for the eyeball-jarring non-sequiturs and derailment of trains of thought that ma…

As I whined at you in a previous post, last weekend was brutal so the wife and I played hooky from work on Friday. It was a pleasant 80 degrees, the humidity was low, and the skies were clear. There was nothing for it but to drop the boy off at daycare and go to Busch Gardens, the most beautiful amusement park in the United States.

Don’t look at me like that.

Short version: There were virtually no lines, we rode an unexpectedly large number of happy-scary rides, had awesome food at the Oktoberfest pavilion, and I won a “Minion” doll by throwing wiffle balls into an array of PVC pipes.

Long Version: There is no long version and there won’t be until the technology develops that allows us to efficiently transfer joy over the Internet.

I, of course, gave the Minion to the almost-three-year-old when we picked him up. He said “Thank you for the Minion, daddy! Where did you get him?” We were prepared for that question. Not wanting to tell him that mommy and daddy were at an amusement park all day – one he visited for the first time three weeks ago – I said “I don’t remember, buddy.” He was quiet for about 30 seconds and then said “Yes… yes you do remember… you got it at… at… Busch Gardens!”

“Oh, you have got to be freaking kidding me,” I thought as the wife and I stared at each other in amazed silence. It’s not like we played that game the last time we were there – we just walked past a place that had them. So either 1) Something happened as we passed one of the Minion-offering games that caught his eye and caused him to remember that the dolls were there and where “there” was, 2) he has some sort of iconic memory that allowed him to pull up the seemingly random fact that “Minion dolls exist at Busch Gardens” or 3) he is pretty much the lamest X-Man ever, possessing the power to know the place-origin of all stuffed animals.

What else… Man, it’s getting late and I still have art to do and an American Dad to watch…

My wife recommended a book to me – Regarding Ducks and Universes by Neve Maslakovic. I have no idea how she found it, but the fact that she even thought I would like this proves (yet again) that she is my soul-mate. It is very smart, funny (where appropriate), and overall a ripping page-turner. The authoress fully immerses the reader in a world that shares a slightly different alternate history with another that is connected by routinely navigated and strictly regulated portals. Intrigue ensues. I am hugely looking forward to Mrs. Maslakovic’s second book.

Oh, yeah. Been renovating the garage. More on that later.

Gotta go. G’night.