Trip to the Hands On Museum

The last few days have not been all that much fun. I ended up low on sleep, and many of the plans I made just didn't quite work out.

Friday wasn't all that bad. Suzanne, Jeff and the kids arrived about 10:30. Brendan, the three year old, insisted on a tour of the house, so I took the opportunity to show Suzanne the shelves her husband has helped Scott build over the last couple of years. I think she was a little stunned at the realization of how many books we have since she's never owned even half as many (nor wanted to).

I took my cane along on the trip, intending to use it to remind myself not to do anything stupid. My hip has been giving me trouble, and I was afraid that all that walking around would not be good for me. Sadly, it appears that I've managed to lose the rubber foot for my cane, so it was less use than I'd expected. I was reluctant to us it too much without the added support and friction provided by the foot. Fortunately, I didn't really seem to need it. My hip twinged from time to time but didn't scream at me.

Jeff paid to get us into the Hands On Museum. The first floor exhibits focused on the mechanical and were, for the most part, too complicated for Brendan. We spent some time in the under 4 room while about forty older kids were running wildly around outside. Brendan got rid of some of his energy there while Suzanne fed the baby, but he never was willing to stand still long enough for any of us to show him any of the exhibits. If what he saw on first glance didn't catch his attention, nothing we could say or do would help.

He did, however, like the second floor. It had more that he understood or could at least play with-- Things that made noise when hit, soap bubbles, shells and rocks, that sort of thing. That's also where we found the only exhibit that the baby noticed (she stared around herself the whole time, though, fascinated by the people. She's all of 5 months old now). I was holding her at the time (We three adults took turns. The stroller was available too, but we didn't use it much) and so got to see her reaction.

It was a very simple thing for showing wave propagation, made up of a single rope going through the middle of a series of red painted slats, running from about three feet off the floor to the ceiling. There was a lever at the bottom and that one wiggled to start waves going. The baby ended up staring up at the moving red things in utter fascination; she and I stayed there quite a while. I think Suzanne got a picture of the reaction. I hope so since it was pretty cute.

We didn't stay much longer. I insisted on a brief stop in the media room to see if they still had the light harp (a truly neat item I remembered from my last visit. The "strings" were light, and it made noise according to which lights were interrupted and for how long), but it wasn't there. I don't know if they moved it or if they got rid of it or put it in storage. After that, we all took bathroom breaks and wandered around in the museum's store.

I bought Scott an orange beanie dinosaur called "Vicki Velociraptor" to add to our collection of pun critters (when we have groups of people over, the tradition is to throw small stuffed animals at people who make puns or other bad jokes, tasteless comments, etc.). I got myself a bit of red tigerseye, some glow in the dark stars and a potential art project (the last was partly out of nostalgia since it reminded me of stuff I'd loved doing in elementary school art class). I also got Brendan a foam helicopter with a (I think) compressed air launcher. Suzanne picked it out, so she can't blame me if it's a bit too complicated for him or breaks something if he uses it inside. I just asked her if there was anything I could get for him.

Friday Lunch

As we were leaving the museum, Suzanne and Jeff ran into someone they knew. I wasn't clear if she was from high school or from Suzanne's college days. At any rate, she now works at the museum and was able to recommend a place for us to have lunch. Since Jeff and I both enjoy Mexican food occasionally while our spouses don't, we were happy to go along with Suzanne's interest in trying the recommended Mexican place.

The baby fell asleep in her stroller (a very neat set up. Basically, the car seat can be attached to the stroller frame securely without disturbing the baby; I think there's also a seat in the stroller itself, but I didn't see that because we put the car seat on. There's an area underneath for storage and a bit where Brendan can stand with a strap to keep him from falling off) during the three block walk to the restaurant. Jeff and I both offered to help push, but Brendan refused to ride if either of us was touching the stroller.

We had to wait a little for a table to clear. Suzanne bribed Brendan with crackers and a juice box in order to keep him moderately still. Then, after we were seated, Brendan refused to eat any of the foods on the menu, demanding instead a burger and fries. The waiter indicated that nobody'd get upset if Suzanne went a couple of doors down and bought him what he wanted, so she did. Suzanne and I both got wet burritos while Jeff got enchiladas. I used up all of my protein allocations for the day on that burrito, but it was worthwhile. I can't say that the food was wonderful (the guacamole was awful! And they only mostly left the tomatoes out of my burrito), but it wasn't awful.

After a brief struggle with Jeff, Suzanne paid for lunch. I thought about getting involved but decided to let the siblings squabble. Suzanne mentioned the possibility of ice cream to Brendan, but we didn't see any place that sold it on the way back to where we were parked. Brendan complained about that the whole way. Fortunately, he fell asleep almost immediately after we started driving. Jeff hadn't actually believed that this would happen and so insisted that we head to Island Park just in case Brendan woke up on the way. (Part of this is that Jeff's wife lived less than a block away from the park for two years but he'd never visited it or even known it was there.)

When Suzanne dropped me and Jeff off at my place, I gave her the bag of Yachana jungle chocolate I'd bought her as a Mother's Day present. I'd wanted to be sure to give it to her while Brendan was either occupied or asleep so that she didn't have to share it with him (I'm fairly sure he wouldn't like it much since it's not really very sweet. It's basically crushed and roasted cocoa beans with a little sugar and pineapple juice mixed with a bit of dried pineapple. I found it through the Hunger Site's store and decided to order some to give as gifts and generally try out).

The Remainder of Friday

After Suzanne left, Jeff and I struggled a bit for things to talk about. I called LunarGeography since she'd offered to come over and help entertain him if I found myself out of ideas, but she wasn't answering her phone. Jeff finally asked about our Buffy DVDs since he's thinking of buying them. I popped them in to let him look over the special features. At about that point, I got a call from someone who was trying to reach a friend of ours and had found him mentioned without contact information on my husband's resume. I agreed to let our friend know that this man was trying to reach him and to pass along the caller's e-mail and phone number. Since the caller said it was important, I immediately went to dash off an e-mail. Going online is never such a brief thing as I intend (the fact that Jeff was quite happily watching the director's commentary on the first episode of Buffy let me assume that he didn't need my attention), so Scott got home while I was still online.

Once Scott had showered and changed (and he managed that quickly for once!), he and Jeff got focused on networking a couple of computers so they could play games. Eventually, they took a quick trip out in search of carryout Chinese food and comic books. At that point, I called LunarGeography again because I was concerned that I'd not heard back from her. I left a second message, and she called me back a while later (after I'd eaten). As I'd suspected (but hoped against), she'd been down with a migraine all afternoon. She gets devastatingly bad migraines, and the only medication that helps the pain at all knocks her out anyway.

The upshot of our conversation was that she rescued me at least briefly from the guys by picking me up (very, very out of her way) and taking me with her when she went to pick up her husband from work. We'd hoped that we could persuade Kevin to do something a bit social, but he wasn't feeling up to it, so we just went to Barnes & Noble. We got there about 15 minutes before they closed, so we didn't really have time for browsing. Kevin was looking for a copy of The Salmon of Doubt (which, if I'm understanding correctly, is a compilation of what was on Douglas Adams' hard drive after he died supplemented by some of his nonfiction that hasn't previously been collected elsewhere) which we found after a bit of looking.

Then they dropped me at home. I'm glad I got out even if it was just for a short time. I was pretty grouchy and moody and having little luck convincing myself that the rest of the weekend might be better.

I'll post on how that went later.