It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
bunny_hugger's birthday was our next big event; it was also, you may recall, Election Day. I had voted early at the community center nearby and got one of those wolverine-tearing-his-shirt stickers. She voted the day of, with a lunchtime wait that wasn't anything to speak of, somewhat surprising me; we both expected a higher turnout. Well, that wouldn't hint at anything bad, right?
I had the day off, because Election Day is now a state holiday (in even-numbered years). More, my state-support job actually forbade me to work; every byte of traffic on the state government's computers and VPN was to be devoted to critical services and to election support.
So we went to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, for what's become a tradition on her birthday, started in 2016 and ... you know, maybe this isn't the best election-year tradition we could have. (Obviously we didn't go in 2020.) The last couple years has been on the weekend and that's just when Bronner's starts getting its Christmas crowds in. For a Tuesday, though? Very few people there and very laid-back, all quite comfortable.
We had one important goal here, getting an I-love-my-rabbit ornament customized to our new rabbit Athena. This was easy to do, and beautifully done; the customizer wrote out Athena's name in maybe an even more beautiful semi-script than any of our other rabbits have gotten. We also got a couple other customized ornaments. One for bunny_hugger's brother and his fiancée, celebrating their first full year in their very own home. Another for my parents, who've moved to a new apartment again. This one's a congratulations on your new apartment ornament --- a door --- that I had their names, but certainly not the date or the address, put on. They'll be moving again in a couple years.
(Seriously; my mother has declared that when she turns 80 they're going to have a serious talk about whether they can continue living on their own, and on their own so far from any other family.)
Beyond that, though, the day was one of wandering around more Christmas ornaments than you would imagine there are, and yet somehow they don't have one for letterboxing. (Though it happens we didn't see the geocaching one this year.) We also peeked into the theater where they sometimes show movies about the history of Bronner's and discovered ... oh, they have a collection, an enormous number of Precious Moments figures. Not just Christmas-themed ones but every kind of moment that could be precious in porcelain. Also a display of the steps in making such a figure. Also some other collectible-doll figurines. Also nativity scenes from around the world which you'd expect more from the place. While we were looking around another couple came in and mentioned how they were glad someone else was appreciating all this, the museum that we didn't know was there. Besides the figurines were also a bunch of things from the early days of Bronner's, like their first cash register and the early catalogues from when they were more about sign painting with a side line in Christmas decorations.
We were there until Bronner's closed, but that was not the end of our day.
Now back to happy days of April and Pinball At The Zoo, not quite finished yet in my photo reel:
Lower playfield of Caveman, an early-80s attempt at reviving pinball's fortunes by --- well, you'll see what they came up with here.
Yes, it's one of the attempts to combine pinball and video games; good pinball play gets you more video game time.
But I mostly like the 80s-breakfast-cereal-box art style of the playfield figures.
Here's a dinosaur in the center right part of the playfield. Looks friendly.
Here's another 1930s game, Stoner Manufacturing Company's Chubbie, from 1938. I couldn't resist.
Here's the playfield. How many times can you hit all fifteen targets? Which, note, are not pop bumpers; the ball just bounces against each light as driven by gravity. In several games I managed to complete the set zero times.
Trivia: In 1820 Rochester, New York was not quite ten years old and had a population of three thousand. By 1827 it had about eight thousand people. Source: Wedding of the Water: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L Bernstein.
Currently Reading: Some more comics.