You've Got to Accentuate The Positive
Just returned from a trip to my in-laws. Remember in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when Ian's parents go over to Tulla's parents for dinner and Tulla's mom invites the whole Big Fat clan over to meet them? That's kind of how it was. For a week. Except with less food. And I was both uptight yuppie parents. Luckily I got to take a few geeky breaks:
- Learning how to make bul gogi from my sister-in-law
- Saw photos of Mr. Latetothpartyhp's bio-dad for the first time. Not so much in the actual features but in the body language and especially in the smile I saw my oldest step-son.
- Another sister-in-law had done a terrific job of assembling some very old family photos and matching them up to the family tree she's been researching.
- Morrill Hall, on the UNL campus, has some amazing Ice Age Fossils, including the largest assembled mammoth skeleton in the world.
- the Henry Doorly Zoo is well worth a couple of days if you happen to be in Omaha. I'd just gotten a zoological history of elephants the day before at Morril Hall, so I was really primed for all the info they had on different eco-systems work in and the relationship of environment to adaptation. If you have only time to do one I recommend the zoo, but put both together and they make a great one-two punch.
- caught Curiosity fever at the Hyde Memorial Observatory - plus it was free, which fit my budget perfectly
I also ate at a Chick-Fil-A for the first time ever. Perfect timing: the oldest step-son did not want to spend the week in NE, but has been obsessed with Chick-Fil-A ever since he started watching college football, so the detour in Des Moines was the bribe we promised him for visiting his dad's family for a week. In case anyone is worried how the boycott might be affecting sales, there was a huge line for it at the Jordan Creek Mall food court, and when we got in line the woman in front of us gave us a huge grin, like we were in some secret solidarity sorority to support heterosexual marriage through the eating of fried chicken. That could have been my imagination though. She could have thought we just were an adorable, if sweaty and disheveled and incredibly cranky, family.
Later, after the Oldest Step-son had picked the pickles off his Original Sandwich (and aren't the pickles kind of the point?) he said, meditatively, "This is kind of a dilemma. I do support human rights. But I am going to go get another one." Of course you are baby. Of course you are...
Now I'm off to catch up on all the fannish goodness I missed.
- Learning how to make bul gogi from my sister-in-law
- Saw photos of Mr. Latetothpartyhp's bio-dad for the first time. Not so much in the actual features but in the body language and especially in the smile I saw my oldest step-son.
- Another sister-in-law had done a terrific job of assembling some very old family photos and matching them up to the family tree she's been researching.
- Morrill Hall, on the UNL campus, has some amazing Ice Age Fossils, including the largest assembled mammoth skeleton in the world.
- the Henry Doorly Zoo is well worth a couple of days if you happen to be in Omaha. I'd just gotten a zoological history of elephants the day before at Morril Hall, so I was really primed for all the info they had on different eco-systems work in and the relationship of environment to adaptation. If you have only time to do one I recommend the zoo, but put both together and they make a great one-two punch.
- caught Curiosity fever at the Hyde Memorial Observatory - plus it was free, which fit my budget perfectly
I also ate at a Chick-Fil-A for the first time ever. Perfect timing: the oldest step-son did not want to spend the week in NE, but has been obsessed with Chick-Fil-A ever since he started watching college football, so the detour in Des Moines was the bribe we promised him for visiting his dad's family for a week. In case anyone is worried how the boycott might be affecting sales, there was a huge line for it at the Jordan Creek Mall food court, and when we got in line the woman in front of us gave us a huge grin, like we were in some secret solidarity sorority to support heterosexual marriage through the eating of fried chicken. That could have been my imagination though. She could have thought we just were an adorable, if sweaty and disheveled and incredibly cranky, family.
Later, after the Oldest Step-son had picked the pickles off his Original Sandwich (and aren't the pickles kind of the point?) he said, meditatively, "This is kind of a dilemma. I do support human rights. But I am going to go get another one." Of course you are baby. Of course you are...
Now I'm off to catch up on all the fannish goodness I missed.