I Am Not the Only Dust My Mother Raised
As you probably know, my birthday was last Thursday, and my wife bethje's was last Monday, and we did a few different activities to celebrate. On her birthday, we visited Eastern State Penitentiary, a now-defunct prison in Philadelphia that we'd actually visited a few years ago for one of our dating anniversaries. Beth has a fascination with prisons. The last time we went there, we were part of a guided tour, but now you're allowed to move around freely. They also no longer require visitors to wear hard hats, so I guess they've improved the safety somewhat, or else chosen to ignore the safety hazards. We were given players with an audio tour on them, much of which was narrated by Steve Buscemi. He said something about having visited the prison while scouting for a filming location, and while he ended up not using it, it did interest him. Also on the audio recordings were some former guards and inmates. The prison was in operation from 1829 through 1971, but by the end it was deemed unfit for modern incarceration. The original design was for total solitary confinement, but they later discovered that this drove people insane. I always thought that, if I had to serve time, I'd rather do it by myself than with all the brutal gang members, but apparently there's no way to win. I guess I'll just have to keep being a law-abiding citizen, then. {g} Here's my set of pictures from the place, and I believe Beth took some of her own as well. EDIT: The pictures are no longer up, but I still have them saved.
On our way home from Eastern State, we ate at the Olive Garden. Then, on Wednesday evening, we met with my mom and sister for dinner at an Olive Garden in Delaware. I guess you could say that was overdoing it a bit, but I like the Olive Garden, and hadn't been there much recently. It's kind of outside our price range for casual dining. Beth and I had considered going to the indoor water park on my birthday, but we got up too late to get there when it opened. And when the place is only open for five hours, it's probably not a good idea to show up later than that. Oh, well. They're open all year 'round, so we can go at some other time, but I'm not sure when. We did go out to eat that evening, this time not at the Olive Garden but rather Bertucci's. I really like their food, especially the pizza with multiple meats on it and the bread they serve before the meal, but I don't think Beth is quite as thrilled by it.
Yesterday, we went up to Jersey City to visit therealtavie, who is now living there rather than in Hoboken. At the last place she lived, there was a parking garage quite close by, but it cost $20 per day. This time, it took me forever before I could find a parking space on the street (I really don't do parallel parking, so I had to find a space I could get into without all the maneuvering), but it didn't cost me anything. Kind of a trade-off, I suppose. Anyway, we went out to eat at an Indian restaurant (there are a lot of them in that part of Jersey City), and I had the Chicken Korma. They served it in a bowl alongside a bowl of rice, and I assume the traditional method of eating it consisted of putting the chicken on top of the rice. I'm not a big fan of rice, though, so I just ate the meat directly out of the bowl, and ended up with a lot of sauce left over. I did like it, though. We also got ice cream at an Indian place where they made it themselves. Mine was mango flavored. At Tavie's place, she showed up the Snow White episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, with Vincent Price as the magic mirror. She also played a little of Super Mario Galaxy, and I found just watching the beginning to be frustrating. Mind you, this was in the part of the game that taught you how it worked, so I can only imagine how much worse it got later on. You know I love Mario, but those tiny planets are just so much more complicated than the Mushroom World I'm used to. After that, we saw Marathon Man, a Dustin Hoffman movie that I don't think I'd ever even heard of. The plot involved his character being a grad student who, through a series of bizarre occurrences, ended up on the run from Nazis.
While this might be a little childish, I'm also going to list the presents I received:
On our way home from Eastern State, we ate at the Olive Garden. Then, on Wednesday evening, we met with my mom and sister for dinner at an Olive Garden in Delaware. I guess you could say that was overdoing it a bit, but I like the Olive Garden, and hadn't been there much recently. It's kind of outside our price range for casual dining. Beth and I had considered going to the indoor water park on my birthday, but we got up too late to get there when it opened. And when the place is only open for five hours, it's probably not a good idea to show up later than that. Oh, well. They're open all year 'round, so we can go at some other time, but I'm not sure when. We did go out to eat that evening, this time not at the Olive Garden but rather Bertucci's. I really like their food, especially the pizza with multiple meats on it and the bread they serve before the meal, but I don't think Beth is quite as thrilled by it.
Yesterday, we went up to Jersey City to visit therealtavie, who is now living there rather than in Hoboken. At the last place she lived, there was a parking garage quite close by, but it cost $20 per day. This time, it took me forever before I could find a parking space on the street (I really don't do parallel parking, so I had to find a space I could get into without all the maneuvering), but it didn't cost me anything. Kind of a trade-off, I suppose. Anyway, we went out to eat at an Indian restaurant (there are a lot of them in that part of Jersey City), and I had the Chicken Korma. They served it in a bowl alongside a bowl of rice, and I assume the traditional method of eating it consisted of putting the chicken on top of the rice. I'm not a big fan of rice, though, so I just ate the meat directly out of the bowl, and ended up with a lot of sauce left over. I did like it, though. We also got ice cream at an Indian place where they made it themselves. Mine was mango flavored. At Tavie's place, she showed up the Snow White episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, with Vincent Price as the magic mirror. She also played a little of Super Mario Galaxy, and I found just watching the beginning to be frustrating. Mind you, this was in the part of the game that taught you how it worked, so I can only imagine how much worse it got later on. You know I love Mario, but those tiny planets are just so much more complicated than the Mushroom World I'm used to. After that, we saw Marathon Man, a Dustin Hoffman movie that I don't think I'd ever even heard of. The plot involved his character being a grad student who, through a series of bizarre occurrences, ended up on the run from Nazis.
While this might be a little childish, I'm also going to list the presents I received:
- Money from my dad, my grandparents, and Beth's mom; and an Amazon gift certificate from my sister
- From Beth's Uncle John, Jenny and Johnny's I'm Having Fun Now and the reissue of the Dukes of Stratosphear's 25 O'Clock
- From Beth's Uncle Harry, a Wizard of Oz clock
- From Tavie, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen
- And from Beth, Visqueen's Sunset on Dateland (which means I now have all of their albums), Fire Emblem, Dragon Warrior Monsters 2: Tara's Adventure, and three Oz books: Havenly Dreams Beneath Oz, The Green Goblins of Oz, and The Land Before Oz