Out of the mouth of babes

I am now cracking up at Satanski, my 3 year-old nephew, who just said to me, “Tomorrow, when Barack Obama wins, I’m going to have a party!” I am guilty of fearing a jinx, but I don’t mind if he feels comfortable enough to say it. Never let it be said that I inflicted my neuroses on a minor (I almost called him an innocent minor, but that would be going too far).

Sorta Boom (no dynamite was involved in the making of this post)

Yesterday morning, my parents’ church was torn down to give way for a bigger, awesomer, more churchier church. They have well over 2,000 members now and that church was constructed to hold 400 (which, in 1948, seemed like a huge sum and was way more space than was necessary), so even with three services, they were struggling to seat people comfortably and safely. I went with the parents and Satanski to see the demolition, and it was a pretty interesting experience. I attended that church for my entire childhood, and spent countless hours with a lot of the people I saw at the demolition. I’m no longer a member there, but I have mostly positive memories of the congregation and the times I had there. I’ll admit, it was nice to be fawned over and to have people tell me how nice I looked and how great it was to see me. Weird, since I don’t often think about a lot of those people, but nice all the same. I do go to church every now and then, and it’s nice to know that there’s a place where people think of you, miss you, and wish you well. I wondered what kind of reaction I’d have to the demolition, but I have to say that I really don’t feel anything at all. Some people did cry, but to me, it’s just a building, and the congregation is staying together while it’s being built, so it’s not exactly the end of an era. It’s probably wrong to bring baseball into this discussion, but that’s also why I don’t care so much that Shea Stadium is getting thrown over for something younger and prettier. Actually, now that I think about it, I might mind that more, because it will soon cost me more than it already does to get into a Mets game, and I’ll probably still end up leaving with that same sense of disappointment that I’m feeling right now.

The first thing the demolition crew did was to remove the church’s cornerstone. Or, they tried to remove the cornerstone. What was supposed to start at 7:30 and take no more than an hour started at 8:30 and took at least three hours. Apparently the chuch wasn’t built by professionals, and it seems that they overcompensated and made sure that everything was in there real good. That rings true; when one of my  college classes visited the Habitat for Humanity headquarters in Georgia, the person who with whom we met told us that Hurricane Andrew showed that HfH homes were more likely to withstand hurricanes than homes built by professionals, because (motivated, but largely untrained) volunteers always used more nails than was strictly necessary and therefore built sturdier homes. A couple of guys were still working on that at the front of the church while the rest of the crew starting knocking in the roof and the back of the church. I had been told that there would be dynamite, or some other explosive agent used, but that turned out to be a dirty lie. They just used one of those excavator things to keep knocking stuff in. We didn’t stay for the whole thing, because I had to get to work in the afternoon and also watching a building get knocked in doesn’t stay exciting for long, but we were told that, by the time the crew called it a day, only one wall and the front steps remained.

Creepy carousel animals

As promised yesterday, here are pictures of the terrifying hellbeasts that masquerade as harmless carousel animals at Van Saun Park. Click on any photo to see the monster in its full-sized glory.

Mom and EJ were lulled into a false sense of security.

I can’t imagine forcing a kid to ride on this, unless it was some new form of punishment.

Why does this pig/boar need tusks like that?

I don’t understand why somebody thought a child would want to ride on this.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what they mean when they say “seahorse.”

Evil. Pure, flightless, evil.

That ape doesn’t actually look like it originated in hell, but the too-human expression is creepy in its own way.

I’m sure it’s not an accident that all of the truly scary animals had no riders during the three go rounds that I saw. I don’t care how many gaudy, happy colors you put them in, these beasts are just unnatural and wrong, and I can’t see how any child in his or her right mind would actually consent to sitting on them.

Andiamo Benefit Motorcycle Run

My nephew, Satanski, is really into motorcycles. I think a lot of kids really dig them, but he’s been obsessed pretty much since he was old enough to talk and this obsession shows no sign of abating. Lately he’s been acting out quite a bit, and we don’t let him get away with it (think lots and lots of time out), but we try to do nice things for him when he is behaving well. A few weeks ago, we started to see signs for the Andiamo Benefit Motorcycle Run, and knew that we had to take him.

The motorcycle run raises money for various medical and educational charities. Each biker, passenger, or attendee at the after party pays an entry fee. The run raised about $160,000 last year (I haven’t seen figures for this year). I have no idea how I never heard of this run before this year; it’s been going on for nine years now and I’ve been home when it happened for five of those years (nonconsecutively).

The run started in Haworth, which is not even 15 minutes from here, but I’d never even stopped in that town before. It never ceases to amaze me how little I know about New Jersey, for all that I’ve lived here my whole life. I realize how ridiculous it is that I find it weird that some people I know have hardly been out of their home county, and yet there are towns in my own county about which I’m not even slightly knowledgeable (although, in my own defense, there are 70 towns in my county).

I know nothing about motorcycles, but I saw a bunch of different kinds on Sunday. I saw big ones (I heard the word “hog” used), Harleys, pretty red ones that I would ride, tiny things that looked like they’d get lapped by everybody else, and even a couple of bikes with sidecars! It was pretty awesome, and seeing so many people who were so into riding motorcycles was pretty fun. I like to see people enjoy themselves. I should have taken more (or better) pictures, but I was waving like a loon. I also took some video, but I can’t find it on my computer right now and I have no intention of checking my memory card at 12:30 in the morning, so I’ll just have to look tomorrow.

We only stayed for the beginning of the run, just while the riders zoomed onto the route, because we didn’t think Satanski would enjoy the two hours it would take for them to come back. Mom and I were enjoying the day and the kid wasn’t quite ready to head back home, so we decided to go to the park afterward. We went to Van Saun Park, which is a county park. At Satanski’s insistence, we started out by riding the train, which costs a dollar per ride for anybody over the age of two. I thought that this was a steal, until later, when a friend informed me that she remembered when a train ride cost only a quarter. Bummer. It was 90-some odd degrees on Sunday, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the speed of the train; we went fast enough that the air felt good and helped cool me down, but not so fast that the kids on the train got queasy and hurled. It’s a delicate balance.

After the train, we went to the zoo and then to the carousel. The zoo was smelly and depressing, and all of the animals looked like they had just given up. I haven’t been to a big zoo in a couple of years, but I don’t remember the animals at Central Park Zoo looking quite so suicidal. The animals at the carousel were actually way more menacing than the actual real live animals at the zoo. I took some pictures of some of the animals in the carousel, and they are disturbing enough to warrant their own post. More to follow.