Too much awesomeness

Last week was a good one in the Nonsensical family. My nephew, Satanski, turned six, and Porkchop, his little sister, made a surprise appearance three weeks early. She’s like a tiny doll (at not quite five pounds, she doesn’t even feel real), and is way too easy to knit/shop for. Other people’s kids are the bomb.

Satanski shows us how to march in a parade

My nephew marched with my library during today’s Memorial Day parade. You’d think a 5-year-old wouldn’t be able to teach us anything about how to get from the beginning of the parade to the end. You’d be wrong.

I don’t know why every parade marcher doesn’t break this out at some point during the parade route.

Who would want this?

I asked Satanski what he wanted me to bring him back from the zoo, but he said he didn’t know. I suspect that he just wanted to get off the phone; I think I called during SuperWhy. Anyway, I tried a different tack, and asked him which animal he liked the best. Naturally, because he’s angry and scary, he said tigers. With that in mind, I searched the zoo’s gift shop until I found a really adorable pair of tiger slippers. The only problem was that they were not labeled with a size, so I had to guess about whether they’d fit him. (Question I was asked, “How do you know what size shoe he wears?” I was temped, but somehow resisted saying “Voodoo,” although the truth “I’ve bought his last few pairs of sneakers” wasn’t as interesting.)

Sadly enough, although I’d bought the only small-kid size they had, the slippers were still too small for my kiddo. I also got him a wallet when we went to SeaWorld, but I still really like the idea of tiger slippers, so I went online looking for them. I’ve just started, so I’m not exactly  discouraged, but I haven’t been able to find any Satanski-sized pairs yet. What I did find was this scary freakshow of a pair.

I have no idea why any adult would buy those slippers, or any child would want them (but here’s the link for all you nutjobs out there). I cannot imagine sticking my feet in those things without worrying that I would pull back stumps.

Museum of Natural History

As I mentioned yesterday, on Monday I took my nephew to the American Museum of Natural History. I had no idea what to expect of a 3-year-old in a museum, and I really wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d wanted to leave after an hour. When we went to see Madagascar 2, he pretty much hated the experience after 10 minutes, and I kind of thought that I might be crazy to try to take him to the museum, but I hadn’t been in over a decade and thought it was time. Here are a couple of pictures, but I took a passel and they can be seen here on Flickr.

Well! Satanski had a great time, and we ended up staying for five hours. We made it there in time to join the storytime group that meets in the morning. From there, we went to the butterfly exhibit. Note to self: 3-year-olds don’t seem to like things that fly around and threaten to land on them, even when said flying things are gorgeous. One butterfly actually did land on the kid, but (mercifully) it was on his shoulder, and he didn’t notice. A kind girl of about 8 attempted to let him know, but I quietly asked her not to, and she complied. She did immediately request of her father and brother, though, that they let her know if any of the butterflies landed on her.

When we left, the guards ask Satanski if he’d had a good time, and he told them, “No, the butterflies are scary.” It was pretty cute. The rest of the day was spent on lunch, dinosaurs, various realistic-dead (or fake) animals, and more play, and then we called it a day and came home. The kid fell asleep on the bus, and if there’d been somebody to carry me, I would have joined him.

Seems like somebody is listening

Happy New Year, folks! I just got back from a lovely, frigid, relaxing vacation in Vermont, ready to have 2009 sap my newly restored will to live. I just found out that my nephew’s school won’t be opening tomorrow and that he’ll be spending the day with me, so I’m guessing that the sapping will commence pretty much immediately (kidding! I missed my little man when I was gone and am really looking forward to spending some time with him tomorrow).

I was messing around with various programs on my computer, and discovered that 1) I’ve either had another happy accident with this alpha version of Opera, or 2) they’ve actually made it work with Multiclutch. It’s too soon to say for sure whether the problem is permanently fixed, and since I’m so tired and traveled 250+ miles today, I’ve decided not to press my luck by completely resetting Opera and starting from scratch. Still, since I’d previously posted on how unhappy the lack of compatibility made me, I’m going to take this perceived progress as a shout-out. I’ll test it tomorrow, I guess, but I’m stoked that it has worked this well. In addition, I’ll upload some of the pictures from my vacation soonish.

I also registered a new domain tonight and set up the corresponding web site (why? wouldn’t you like to know), and will be talking a bit more about that later.

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).

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.