Vacation post #2

[annathepiper]

Very early on this morning, the activity upstairs woke both solarbird and me. I remember hearing Amanda telling Charlie that "Aunt Angie is Daddy's sister and Uncle Donnie's", and I could hear their voices as the two of them crept downstairs. We'd left the door of Charlie's room open just a crack in case the cat wanted to come in and sleep on the bed, so that let me see a blurry little figure peek briefly into the room--presumably to see if we were awake.

Not too long after that, we decided we'd better get up. It turned out that Marc had gone on in to work, but Didi had not--she was unwilling to risk trying to get the van up the ice-covered incline of the driveway. So this meant that she was home with all four children, oh joy oh glee! And once Dara and I were awake, the kids zeroed in on us for distraction and amusement.

Some of the first words out of Amanda's mouth to me were, "Do you still have the games on your computer?" Apparently, all the games I had on my laptop computer in 2001 made a huge impression on that kid, and I suspect that this was the major reason why she remembered me and didn't remember Dara. I assured her that I did, and so I wound up spending a considerable amount of this morning supervising Amanda attempting to play almost every single game I have on my computer. Including Nethack. Nethack is, I think, a tad beyond her--but Minesweeper and SameGame went over really well with her. She caught on fast that the point of Minesweeper was to try to figure out where all the mines are, and how to figure out where all the mines are. SameGame was an equal hit, as she quickly clued in that not only did you want to click on groups of similarly colored Cute Little Anime Girl Heads, but you wanted to get rid of various groups of them in such a way as to make larger color groups out of those that were left. So it was actually kind of fun watching her play all that.

Early in the afternoon, though, Dara called up gazerwolf and starsongky to see about us coming over to visit. They said sure, so we got our stuff together and prepared to head out--at which point we promptly ran into what parts of the winter weather had hit Richmond. There was barely a dusting of snow on the ground, but all of the flat surfaces outdoors had a noticeable coating of ice, including the rental car. Dara and I couldn't get the doors open at first, and only after Dara had borrowed my gloves and beaten on the ice around the rims of the doors for a while was she actually able to get into the car. Once we did that, though, she turned on the engine and the defrost, and with the scraper I found in the back, she went to work on making it possible to actually see through the various windows.

That got us going, and once we got on the road things were pretty much okay. The roads leading out to the interstate were a bit tricky, but not bad, and the interstate itself was fine.

It turned out that Athens-Boonesborough Pike was a secret ninja route over to Rickey and Tracy's--so we didn't even have to drive very far. That was cool. And it was cool in general to see them, and to know that lo, we were among the Geek Tribe; they had the TV on, and even while we were there and yakking, an episode of old-series Star Trek played in the background. Their children, Jake, Michael, and Ben, were about as lively as Marc's kids; Michael and Ben in particular seemed instantly fascinated by my laptop once I got it out to borrow a cup of Internet, and Michael thought my fingers of all things were the Coolest Toy in the World once I started letting him grab my hand and say over and over "Ohhh you got my fingers, ohhh you got my fingers, ohhh you got my fingers, BOOM," at which point he'd drop my hand. (Yes, folks, you're easily entertained when you're four.)

Dara called her ex-guardian Ercel to arrange lunch, I called Joe Bologna's to arrange dinner with the LexFA crowd, and in general there was pleasant conversation, chili, and soda. Little Ben demonstrated that his parents' stripping him down to his diaper for food was a wise decision indeed, as little Ben wound up wearing most of his chili. And we also amused Rickey and Tracy telling them about Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, which was fun.

We set back out around five, to make sure we got back to Marc's place before dark, though the weather was still mostly calm. There were only a few random sputters of snowflakes--not even enough to call a flurry. And it was actually just a trifle warmer at that point than it had been when we'd left.

When we returned, both Amanda and Charlie intercepted me for attention, but Charlie made it first. So I took a turn at playing with Charlie, and this turn was spent on a bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a bit of Contra, and a whole lot of Bubble Bobble. (This latter game rather amused me, as it was made by Capcom--who mamishka, ssha, and flashfire may all remember is the maker of another bubble-related game, Bust-a-Move. In fact, it has several characters in common!) Since Amanda had demonstrated that she could treat my laptop with appropriate care, I wasn't too worried about wandering off for a few minutes at a time while she played with it, but I made a point of making sure it was in Charlie's room so I could keep tabs on her while playing with her brother. This kept us occupied until dinner time, at which point we all trundled upstairs for sausage and noodles.

After dinner we had a bit of a reprieve from game time as all the children required baths. Dara then took her turn at playing with Charlie while I watched Amanda go through several rounds of SameGame and in fact beat out most of the scores I had on the high score list.

Didi showed me a couple of fun picture albums, though. The most striking picture turned out to be a picture of my mother as a baby, with her parents--and I was shocked, as I'd never seen a picture of my Grandma Hyson that young. It was almost as shocking as seeing the pictures of young Grandma Ruth and Grandpa Burgoyne that Marc has hanging on his wall.

And my sister Sarah called, and I chatted with her a bit about what our plans over the holiday weekend would be. I'm not sure yet if we're going to go to Gravel Switch to see that branch of the family; Marc and Didi and the kids will be heading over there on Christmas Day, at least for a couple of hours, as that's traditional with them. But I'm not entirely certain yet, Sarah and wildshadowstar notwithstanding, whether Dara and I can comfortably show up there these days. So we'll see what happens. Dara and I may wind up going in our separate car and staying for less time, and perhaps visiting other local friends on the same day.

After that, the kids had to be packed off to bed (over Charlie's protests that he wanted to keep playing games). And I finally had a bit of time in which I could work on Faerie Blood, and make inroads on Chapter 10.

Tomorrow: Christmas Eve, and round one of Presents With the Kids.

Comments

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pointer to SameGame: don't know if I'll be able to drag the girls away from "The Princess and the Pauper" anytime soon to play it, though. :-)

[annathepiper]

You're quite welcome. :) If you Google for SameGame you'll get several thousand hits, but I'm not sure anymore which variant of SameGame I have. I remember eveshka pointing me at a link some time ago for a Japanese site, a link which stopped working. But my variant of the game involves Cute Little Anime Girl Heads.

I've got a similar game that shipped with my Pocket PC, but it's not called SameGame. And it's not nearly as cute. :) Just little colored balls rather than the Anime Girls.