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Shell Beach
Sep. 3rd, 2005 07:02 pmI'm in a slightly angsty mood, so I must write a livejournal post.
Even though it was, for the most part, a good day. As it turned out, Anna was flying in after all, today, and mom and Bob were going up to Detroit to welcome her to the area. I wasn't going because cars only seat four comfortably, and she had little Stevie with her. Also, waiting around an airport is boring.
But, this morning, Uncle Tom -- who I was worried would be stuck at Thelma's all weekend -- came over to see us specifically, and we got to talk with him and his daughter Ali (Alicin? Alicine? How do you spell that?) about... stuff. Like politics, and economics. Mostly, labor unions.
He had a family tree of the Mandelbaum side of the family in his hotmail account, and wanted to print it out to show Thelma. "Oh, there's a printer upstairs," I said. Only, that computer didn't have Excel -- so after he logged on and downloaded the attachment, we couldn't print it. We tried Word, which said that it could open Excel files if it could install a converter off its CD, but couldn't find the CD -- it was pre-installed on the machine when Bob got it, so there might not even be one.
But, I dug the file out of temporary internet files (I think) and went to download the Excel viewer. "24 minutes," it said. Thirty minutes later, it said it needed 50 minutes, and everyone needed to leave -- mom and Bob to the airport, and I was going with Tom and Ali to Crane Creek to see Lake Erie. "Ah, it'll finish while we're gone."
So, out to Crane Creek. The directions were basically 'go down Route 2 until you get to Crane Creek'. But we went a very long way, almost to David Besse nuclear power plant, and hadn't seen any signs -- but then, we saw a sign to the 'Ottowa Wildlife Preserve'. "Well, according to the map, Crane Creek is inside the wildlife preserve, so maybe this is where we turn."
It wasn't, but the map of the preserve seemed to indicate that we could get to the lake after a half mile walk, so we decided to just go from where we were. It seemed like a lot more than a half mile... and the map was wildly inaccurate in any case, with one of the marked paths being, in actuality, a small swampy pond full of lilies.
It was sort of pretty, but mostly flat swampy grassland that all looked alike, and there were some birds to look at, but yay, birds. And we had to constantly dodge deer shit. And, when we got to the far end of the park, Lake Erie was nowhere in sight -- instead, it dead-ended at the Crane Creek estuary, which was near the lake, but not really the beach we were hoping for.
It was a long walk back, and I had to argue them into taking the correct path, because they would have gotten us totally lost. By the time we made it back to the car, we were all exhausted and I, at least, was sick of walking. I think Ali was too.
Fortunately, Crane Creek was the next turnoff, thirty seconds down the road, and we were able to park twenty feet from the beach. It was pretty -- I wish I'd thought to bring my swimsuit. Ali did too.
The beach was different than I remembered, though -- it was completely overrun by tiny shells, piled up in huge heaps half a foot thick. You had to dig down to get to the sand, underneath it all. The good part of this was that you could sit on a mound of them as the waves rolled in and be safe and dry, but close enough to touch the water. The bad part was that they were VERY SHARP, and I cut my hands on them pushing myself back to my feet after that got old.
All those shells, though -- it was totally surreal. I bet they were Zebra Mussels.
On the way home, I found out that we were just going straight to Thelma's. Thelma was annoyed that we didn't know when or if Anna would be coming to dinner, but decided to start anyway and let her join in whenever she could come. Dinner was pretty good, although I thought it suffered from a lack of cheese. That's kosher cooking for ya. }:)
Oscar, my second cousin, had his five year old kid there, Craig. Craig was impossible! He sat in the wrong seat, and refused to move for anyone but Ali -- "He likes the girls," Harold explained with a shrug, while Felicia scowled at him for being too lenient and Craig for being disobedient. Felicia scowled a lot.
Eventually, Anna and mom did show up, with Stevie in tow, and Craig and Stevie hit it off, playing with all the toys in the house and such, while the rest of us were subjected to Gabriel's art film on DVD (after spending fifteen minutes figuring out which buttons to push on which remote controls to get it to play). Gabriel's one of Mark's kids (Mark is another second cousin, who wasn't present) and THANK GOD he wasn't actually there, since he's been the bane of my existence since he was born. He's gotten me in SO MUCH trouble over the years.
His film was crap. Preachy, quite literally, and ending with the HOLY PHOTOCOPIED FINGER OF GOD pointing at all the people who'd killed each other through immorality and resurrecting them as freakish skeletons with big beating hearts. I think I missed some of the symbolism.
Thelma is as bad as Jean at letting people escape from her house, and this time she had help from Craig, who insisted on playing tag with me and with Stevie. It was weird -- he was a lot slower and clumsier than I was, so I could dodge him pretty much at will, but he NEVER GOT TIRED. Pant pant. Lazar -- I don't think 1 level up to control and 1 level down to endurance stats is an accurate portrayal of being young. }:)
We got home to find out that the excel 2000 viewer refused to install itself on ME. Damn it. How is Word 2000 on their machine if 2000 requires XP? So all that hassle was for nothing, and Tom'll have to print it out over at Harold's house or something.
Even though it was, for the most part, a good day. As it turned out, Anna was flying in after all, today, and mom and Bob were going up to Detroit to welcome her to the area. I wasn't going because cars only seat four comfortably, and she had little Stevie with her. Also, waiting around an airport is boring.
But, this morning, Uncle Tom -- who I was worried would be stuck at Thelma's all weekend -- came over to see us specifically, and we got to talk with him and his daughter Ali (Alicin? Alicine? How do you spell that?) about... stuff. Like politics, and economics. Mostly, labor unions.
He had a family tree of the Mandelbaum side of the family in his hotmail account, and wanted to print it out to show Thelma. "Oh, there's a printer upstairs," I said. Only, that computer didn't have Excel -- so after he logged on and downloaded the attachment, we couldn't print it. We tried Word, which said that it could open Excel files if it could install a converter off its CD, but couldn't find the CD -- it was pre-installed on the machine when Bob got it, so there might not even be one.
But, I dug the file out of temporary internet files (I think) and went to download the Excel viewer. "24 minutes," it said. Thirty minutes later, it said it needed 50 minutes, and everyone needed to leave -- mom and Bob to the airport, and I was going with Tom and Ali to Crane Creek to see Lake Erie. "Ah, it'll finish while we're gone."
So, out to Crane Creek. The directions were basically 'go down Route 2 until you get to Crane Creek'. But we went a very long way, almost to David Besse nuclear power plant, and hadn't seen any signs -- but then, we saw a sign to the 'Ottowa Wildlife Preserve'. "Well, according to the map, Crane Creek is inside the wildlife preserve, so maybe this is where we turn."
It wasn't, but the map of the preserve seemed to indicate that we could get to the lake after a half mile walk, so we decided to just go from where we were. It seemed like a lot more than a half mile... and the map was wildly inaccurate in any case, with one of the marked paths being, in actuality, a small swampy pond full of lilies.
It was sort of pretty, but mostly flat swampy grassland that all looked alike, and there were some birds to look at, but yay, birds. And we had to constantly dodge deer shit. And, when we got to the far end of the park, Lake Erie was nowhere in sight -- instead, it dead-ended at the Crane Creek estuary, which was near the lake, but not really the beach we were hoping for.
It was a long walk back, and I had to argue them into taking the correct path, because they would have gotten us totally lost. By the time we made it back to the car, we were all exhausted and I, at least, was sick of walking. I think Ali was too.
Fortunately, Crane Creek was the next turnoff, thirty seconds down the road, and we were able to park twenty feet from the beach. It was pretty -- I wish I'd thought to bring my swimsuit. Ali did too.
The beach was different than I remembered, though -- it was completely overrun by tiny shells, piled up in huge heaps half a foot thick. You had to dig down to get to the sand, underneath it all. The good part of this was that you could sit on a mound of them as the waves rolled in and be safe and dry, but close enough to touch the water. The bad part was that they were VERY SHARP, and I cut my hands on them pushing myself back to my feet after that got old.
All those shells, though -- it was totally surreal. I bet they were Zebra Mussels.
On the way home, I found out that we were just going straight to Thelma's. Thelma was annoyed that we didn't know when or if Anna would be coming to dinner, but decided to start anyway and let her join in whenever she could come. Dinner was pretty good, although I thought it suffered from a lack of cheese. That's kosher cooking for ya. }:)
Oscar, my second cousin, had his five year old kid there, Craig. Craig was impossible! He sat in the wrong seat, and refused to move for anyone but Ali -- "He likes the girls," Harold explained with a shrug, while Felicia scowled at him for being too lenient and Craig for being disobedient. Felicia scowled a lot.
Eventually, Anna and mom did show up, with Stevie in tow, and Craig and Stevie hit it off, playing with all the toys in the house and such, while the rest of us were subjected to Gabriel's art film on DVD (after spending fifteen minutes figuring out which buttons to push on which remote controls to get it to play). Gabriel's one of Mark's kids (Mark is another second cousin, who wasn't present) and THANK GOD he wasn't actually there, since he's been the bane of my existence since he was born. He's gotten me in SO MUCH trouble over the years.
His film was crap. Preachy, quite literally, and ending with the HOLY PHOTOCOPIED FINGER OF GOD pointing at all the people who'd killed each other through immorality and resurrecting them as freakish skeletons with big beating hearts. I think I missed some of the symbolism.
Thelma is as bad as Jean at letting people escape from her house, and this time she had help from Craig, who insisted on playing tag with me and with Stevie. It was weird -- he was a lot slower and clumsier than I was, so I could dodge him pretty much at will, but he NEVER GOT TIRED. Pant pant. Lazar -- I don't think 1 level up to control and 1 level down to endurance stats is an accurate portrayal of being young. }:)
We got home to find out that the excel 2000 viewer refused to install itself on ME. Damn it. How is Word 2000 on their machine if 2000 requires XP? So all that hassle was for nothing, and Tom'll have to print it out over at Harold's house or something.
