Take Me for a Ride

[vovat]

I guess I should say a bit about the places Beth and I visited this month, which really aren't that out of the ordinary. On the Thursday before last, we met Tavie and Sean at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. There wasn't much there that was particularly noteworthy, but it's always pretty. I have to say this cactus looks like it wants to dance.

And I thought this picture of the fountain outside the conservatory turned out pretty well.

And we went to Playland last Wednesday, which coincidentally was Ozma's birthday, and it seemed like a lot of stuff didn't work correctly.

There was no music on the carousel, and the animatronics in the Old Mill weren't running.

That's a really old ride and they're probably difficult to maintain, but still. And I noticed the censored picture at Zombie Castle has been sloppily painted over entirely.

I believe this marionette ride was new this year, but it wasn't running.


We visited Beth's family in South Jersey over the weekend, but my car stopped running correctly after leaving the New Jersey Turnpike, and I tend to panic when I'm in situations like that. What made it even worse was that we were bringing the cats down with us. Beth's uncle picked up Beth and the felines, while I waited for the tow truck. Since it was late at night, I was worried about finding a repair place. But it actually turned out somewhat easier than I had feared, as the tow truck driver was able to take it to a dealer not too far from Beth's mom's house and leave the key in the drop box with my phone number. It turned out that one of the engine coils wasn't firing properly, so I had to get that fixed. But I've had the car for fifteen years now, and it's probably time to get another one. The air conditioner rarely works, and it would have been prohibitively expensive to get it fixed. And there's a tire pressure warning light that won't go out even after I've put air in the tires. Anyway, while we were in the area, we went to Clementon Park, but didn't stay that long.

Only a few rides were running, and we both felt sick after a while. I have to wonder if I should mostly retire from amusement parks, but we do still have Great Adventure season passes that we've only used once, and Beth thinks the problem might have been the off-brand motion sickness pills we took. I do like that they have a Pizza Hut in the park, and we split a personal pan pizza. Pizza Hut is nostalgic for me, despite our now living in Brooklyn where there are pizza parlors everywhere.

I'm back on the medicine that lowers my blood sugar quite a bit, but also suppresses my appetite and upsets my stomach, which I'm sure didn't help at the amusement parks. I wasn't able to finish the omelette I had for dinner on Wednesday, and I suspect it's no good now. Also, while I'd been working from home two days a week, that's been suspended until the end of the month, presumably because a lot of people are on vacation. And I'm still wondering if I should go to the Oz Convention in North Carolina next month. I feel like I should, and I'm sure I'd have fun, but it sounds so complicated. For that matter, I'm not even entirely sure I can get the time off from work. Oh, and the vet estimated that Nellie was born last August, so I guess she's fully grown now.