jethrien

Lovely sunny weekend, involving much fun with many friends.

Saturday, trinityvixen convinced a bunch of us to go play dodgeball in Riverside Park. (I think that's where we were. I do not know the cartography of upper Manhattan at all, which of course resulted in us having to hike across half the island after getting on the wrong subway.) I haven't played dodgeball since elementary school. I'm still about as bad at throwing things as I remembered, but I'm remarkably good at not getting hit. Go me!

We ended up getting smoothies and milkshakes and hanging out on the lawn at Columbia for awhile afterwards, and then getting Korean for dinner.

Yesterday, a bunch of Chuckro's friends from high school organized a trip to Six Flags. In theory, two of the guys driving in from Long Island were going to swing by our place around 8:30, to get there around 9:30. Nice theory. They took a wrong turn and ended up at La Guardia, then discovered that there's work on the tunnel. They spent half an hour sitting in Chinatown. They didn't get to us until 10.

When we left our place, I thought they knew where they were going, and wasn't really paying attention. They missed the exit to I-95. We stay on 78. It took us awhile to figure this out, though. So it's fifteen minutes down the road before we realize we're not going to Six Flags, we're going to go visit the Amish. So then we're frantically trying to figure out how to turn around. No luck. Someone sees a sign for 287. Great, I say. We can take 278 and loop back south, and join up with I-95. Big detour, but we'll still get where we're going. I don't realize that the sign for 278 isn't for where 287 crosses 78 - it's for 24 to 278, which puts you on 287 north of 78, when we want to be taking 287 south of 78. So picture this - we're trying to go south. We're going west. We then take a road that takes us...north. We don't realize this until we're partway down 287 and we see signs for 78. Wait, what? Crap! We end up making three sides of a square when we'd wanted to just go down the fourth side. We got to Six Flags at noon. Sigh.

It was a great day anyway. We got to go on pretty much everything that was open. Skipped Great American Scream Machine, but that's ok - it's kind of decrepit anyway. The new Superman ride is incredible. You sit in the harness to load, and then it actually tips up so you're facing down. It makes for the scariest beginning climb I've ever seen - you're just staring at the ground, praying the harness doesn't break. But then the actual coaster part is amazing - it's like you're actually flying. Kingda Ka was closed - on the other hand, I wasn't that impressed. Sure, it's really high, and sure it's fast, but it goes up and then straight back down again. It can't possibly take more than 20 seconds. You're going to wait in line for three hours for 20 seconds? And so what if you're really high - you're probably going so fast you don't even notice. Nitro's a much more impressive coaster, over all.

The amusing thing was that of the six people there, it was me and the other girlfriend who were most enthusiastic about the roller coasters.

We ate a bunch of overpriced park food, of course. Actually, I think I confused the hell out of my system. I'm not used to eating junk food anymore. We got there and immediately ate lunch. Got a "family value meal" from the Papa John's. It was a square pizza (which was odd), fries, a "dessert pizza" (which was odder), and a "collectible mug". I was slightly confused by the mug thing - one mug for four people? Well, this wasn't exactly a mug. Mug-shaped, yes. But I think it had at least a liter and a half of soda in it. It had the mug handle, and also a convenient flip up handle on top so you could tote it around all day. And a pour spout, and a straw. And the bottom was a second compartment that screwed off and was full of ice. Kind of cool, very elaborate. So Much Soda. I had too much soda - it actually made me vaguely nauseated. Not used to that much caffeine anymore. Chuckro had too much soda, also was sick. The other guys had soda. We couldn't finish it. We carted the damn thing around all day, took it home, and poured a cup of (now hot and flat) soda down the sink.

So between the pizza and other greasy foodstuffs and the soda and the rides, I ended up feeling vaguely out of it all day. Over the course of the day, I ate: one small bowl of cereal with a banana, two slices of pizza, a couple of fries, a little slice of apple pizza, too much damn soda, some frozen lemonade, a bite or two of butterfly fries, a bite or two of funnel cake, and some cotten candy. Got home at 9 and was totally not hungry. Chuckro and I decided we really ought to have something involving nutrition, since the last actual nutrients we'd had was breakfast. We did a quick thing with noodle packets and some beef and broccoli. I just ate a little - wasn't hungry at all - but it tasted amazing and I don't usually like that sauce all that much. I figure my body was just amazed and grateful to be eating something that wasn't empty calories. Apparently, I haven't had that much grease and sugar in so long that my body was just like, WTF is this crap? Huh? And got really confused.

Oh, and we saw a beaver. In the park. Eating funnel cake. Seriously.