Mom’s Day Out

Thanksgiving is over and done with, le sigh. It was a good break though, but as a rule, not nearly long enough. Oh, and I accomplished absolutely nothing over break, but that was to be expected.
On Thursday Nathan & Laura and their four kids and Jake all came over for Thanksgiving dinner. I wound up playing several games of Battleship throughout the afternoon with my nieces Miriam & Rebecca. Jake played a couple with our nephew Andrew as well, and after cocking off to Andrew (who is only seven) about his sure-fire strategy to win every single game of Battleship, Andrew beat him! It was so hilarious when he came over to the couch and told Mom & me, “Uncle Jake is not the master of Battleship,” and continued to talk smack back to Jake for a few minutes, haha! I’d rate that as one of the highlights of the day, for sure.
On Friday I spent most of the day hanging out with Mike over in Rice Lake, watching football and playing pool and stuff, and trying to convince him to consider applying to grad school at Penn State next year when he’s a senior. 🙂 We also went to the theater to see the new James Bond movie, “Casino Royale.” I really liked it, it’s a great Bond film, and I think Daniel Craig makes a better Bond than Pierce Brosnan. I didn’t initially know that this was a remake of an old Sean Connery Bond film, but I did know that it was sort of a prequel, so when there were brand new $100 bills and other references to 2006 I was somewhat confused at first. I had also told Mike right before the movie where my brothers & I were taking my Mom the next day, so when a Body Worlds exhibit made an appearance in the movie we both had a laugh. 🙂 After the movie we went over to the Corner Bar in Cumberland to meet up with Amy T., Pete & Dave for supper, and I hadn’t seen any of them in quite awhile. Pete & Dave were definitely making up for lost time though, in the making fun of me department, haha. Anyway, they left after supper, but Mike, Amy & I stuck around and ran into a few other random people at the bar, which was fun.
Yesterday Nathan, Aaron, Jake & I (and Dad) took Mom out for a day to celebrate her 60th birthday, which was back on Sunday, to fulfill her birthday wish to spend a day with her four sons. So we all met up at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown Saint Paul and took her to the Body Worlds exhibit. They banned photography inside the exhibit, so I’ll do my best to describe it. Body Worlds is an extremely popular traveling exhibit comprised of a whole bunch of plasticized cadavers and organs from people that have donated their bodies to science. It may sound morbid and gross, but it was actually really cool and very artistic. Very few of them had any skin on them at all, as the main object was to show the muscles, organs, arteries, nerves and skeletons of a whole bunch of people in a wide array of poses, to illustrate how the human body is put together. Some showed the skeleton with all the nerve tissue preserved, some bodies had only the blood vessels preserved (and nothing else), some were dissected into a series of cross-sections (not unlike cheese you’d get at a deli), and some showed the full muscular system, or the muscles peeled away to show the tendons and joints beneath. There were also many whole and cross-sectioned organs to demonstrate the differences between healthy ones and diseased ones (I was wishing I could take pictures of the healthy lung vs smoker’s lung to make into an e-card to send to Frame, haha). And then the last thing in the exhibit was a really cool plasticized horse and rider, with the rider holding his brain in one hand and the horse’s brain in the other. Again, it all sounds like it might be a bit crass, but it was quite cool and educational. Anyway, then after we were done at the Science Museum we drove over to downtown Minneapolis for dinner at The Oceanaire, which is definitely the nicest restaurant I’ve ever been to. It was also the best meal I’ve ever had, everything from the crab cake and steamed mussels for appetizers, to hash browns a la Oceanaire and wonderful creamed corn for sides, to my main dish of New Zealand barramundi in citrus soy sauce. Mmmm, it was all soooooo good… And then, knowing it was my Mom’s 60th, the waiter brought out some flambe for dessert, spiked with Bacardi 151. 🙂 We just wanted to take Mom out somewhere memorable for dinner for her birthday, and I think we accomplished that, hehe.
We spent the night at Aaron & Eve’s, and then after taking me for a drive through the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, they dropped me off at the airport for my flight back to Pittsburgh. Both the flight and then the drive back to State College with Jacob & Andrew were uneventful, and we’re all back safe & sound here. Tomorrow’s gonna be the start of a very busy week though (research, hw, piano practicing, etc), so I don’t know if there’s gonna be a whole lot of bloggish activity happening this week. You never know though. But first, time for a good night’s sleep, to get the week started on the right foot. Hopefully.