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Had a good day yesterday (finally!). Feeling back to my old crappy self after getting off those pills. Still not great, but at least not crappy and drugged. Was worth a try, anyway.
So I went into the city and spent the day with my sister. Walked around central park. Finally got rid of the Reverse Tooth Fairy coins that I've been carrying around in my pocket this whole time. Tossed them into a fountain in the park. (If found by the park service - there's a guy whose job it is to clean and maintain the fountains - the money goes to maintaining the park. More often, though, the coins are picked up - illegally - by homeless people. Hopefully, Tooth Fairy money will bring luck and good things, either way.)
Also tried frozen custard for the first time, since they were selling it at the Boathouse in the park where we had lunch. It's a lot like ice cream, but thicker and smoother. (According to Marc Summers, it's also made with more egg, served colder, contains less air, and must be served fresh - within minutes of coming out of the machine.) So that was pretty cool. (And listening in to snatches of conversations from neighboring tables was interesting, too...)
From there, we went to the Met. Sis was hoping to find something of interest for her class in the newly (re)opened American Wing. That didn't work out so well, but there were still some cool things to see. A view into the life of generations past. But they also had these cool interactive touchscreen displays at various points. Including one that dealt with colonial-era intercontinental trade (triangle trade and beyond). I was looking at that (sis had gone on to the next room) when a woman (late middle age) walked up to look at it, too. We started talking about the displayed trade route for Chinese porcelain, which was reportedly shipped around Africa to Europe. I was struck by how difficult that trip would have been, especially taking cargo as delicate as porcelain around the Cape of Good Hope. She was saying that there should have been other stops (not shown) along the way. We had a rambling discussion, ultimately deciding that we would have shipped it around Asia (avoiding the difficult mountain crossings), offloaded around Egypt (where the Suez Canal is now), relayed overland, filled the first ship with spices, rugs, and other Arabian products, sent that back to China, and sent the porcelain on another ship, to be relayed across the Mediterranean. We had fun, as she said, "rewriting history." Then we went our separate ways. Been a while since I've done something like that.
Left the museum to go back to sis's place, hung out there with her and the kids, and had a great time. Best day I've had in a long time.
In other news...
I've been enjoying my Kindle. Read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World, several books by Mark Twain, Alice and Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, and now I'm on to an 800-page book on Norse mythology. Amazing. And I've still yet to actually purchase a book, thanks to Project Gutenberg.
Playing Scrabble with sis led me to remember a favorite word of a friend of mine. "Lagniappe." It's a Creole word meaning an extra or bonus. Basically, a little gift given "just because." Neat little word. Thought I'd share. (No, it wasn't actually used in the game.)
Take a look at this picture. Notice anything odd? It's something I've been wondering about. "Fat Free ReddiWip." ... "Made with real cream!" How does that work, then? They use real cream and then skim off the fat? That's even stranger than the Ben & Jerry's ice cream I came across a few years back which boldly proclaimed "Made With Real Skim Milk and Cream!" ... which two ingredients, mixed in the proper proportions, would result in... whole milk, the original product from which skim milk and cream are made.
So I went into the city and spent the day with my sister. Walked around central park. Finally got rid of the Reverse Tooth Fairy coins that I've been carrying around in my pocket this whole time. Tossed them into a fountain in the park. (If found by the park service - there's a guy whose job it is to clean and maintain the fountains - the money goes to maintaining the park. More often, though, the coins are picked up - illegally - by homeless people. Hopefully, Tooth Fairy money will bring luck and good things, either way.)
Also tried frozen custard for the first time, since they were selling it at the Boathouse in the park where we had lunch. It's a lot like ice cream, but thicker and smoother. (According to Marc Summers, it's also made with more egg, served colder, contains less air, and must be served fresh - within minutes of coming out of the machine.) So that was pretty cool. (And listening in to snatches of conversations from neighboring tables was interesting, too...)
From there, we went to the Met. Sis was hoping to find something of interest for her class in the newly (re)opened American Wing. That didn't work out so well, but there were still some cool things to see. A view into the life of generations past. But they also had these cool interactive touchscreen displays at various points. Including one that dealt with colonial-era intercontinental trade (triangle trade and beyond). I was looking at that (sis had gone on to the next room) when a woman (late middle age) walked up to look at it, too. We started talking about the displayed trade route for Chinese porcelain, which was reportedly shipped around Africa to Europe. I was struck by how difficult that trip would have been, especially taking cargo as delicate as porcelain around the Cape of Good Hope. She was saying that there should have been other stops (not shown) along the way. We had a rambling discussion, ultimately deciding that we would have shipped it around Asia (avoiding the difficult mountain crossings), offloaded around Egypt (where the Suez Canal is now), relayed overland, filled the first ship with spices, rugs, and other Arabian products, sent that back to China, and sent the porcelain on another ship, to be relayed across the Mediterranean. We had fun, as she said, "rewriting history." Then we went our separate ways. Been a while since I've done something like that.
Left the museum to go back to sis's place, hung out there with her and the kids, and had a great time. Best day I've had in a long time.
In other news...
I've been enjoying my Kindle. Read a bunch of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World, several books by Mark Twain, Alice and Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, and now I'm on to an 800-page book on Norse mythology. Amazing. And I've still yet to actually purchase a book, thanks to Project Gutenberg.
Playing Scrabble with sis led me to remember a favorite word of a friend of mine. "Lagniappe." It's a Creole word meaning an extra or bonus. Basically, a little gift given "just because." Neat little word. Thought I'd share. (No, it wasn't actually used in the game.)
Take a look at this picture. Notice anything odd? It's something I've been wondering about. "Fat Free ReddiWip." ... "Made with real cream!" How does that work, then? They use real cream and then skim off the fat? That's even stranger than the Ben & Jerry's ice cream I came across a few years back which boldly proclaimed "Made With Real Skim Milk and Cream!" ... which two ingredients, mixed in the proper proportions, would result in... whole milk, the original product from which skim milk and cream are made.
