a day in Minnesota
Jul. 20th, 2004 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elsajeniIt has been an absolutely great day. We went to the Runestone Museum, which was fun-- all kinds of Viking artifacts, including a Viking ship replica amusingly named "Snorri." We ate an absolutely ginormous lunch. We did not wait the requisite 2 hours before going out on a ski-boat-- not with skis, of course, as we would have immediately fallen down and severely injured ourselves, but with a huge inner tube that you cling to for dear life while bouncing around madly on the wake of the boat and occasionally screaming, "Faster!" At one point, I bounced right off the wake of the boat, into the wake of a nearby jet-ski, flew three feet into the air, and flipped over with an exciting splash, which was fun, but also annoying because it meant I had to swim back to the boat, climb up the impossible little ladder whose lowest rung is at about neck height when you're in the water, and get back in the tube from the boat (because it's completely impossible to get in that thing from the water, you just tip over and hurt yourself). After tubing, we came back to the hotel for a little while and dried off before I got my parents to take me into downtown Alexandria to the Scandinavian Gift Shop-- "Where it's just like being in Scandinavia!" with a view toward making fun of it later.
Well, it was nice. There was a nice little Norwegian guy and his wife who ran it, and cute T-shirts and toys and bumper stickers that said, "Not only am I perfect, I'm a Norwegian, too!" and the like, and cross-stitch kits (I bought one, which I'm going to make and give to Dana, so she's not allowed to know what it looks like), and toy trains, and... it was just nice. Only a horrible, horrible person could make fun of the Scandinavian Gift Shop. Similarly, it's hard to make fun of Minnesota in general. Because they're all... nice.
Then we ended up back at the hotel eating dinner, which was good-- we'd bought a tiny chocolate cake with pink frosting flowers on it at the grocery store and had a festive little picnic in our room-- and then went down to miniature golf, following a phone conversation between Alex and my dad that went roughly as follows:
ALEX: Wanna come to the Putt-Putt place?
DAD: Sure! [MOM'S NAME] and I'll be right over.
ALEX: *hesitates* Um... what about Betsy?
ME AND MOM: *crack up*
DAD: She's coming, too.
So we went and played, and I actually kept score and came out 11 over par, which I was really impressed with, and even some of those 11 strokes weren't my fault-- it was partly because my dad insisted on interfering with my ball on the 9th hole for some reason. And then, I decided I might like to try learning to ride a bike.
Here's the thing. I can't ride a bike. I've never been able to-- just never learned when I was a kid. There was no reason to. My school was too far away to bike to, and I didn't have friends in the immediate neighborhood whose houses I could bike over to or who would have gone biking with me, so I never bothered learning. So I'm getting a firsthand, adult perspective on what incredibly stupid advice people try to give their kids when they're learning to ride a bike.
ADVICE #1: "It's easy! It just takes 2 seconds!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Well, I've been on this thing for 10 minutes, so obviously it doesn't just take 2 seconds, so FUCK OFF."
ADVICE #2: "Just steer!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Dad, 30 seconds ago you biked into a tree, so obviously you can't 'just steer' yourself, so FUCK OFF."
ADVICE #3, and the most helpful of all: "You just sit on the bike and pedal!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Jesus, I am so glad you suggested that! I was wondering why my previous method of standing on my head on the handlebars, whistling 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,' and doing the breaststroke wasn't working! In other words, FUCK OFF."
You will notice that there is a certain commonality in the responses this advice provokes. Namely: all of them end with "FUCK OFF" in capital letters. So let me suggest that if you're ever teaching a kid to ride a bike, you give them actual useful tips, and let them brake and catch themselves on one foot at least once when they're not just about to ride into a fence, a statue of a bear (and why is there a statue of a bear right next to the bike path, by the way?), or an innocent bystander.
In other words, I still can't ride a bike. And now my ginger ale and I are going into the other room to watch TV. Goodnight.
ETA: So, Alex is the most self-centered kid ever, and yet he's also bizarrely empathetic at times. He perceived that I was not pleased after being yelled at for 20 minutes by my dad, my mom, and his brother that "It just takes 2 seconds!" and "Just steer!" and so forth, and he insisted that they go into town and bring me back something from Dairy Queen, and then he wanted to get me something else from the gift shop. So I got an iced coffee drink of some kind (which was foul, but hey, the kid is 7 and he meant well) and a stuffed moose. I am now taking suggestions on names for the moose. If you had a moose, what would you name it?
Well, it was nice. There was a nice little Norwegian guy and his wife who ran it, and cute T-shirts and toys and bumper stickers that said, "Not only am I perfect, I'm a Norwegian, too!" and the like, and cross-stitch kits (I bought one, which I'm going to make and give to Dana, so she's not allowed to know what it looks like), and toy trains, and... it was just nice. Only a horrible, horrible person could make fun of the Scandinavian Gift Shop. Similarly, it's hard to make fun of Minnesota in general. Because they're all... nice.
Then we ended up back at the hotel eating dinner, which was good-- we'd bought a tiny chocolate cake with pink frosting flowers on it at the grocery store and had a festive little picnic in our room-- and then went down to miniature golf, following a phone conversation between Alex and my dad that went roughly as follows:
ALEX: Wanna come to the Putt-Putt place?
DAD: Sure! [MOM'S NAME] and I'll be right over.
ALEX: *hesitates* Um... what about Betsy?
ME AND MOM: *crack up*
DAD: She's coming, too.
So we went and played, and I actually kept score and came out 11 over par, which I was really impressed with, and even some of those 11 strokes weren't my fault-- it was partly because my dad insisted on interfering with my ball on the 9th hole for some reason. And then, I decided I might like to try learning to ride a bike.
Here's the thing. I can't ride a bike. I've never been able to-- just never learned when I was a kid. There was no reason to. My school was too far away to bike to, and I didn't have friends in the immediate neighborhood whose houses I could bike over to or who would have gone biking with me, so I never bothered learning. So I'm getting a firsthand, adult perspective on what incredibly stupid advice people try to give their kids when they're learning to ride a bike.
ADVICE #1: "It's easy! It just takes 2 seconds!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Well, I've been on this thing for 10 minutes, so obviously it doesn't just take 2 seconds, so FUCK OFF."
ADVICE #2: "Just steer!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Dad, 30 seconds ago you biked into a tree, so obviously you can't 'just steer' yourself, so FUCK OFF."
ADVICE #3, and the most helpful of all: "You just sit on the bike and pedal!"
OBVIOUS RESPONSE: "Jesus, I am so glad you suggested that! I was wondering why my previous method of standing on my head on the handlebars, whistling 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,' and doing the breaststroke wasn't working! In other words, FUCK OFF."
You will notice that there is a certain commonality in the responses this advice provokes. Namely: all of them end with "FUCK OFF" in capital letters. So let me suggest that if you're ever teaching a kid to ride a bike, you give them actual useful tips, and let them brake and catch themselves on one foot at least once when they're not just about to ride into a fence, a statue of a bear (and why is there a statue of a bear right next to the bike path, by the way?), or an innocent bystander.
In other words, I still can't ride a bike. And now my ginger ale and I are going into the other room to watch TV. Goodnight.
ETA: So, Alex is the most self-centered kid ever, and yet he's also bizarrely empathetic at times. He perceived that I was not pleased after being yelled at for 20 minutes by my dad, my mom, and his brother that "It just takes 2 seconds!" and "Just steer!" and so forth, and he insisted that they go into town and bring me back something from Dairy Queen, and then he wanted to get me something else from the gift shop. So I got an iced coffee drink of some kind (which was foul, but hey, the kid is 7 and he meant well) and a stuffed moose. I am now taking suggestions on names for the moose. If you had a moose, what would you name it?