Fun Weekendy Things and a Forgetful Dog
Jul. 22nd, 2014 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogI did fun things this past weekend!
I spent an evening with Lisa and we watched Big Dreams, Little Tokyo. I bought it from a seller on Ebay, partly with sharing it with her in mind. A significant amount of the movie is about culture clashes in Japantown. It was actually different than I remember it in a few ways, but still enjoyable. After dealing with cell phone stuff at the Sprint store, we were starving despite a Subway snack. Lisa made hamburgers, and I bought some blue cheese potato salad to go with it. I wasn't sure if I'd like the texture of the potato salad, or the fact that it was cold, but as it turned out, I really enjoyed it. Maybe I should try other kinds of potato salad!
I visited the Chicago History Museum with Danae and had a wonderful time there. There's a great deal of content, and Danae and I took longer than the three hours we'd planned to spend. That's ok; we just might have to go back again sometime! I appreciated the sections that focused on things like the Haymarket Affair and other labor and industry related issues. Danae pointed out that the way some content was presented might seem to be conflating pro-communist sentiment at the time of Haymarket with pro-anarchist thought, and we had a really interesting conversation about the matter of how to present museum content in general.
Even though the narrator of our audio tour (presented on some iPod Nanos that we checked out at the front desk) talked about the need for seriousness when discussing certain parts of Chicago's history, seriousness was in pretty short supply. This is not surprising, given that he's a member of the Second City comedy improv group. *grins* We talked about how to present really difficult material like, again, Haymarket, or the riots during the National Democratic Convention in the '60s. We contrasted the Chicago History Museum to a Holocaust museum. You can't present the Holocaust in a happy, light way. It's just inappropriate to the subject matter, and when you go to such a museum, you know what to expect. The Chicago museum, on the other hand, is somewhere that a lot of people who are proud of their city go. They want to feel good about their history, and if the experience is a downer, they're not likely to come back or spread word-of-mouth. I think there probably has to be a balance. I'm glad that, at the least, some of these things are being addressed.
After the museum, we stopped for all you can eat sushi. I'm over budget on my dining out for the month, but, sushi won out against fiscal responsibility!
That evening, we went to a board game meetup hosted by friends of hers, where I was introduced to Red Dragon Inn. It's a fun, light game that supports a large number of players and feels a lot like Cutthroat Cavern in play style.
I had an unfortunate experience at the party that I won't detail here, but that left me feeling rather distracted and down at the end of the evening. Because of that, I didn't look at my calendar that night or the next morning and I totally forgot that I'd planned to be in Kenosha on Sunday for a baseball game with my dad and my family. I only remembered when he called me from the ballpark to ask whether I was near.
I felt like a complete ass. I'd really looked forward to spending some time with my dad doing something he really likes. I made time on my calendar to attend a library-sponsored (my mother is a library employee) event at the park with included food and things. I was really looking forward to doing something as a family. Then I totally flaked out on it. My dad was not at all unhappy with me, and told me I should just stay in Evanston since the game would be half over by the time I got to Kenosha. So I stayed, and played a game of Eldritch Horror with Danae and Sneha, who'd just arrived at Danae's invitation. I apologized once I got home, but my dad really was not unhappy with me. I was just unhappy with myself. I still am a little bit I suppose. But he and I are going to plan another game coming up instead.
I spent an evening with Lisa and we watched Big Dreams, Little Tokyo. I bought it from a seller on Ebay, partly with sharing it with her in mind. A significant amount of the movie is about culture clashes in Japantown. It was actually different than I remember it in a few ways, but still enjoyable. After dealing with cell phone stuff at the Sprint store, we were starving despite a Subway snack. Lisa made hamburgers, and I bought some blue cheese potato salad to go with it. I wasn't sure if I'd like the texture of the potato salad, or the fact that it was cold, but as it turned out, I really enjoyed it. Maybe I should try other kinds of potato salad!
I visited the Chicago History Museum with Danae and had a wonderful time there. There's a great deal of content, and Danae and I took longer than the three hours we'd planned to spend. That's ok; we just might have to go back again sometime! I appreciated the sections that focused on things like the Haymarket Affair and other labor and industry related issues. Danae pointed out that the way some content was presented might seem to be conflating pro-communist sentiment at the time of Haymarket with pro-anarchist thought, and we had a really interesting conversation about the matter of how to present museum content in general.
Even though the narrator of our audio tour (presented on some iPod Nanos that we checked out at the front desk) talked about the need for seriousness when discussing certain parts of Chicago's history, seriousness was in pretty short supply. This is not surprising, given that he's a member of the Second City comedy improv group. *grins* We talked about how to present really difficult material like, again, Haymarket, or the riots during the National Democratic Convention in the '60s. We contrasted the Chicago History Museum to a Holocaust museum. You can't present the Holocaust in a happy, light way. It's just inappropriate to the subject matter, and when you go to such a museum, you know what to expect. The Chicago museum, on the other hand, is somewhere that a lot of people who are proud of their city go. They want to feel good about their history, and if the experience is a downer, they're not likely to come back or spread word-of-mouth. I think there probably has to be a balance. I'm glad that, at the least, some of these things are being addressed.
After the museum, we stopped for all you can eat sushi. I'm over budget on my dining out for the month, but, sushi won out against fiscal responsibility!
That evening, we went to a board game meetup hosted by friends of hers, where I was introduced to Red Dragon Inn. It's a fun, light game that supports a large number of players and feels a lot like Cutthroat Cavern in play style.
I had an unfortunate experience at the party that I won't detail here, but that left me feeling rather distracted and down at the end of the evening. Because of that, I didn't look at my calendar that night or the next morning and I totally forgot that I'd planned to be in Kenosha on Sunday for a baseball game with my dad and my family. I only remembered when he called me from the ballpark to ask whether I was near.
I felt like a complete ass. I'd really looked forward to spending some time with my dad doing something he really likes. I made time on my calendar to attend a library-sponsored (my mother is a library employee) event at the park with included food and things. I was really looking forward to doing something as a family. Then I totally flaked out on it. My dad was not at all unhappy with me, and told me I should just stay in Evanston since the game would be half over by the time I got to Kenosha. So I stayed, and played a game of Eldritch Horror with Danae and Sneha, who'd just arrived at Danae's invitation. I apologized once I got home, but my dad really was not unhappy with me. I was just unhappy with myself. I still am a little bit I suppose. But he and I are going to plan another game coming up instead.
