So bring your good times and your laughter too

Finally some breathing room, or something like it, to write. The big thing we did last weekend was attend JTK's graduation party. He'd been working on his (degree) in (something or other) for several years and finally reached it. Great news, certainly, and we're hoping it opens some fresh prospects for him. We had to think a bit about what to get him as gift and decided on a gift card for a Michigan-area chain of movie theaters, particularly, one with a drive-in tolerably near his place. He mentioned --- after getting the card, but before opening it --- that he had taken the family to that drive-in just the night before. Well, there'll likely be other movies too.

For a party he had your classic sort of open house get-together, inviting various relatives and friends. Not the whole of Western Michigan pinball, though; just the people he felt he hung out with outside of pinball events. We made the cut because, of course, we've been to amusement parks together. A good number of other pinball friends did too, so we had a nice steady core of people we could gather around and talk with, and we never had to use our standby emergency reserve anecdote. (This would be about the time at Theio's when JTK finally noticed the gouges that his eyeglasses had carved into his forehead and asked what was wrong with him.)

Adding to the delights of the party, held at his parents' home? A taco bar, complete with some vegetarian meat. Lots of vegetarian meat: JTK's father had let his attention drift while grilling the Morningstar crumblers and burned them beyond what he thought edible, so he ground up some veggie burgers and turned that into a really good beef substitute. I'm not saying we overate but I'm still overstuffed from it, a week later. Not helping matters was a large number of pies they had, including rhubarb, which prompted bunny_hugger to ask who eats rhubarb pie. Me, for one. Also DUB, a pinball friend we don't see nearly enough.

A further attraction, or at least steady talking point, was kids, JTK's directly and also the kids of his relatives or friends. They found a lot to do between a good-sized yard they could run and fall down in, or a nice-sized swing that they could demand to be seen or pushed on, or --- behind the fence --- a flood plain that's a natural preserve. It gives access to a lot of wild nature plus a river. bunny_hugger and I never got down there, but we did overhear the clear, distinct sploosh of something falling in the river. Didn't hear crying after that, so it was probably a rock or something. Don't know.

Did we spend long enough there? Maybe not; it's hard always to pull ourselves away from anything once we're there. On the other hand, we were also a half-hour past the nominal close of the open house and JTK's parents were cleaning stuff up when we did leave. We were also given a surplus pie (apple) that we haven't finished eating yet. And, of course, we never have enough time with some of our favorite people, just hanging out and not having to do more than move the chairs now and then because the shade has snuck out from under us.

Trivia: A mathematician in Aquitaine named Victorius noted somewhere around the year 457 that Easter dates (on the Julian calendar) repeat themselves every 532 years. Dinoysius, who in the sixth century would gain lasting renown for calculating 95 years' worth of Easter dates, seems to have been unaware of this discovery. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock with the Heavens --- And What Happened to the Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan.

Currently Reading: Railroads for Michigan, Graydon M Meints.