Monday, August 28, 2006

Rainy Weekend Fun

We planned on taking a two day trip to the NJ shore over the weekend, but the weather curtailed that idea. We settled for indoor activities.

On Saturday, we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. The masks and the make-up in the film were mesmerizing. Otherwise, don’t believe the hype. I don’t think that the two and a half hour film was fantastic, but my family enjoyed it. It also turned us off to the idea of seafood for dinner. A live squid head and muscles attached to barnacles on a moldy human cheek were two reasons to have cheeseburgers instead.

On Sunday, we returned to Dave & Buster’s in Northeast Philadelphia. My kids wanted to play pool and shuffle board—and lots of video games. We played for three hours and then cashed in over 3000 tickets for a handful of prizes, which we could have bought at the 1-5 dollar store for about twenty bucks. We spent about seven times that in the arcade alone. I mentioned it to my husband, but he said it was okay since we had fun winning the stuff.

I sipped a sweet, strawberry/banana margarita, while my son, daughter and husband beat me in shuffle board. Then my husband beat me in pool. It makes me proud when my children’s skill/luck exceeds my own. I have learned to expect to lose most games of skill to my husband, but I’m usually a very close second. I was too full and lazy from our diner brunch to feel competitive.

I am not embarrassed to say that I had fun playing several games of skeeball in lanes next to my kids. My final scores were much higher. Moms have to win once in a while. I was even happier when I realized that they were playing 80’s music in the place. Hearing tunes from my teens brought me back to my boardwalk arcade with my best friend days. I miss them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Went to see Pirates shortly after its release here in the uk, and have to agree with you about the make-up effects. What even makes it more amazing is the fact that, as far as I could tell, they weren't masks in the traditional sense, but cgi sfx - quite possibly the greatest cgi I've ever seen.