Monday, October 11, 2021

Atlantic City July 2021- Day 3

Friday July 9
We Continue to See No Horseshoe Crabs
 
Anabelle, filled with the enthusiasm of youthful fandom, woke up early to watch the latest episode of the High School Musical series, hear a newly dropped Latin music album, and watch  a bit of Sabrina.
 
Rosa and I, being more seasoned and experienced, remained as motionless as concussed logs during that period.
 
When we deemed ourselves correctly “vacation rested,” we returned to the beach.   The Latin gene-ed two-thirds of the family soaked in more sunshine. I stayed under my makeshift towel tent.  The problem with this prevention method against spontaneous combustion was:
It not only blocked the sun’s rays, but also the cool ocean breeze.  I had constructed an impressive convection oven for myself and was steaming up.
 
The lifeguards were a bit more antsy than usual with Elsa aftershocks in the surf. Rosa went into the water a little, but less than the day before.  Anabelle did too. That translates into, “She dipped her toes in.”
 
Most of the time, Anabelle focused on reading a large portion of a twelve issue Metal Men comic book run. She tends to fixate on unusual, lesser-known characters. I wonder where she gets that from?
 
A small gang of flies joined us on the blanket.  After a bit of obligatory “Heeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeee,” cries by all of us, Anabelle was done with them. We went back in while Rosa enjoyed some complaint free peace on the beach.
 
It’s not a beach day unless I hike back and forth to the room. In this case, it was to leave Rosa a key since we forgot a second one.  Anabelle washed up, changed in to her new "Julia from Luca" outfit and then finished the Metal Men while I hiked.
 
Back at the hall outside the room, I met the cleaning service. We weren’t using them during this stay, both for environmentally friendly and global plague reasons.  However, with all of us rinsing off the ocean debris, we were short on towels. I asked for a couple and received a full set and an unwieldy handful of shampoos and soaps.  
Yes, I gave her a nice tip.
 
The two of us took an elevator down to have lunch. Then we remembered which elevator it was to avoid for the rest of the trip.  It made many grinding and clanking noises that sounded suspiciously like a prequel to an unscheduled Terror o’ Tower imitation.
 
We loitered around the Casa Taco Express, which is connected to the place with prepackaged desserts, sandwiches and wraps, for long enough to realize that neither of us was in anything resembling a burrito mood.  Instead, we both grabbed buffalo chicken wraps, which, in an unusual turn of events, were far tastier than the one I had at the acclaimed deli across the aisle on a previous trip.
 
Anabelle got a macaron for dessert, the only remaining side effect from her long since passed obsession with Miraculous Ladybug.
 
Rosa stopped by to see us on the way up to the room, and had another failed attempt at fixing her card.
 
I took Anabelle to “gamble” in the family fun room.  Covid stole some family fun from there, similar to how slot machines have been less fun for a while. Now there were no tokens carried about and no tickets dispensed. It was all virtual on the card. How sad.
 
Anabelle tried the old classic bass fishing wheel. Then played a basketball shoot out that dispensed no tickets, virtual or otherwise. She was DEVASTATED.
 


Once she found the next machine, it was the location she’d spend most of her time at: a Sponge Bob token drop game.  This was a place where the virtual switch helped out.  Normally coin games are designed where you drop a token in, it rolls to where there are a large pile of other people’s tokens…
And they stay there forever.
 
In this case, the update made it a combination of those games, and the games where the token had to be aimed through a rotating target for points. The target used to dictate ticket wins.

Now that the coins were all internal. Swiping the card activated the coin rolling, and the target would either release extra coins, or cards or provide free games.
 
In other words, the coins did drop in this version, granting virtual tickets.
 
After a long while there, and a couple classic runs on the pirate spin wheel and the ball drop, she turned in her virtual tickets.

 
There were no little plastic aliens.
DEVASTATED AGAIN!
 
But not for long.
 
Following a raging internal debate about color choices, she picked out two little translucent plastic UNICORNS!  Then she selected four similar material ninjas to protect them. 

Winnings (such as they were) in hand, we returned to the room.  The three of us once more united, it was time to walk the Boardwalk again.
 
I noted that one of the advertised clairvoyants must have been really good, since she made no effort to entice us into her little shop, unlike most of the others on that stretch. She must have foreseen I’d say no.
 
There was a bit of confusion, as we were learning what would be extremely common, concerning gluten free selections, in an ice cream shop.  Rosa tried, and failed to explain the highly complex concept of not using the same scoop on the regular and gluten free selections unless it was cleaned in between.
 
They finally understood, explained that’s what they did…and then clearly did not do it when one vat was replaced with a fresh one.
 
Anabelle then explained to us that Butter Pecan isn’t her favorite, BOARDWALK Butter Pecan is.  I’m certain the stale cones make the ice cream seem better by comparison.  However, her Brooklyn genes from Grandpa showed through when she stated the Coney Island one was the best.
 
When we got home, I learned she made up for any “tiny spoon” deficit on this trip due to the closing of the Polish Water Ice stand with the pile of tasting spoons she snuck into her purse here.
 
We didn’t go the full length this day, but instead continued past the Tropicana to the quieter section of Boardwalk when we walked back.  There were still a few open shops selling the same crap all the other stores had, meaning the stretch didn’t reach “Zombie Apocalypse” levels of empty this time out. 


Coming in, Rosa finally got her card fixed by going to the point redemption area, instead of anywhere else people told us to go.
We had a few places we wanted to tell them to go.
 
Anabelle watched a bit more Sabrina on the IPad, and I tried to read some Marvel King In Black side stories.  I did read a bunch of comics, but nothing really connected to the big Venom crossover.  Marvel’s been getting sneaker with slapping the crossover title on stuff that is only connected to it by the least of tangential threads.
 
I read some cool, if mislabeled, “Namor” and “Atlas Vs Atlantis” stories by two of my favorite writers, Kurt Buseik and Greg Pak, therefore I’m not complaining.
 
Rosa watched some television and fixed her Mother’s flight details. I may have napped somewhere between “Atlantis” and “Attacks” because it’s all a bit fuzzy.
 
Our “fancy night part two” dinner was the return to P.F. Chang’s.
 
The elevator was full of the entertaining kind of “dudes.”  It was yet another example of Anabelle’s weird, platonic bond with Frat Boy types that happens semi-regularly anywhere she goes. They decided to make funny faces at people, and implored the rest of us in the car to join in, when the doors opened at each level.
 
When we went down a couple of floors and an entire family wanted to get in, the gang correctly pointed out there was no room and apologized.
 
When we went down a couple of more floors and one guy wanted to get in, the gang correctly pointed out there was no room and apologized.
 
When we went down a couple of more floors and two young women about the “dudes”’s age wanted to get in, the gang correctly pointed out there was miraculously just enough space for them, and they should, “Come on in!”
 
P.F. Chang’s had a varied and quality gluten free menu.
Rosa was very happy with her soup and fried rice, I was able to get healthy fish, and Anabelle, normally not a Chinese food fan, enjoyed her appetizer selection.

 
We’ll be back!
(But not to the one near home that burned both the rice AND the soup. That took talent. 
The one near Villanova was great though.)
 
There was another possible tornado alarm, just as we went on a run to drop off a suitcase in the parking garage…
Fun!
 
However, the rain stopped and the rest of the night was clear.
 
I am not, nor do I pretend to be in great shape anymore, but I think the whole “Mesh pants over a thong” fashion statement should be contained to the beach and not used as evening wear, regardless of body type. 
And, boy howdy, there were many body types.
 
We hadn’t been anywhere in such a long time, and with the restriction of Anabelle’s dance schedule, decided to stay a Friday night into the weekend. This was something we only did once before, to prevent me from driving there and back in less than 24 hours twice.
 
I learned definitively that while I missed the concept of people while working alone out of my basement for the over a year, I did not miss actual people.
 
This was not only due to the mesh pants, but I feel that was a contributing factor.
 
Back at the room, Rosa and Anabelle watched Friends some more, I read comics, commented that we really needed to watch Coupling again, and enjoyed the weirdly fruity beer I got the day before. Luckily, Rosa figured out the “odd towel rack” in the bathroom was a bottle opener, since I lost yet another keychain one.
 
In other words, a typical night for us in Atlantic City. 
 
Sleep came easily, closing out our mini-vacation’s final night.


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