for lack of a better plan, mother and i drove to hot springs yesterday…in the rain. we thought it would stop eventually and we could go see this garden that she’s been very excited about. of course, it did not stop. it has rained and rained all week. so instead we went to mid-america museum. now you would think that having grown up in arkansas that i would have been to this little gem of an outing before. we spent many weekends and even whole weeks at lake ouachita during my childhood, and this place is not far from the marinas we frequented. but, alas, we never got to go. other families would load up and go somewhere while it rained and rained at the lake, but we stayed in our tent (and later inside our houseboat…which was really a party barge that my dad and uncle enclosed themselves with siding in our backyard…which, by the way, is a whole ‘nother post…) and played cards. my family could play cards for days, i tell you…days. there was no way in hell my dad would EVER have loaded us up and taken us to the mid-america museum…or mid-america anything. it just wasn’t happening. “deal another round. have another coke. can you believe we still have ice? now that’s an exhibit. ice after four or five days at the lake in 90 degrees. that’s a feat, i tell you!” (can you hear him??) so you can understand why we never made it to the museum. we would beg to just go to a restaurant to break up the monotony. “we got food in those ice chests, honey! are you hungry? there’s still potatoes in there from last night. and ketchup to go with them…shoot!”

well, after a disastrous lunch at a restaurant. i have four children. one of them is 1. he does not cooperate at restaurants, especially ones that don’t have high chairs, which is generally a sign that, ahem, maybe they don’t want you there if you have children. we decided it was not going to stop raining for us to go to these gardens and so we’d better head over to the museum. yipee. i was finally getting to go to the blasted mid-america museum. i have been hearing about this place for my whole life. i can still remember the commercial on t.v. with kids’ hair standing straight up touching the plasma ball. woooo. well, i’m soooo sorry if this place is like your favorite, but i have to tell you that it was a severe disappointment. for several reasons too depressing to mention, my perspective is a little off this week, which might be skewing my outlook on life. but i’m not sure that on the best of days i would have loved this place. first we climb into a “simulator” which shakes a little while you watch a screen that plays a sad video game run (ours was “glacier run”) and i guess you’re supposed to feel like you’re riding the run. mmmm. it was hot and crowded mostly. the simulator…and actually the whole museum. the kids ran around and experienced the place while mother and i took turns trying to keep simon from crying, which is basically done by keeping the stroller moving AT ALL TIMES…even if it means running over a few children. after about an hour of wishing someone would just put me out of my misery, we ended our time at the museum with the LASER SHOW…oooooooh. i’m still so amazed that i don’t know what to say. i sat in the back nursing simon and trying not to fall asleep. however, the man running the show was great. he takes his job very seriously. please do not block his booth with your stroller. he might need to get out to refill his giant coffee cup. it takes a lot of caffeine to push buttons on a computer in order to make some colored lines appear on a screen AND play music at the same time.

i really wish we hadn’t gone, not because it was sort of lame but because the mid-america museum has lived in my mind for such a long time as a place i ought to go one day. and now, the next time it rains at the lake, i’ll be dealing the cards. without so much as a sigh for the hope of getting off the lake with other families to go to experience a simulator AND a laser light show in the same day! scoop me some ice out of that cooler and deal another round. i’ll be staying in.

the highlight of the day was that we stopped at starbucks on the way home. i had a coffee frappaccino with an extra shot of espresso, also known as an espresso frappaccino. i’m telling you…that’s the way to do it. if there had been starbucks in hot springs when i was younger, i think we might have actually gotten my dad off the lake on rainy days. but i can’t be certain. we do have coffee presses now, and the coolers will keep the cream fresh for days.