Wait wait, don’t tell me

We’re back from vacation (finally) and everyone appears to be in one piece (though it was touch-and-go there for a while). We had our last bit of flu funny business on the plane ride home from Chicago: Simon woke up from his nap as everyone was getting out of their seats at San Jose and said, “Mama, I’m sick.” I grabbed the air sick bag in a flash and held it in front of him, and he very neatly threw up three or four times into the bag. Someone from a few rows back passed a paper towel up to us so I could wipe him up before we left.

I wish whatever it is that everyone except me has would go away already. Especially before I get it.

§

We went to Chicago, Traverse City, and East Lansing for two weeks. We spent a week in Traverse City, where there are plenty of kid-friendly (read: shallow) beaches around for them to splash in. We were there during Cherry Festival, which is the highlight of the summer tourist season, with plenty of celebrations and parades. We didn’t get out nearly as much as we planned, but that was okay: we were on vacation.

From there we went to a small town near East Lansing named Laingsburg, where we stayed with Darin’s Uncle Bob and Aunt Betty. They have a couple of acres out in the middle of nowhere, which means that a)it gets dark at night, and if it hadn’t been overcast the kids might have seen stars, and b)they have lightning bugs. Where we live in California mosquitoes are practically non-existent; sadly, so are fireflies. The kids had a blast running around in the dark, trying to catch fireflies.

One thing Michigan has plenty of: really great ice cream stores. Moomer’s in Traverse City: check it out. Unbelievably, I did not have Blue Moon ice cream while I was there, despite the popularity of said ice cream with some commenters on my site. (When I mentioned Blue Moon to Uncle Bob, a restauranteur and Michigan native, he said, “What’s that?” So Blue Moon ice cream is not known everywhere in the state.)

We went back to Chicago a few days before we had to leave, mostly because the second I knew what our vacation plans were I bought tickets for a taping of Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me, the NPR news quiz that Darin and I like to listen to every week. (When children allow.) Three comedians try to answer question about the week’s news, and it’s usually pretty funny when we listen to it on the radio.

It’s fucking hysterical in person.

If you’re going to be in Chicago on a Thursday night and you can get tickets early enough—each and every show sells out, apparently—go. Next time we’re going to Chicago we are definitely going again.

The three guests were Roy Blount, Jr., Paula Poundstone, and PJ O’Rourke. The panelists rotate every week, which meant Darin and I were each slightly disappointed in the lineup for different reasons: he was hoping for Mo Rocca, and I was hoping for Adam Felber, but the ones we got were pretty good. Poundstone is clearly a stand-up comedian: she talked the most and got off the best zingers. The show is edited for air, because of the pauses and pointless chatter (the celebrity guest they had, a rock journalist, was, shall we say, less than scintillating) and off-color comments. The hand gestures and double-takes the panelists gave don’t exactly translate to radio either. There was a running joke about a Brazilian postal truck that I hope made it to the recording, but we didn’t get to listen to it yesterday so I don’t know.

The taping took about two hours—after the show and the make-up parts, where they re-record a few bits, the panelists and hosts answer audience questions—so plan where you’re going to eat afterward! We ended up at Pizzeria Uno, which was good, but we would have liked to try one of the other restaurants Darin’s brother recommended to us.