654th Friday Blog Roundup
Skip this section if you get queasy easily.
We were at dinner before heading to a carnival and somehow the topic of people vomiting on rides came up. “I’m sure it’s very rare,” I reassured the twins. “I’ve never seen someone vomit on a ride.”
Well, friends, I needed to take back that statement because about a half hour later, at the carnival, I watched a man vomit from the paratrooper ride. Again and again and again.
We did not go on the paratrooper ride after that. (Well, I wasn’t going to go on at all, so it’s more accurate to say that everyone else didn’t go on the paratrooper ride.)
I love amusement parks, but I realized that I don’t really love carnivals. Isn’t that odd? I mean, they’re sort of the same thing: rides, games, entertainment. But while I love it when it is permanently cemented into the earth, I’m not quite as fond of it when it can be packed up and carted away to the next fairground.
Does your brain make a difference between carnivals and amusement parks?
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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.
Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.
As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.
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And now the blogs…
But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:
- “And Another” (Bent Not Broken)
Okay, now my choices this week.
Inconceivable! has a post about storks (like the actual bird) and omens. It is a gorgeous post that contains this thought: “When I was first diagnosed with infertility, the one thing I wanted to know was whether or not the acute distress of not knowing and the horrible limbo of waiting would ever end.” It’s about not being resolved but seeing the possible paths forward.
A Woman My Age has a post about adoptive parenting. Her son’s birthmother wants her address because she wants to send a gift, and it opens up confused feelings because the longstanding relationship is changing and they’re navigating other situations. She states: “I knew I could not fully control things and I think that was bit of an issue for me. It reminded me of opening up my life to infertility doctors and social workers.” It’s about trying to figure out parenting after adoption when there are not clear, concrete, perfect answers. It’s about writing your own parenting manual; being your own guide.
Lastly, No Kidding in NZ has a post about acceptance that stems from a very cool idea. She writes, “I think I’m going to go through my blog here, from the very beginning, and reblog, or update, some posts.” So we write things in the moment, but how many of us go back and update or blog again about the situation with the gift of retrospection? I, for one, am really excited to read what she writes.
The roundup to the Roundup: Carnivals vs. amusement parks. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 7th and 14th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.
12 comments
Well, yes. I do look at carnivals and amusement parks differently. My community hosts a carnival every fall. Usually during the first two weeks of November. In our location, the weather is usually quite good so that is not an issue. In the decades I have lived here, it’s always been the same carnival/County Fair. It’s always been held on the same plot of land. The parking has always been iffy, but they’ve tried to address that. Over the years, the area has changed substantially and is now bounded on one side by a spur to the Interstate (I-95).
In the last two years, gun violence has reared its ugly head. There are changes coming, a new venue, more security (it’s about time!), but many people still need to be convinced.
I think I’d rather drive hours to Disney. In this world today, there’s so much more to take into consideration. Back in the 70s I took my son and a gaggle of cousins and never had to worry. But that was then, and this is now.
My vote goes to Amusement parks.
K so I don’t know the difference between a carnival and amusement park? I’m guessing a carnival is a temporary setup? I have never heard that word used in a contemporary setting; I guess we use the words “fair” and “midway” instead, or the name of the event, eg Stampede, X games, etc. Anyway, I would not go on the ride where someone vomited, that’s gross. In fact I might leave altogether. If you eat enough junk food it’s rather too easy to vomit at those events without going on a ride.
This week I liked “I held a new baby yesterday” by Jess http://mypathtomommyhood.blogspot.ca/2017/07/i-held-new-baby-yesterday.html?m=1
And
“Until you have children” by Different Shores.
https://differentshores.com/2017/07/10/until-you-have-children/
Apart from my enjoyment of each blogger on her own terms I like how these posts are really character sketches: you learn a lot about the people involved in a few words and there’s plenty to think about in terms of their motivations and interactions.
You dredged up a memory that I’ve tried hard to forget. :p 😉 I was in my late teens/early 20s, living in a basement apartment with my sister for the summer in the smallish town where we’d gone to high school — our parents had since moved, but we both found summer jobs there. We went to the annual fair/exhibition with some friends one hot, sticky night in July. Some guy on one of the rides that takes you round & round & up & down in the air upchucked — right onto ME, standing nearby below. I thought *I* was going to get sick. To make it worse, the friends I was with all thought it was hilarious & couldn’t stop laughing. I made haste to the closest washroom to clean myself up as best I could, and then headed home, where I threw my clothes in the washer & then got in the shower & scrubbed myself raw. UGH.
That said 😉 — I haven’t gone to too many amusement parks (although Canada’s largest is fairly close to where I am now living). But the county fair in the little Minnesota town where my grandmother lived was the highlight of my childhood summers. It wasn’t just the rides, it was the grandstand show (complete with local homegrown entertainment), hamburgers at the family-run booth that’s been there for years & year, and my mother running into people she knew every five steps, and being with my cousins, and the 4-H exhibits and going to see the 4-H farm animals in the barns with my grandfather. I have wonderful memories of all that. There was (& probably still is; I haven’t been back in about 20 years) something homegrown & authentic (and once-a-year special) about that experience that big amusement parks can’t duplicate.
So I puked after a ride once. Down at the beach during senior week, on something called The Zipper. I didn’t know the cage rolled over and over and the girl I went with kept making it flip. I got off and promptly barfed on top of a trash can (yes on top, it was the ones with the trap door on the front, not an open top.) UGH.
And yeah, I’m not a fan of carnival rides, there is definitely a difference. I used to do all the roller coasters, but the older I have gotten, the more motion sick I get and I just can’t do them anymore. The last one I went on 8 years ago I freaked the hell out. So, no more for me.
In general the industry is not well regulated,but carnivals/fairs are sketchy compared to amusement parks (at least in CA “amusement park” = disney, six flags, etc.) In junior high I threw up on the orlean’s orbit ride at then-Marriott’s great America.
Our town just had its “homecoming” which is parades 2 nights and a carnival. We usually go one night, collect a ton of candy at the parade, and ride a few rides. I used to prefer amusement parks, because the rides seem more stable, but now my brain doesn’t really like any rides. Everything makes me kind of nauseated. Still – the permanence of the rides at the amusement parks makes them seem safer to me.
There is a ride at Six Flags St. Louis that is so vomit-inducing that they make a t-shirt to that effect. It’s a ride called Xcalibur and it involves A LOT of spinning in a circle. But, these days, I associate amusement parks with the underlying scent of vomit, so I think your premise of rarity may be wrong.
My brain does that too!
Thanks for some good reading. Off to check out your picks!
Growing up in NZ, there weren’t really any amusement parks. (There’s still only one in Auckland, I think.) But the annual carnival at a town up the coast, held at their beautiful Caroline Bay, was a highlight every Christmas/New Year. We’d go up, swim in the Bay, eat fish and chips for dinner on the lawn behind the sand dunes, then watch a show that was part of it all, and then visit the carnival. I was never one for too many rides. The combination of speed and heights is one I’ve never really liked. So amusement parks wouldn’t have been my thing. But I loved the combination of the show and the rides (things like the Ghost Train) and the fairground games and the chocolate wheel (spinning wheel gambling game). My dad almost always won something on the chocolate wheel, and we could look forward to eating the treats when we got home! I agree with Loribeth. It feels more authentic to me than amusement parks, which (now I have had access to them in LA or Australia or Singapore) don’t appeal at all.
PS. (I got carried away with my carnival memories). Thanks for the mention. Oh, the pressure … now I actually have to write something!
I am a huge fan of amusement parks but less with carnivals. I’ve always worried about safety when a ride is packed up, carted, and has to be reassembled at a new location. It always seems like more people get sick at carnivals (probably the combination of the food and rides) but one of my SILs worked at Cedar Point for a summer, so I’ll have to ask her how often things like that happened there…
Thanks for the mention, I’m honored!
Amusement park rides have made me feel very sick before! I need to avoid certain types of rides.
I enjoyed Mali’s post; http://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.de/2017/07/negative-thinking-in-infertility-and-childlessness.html
I also liked this one about the intangible loss of infertility;
http://lifewithoutbaby.com/2017/07/10/intangible-losses-infertility-2/
This is a very sad post about repeat miscarriages and secondary infertility; https://somebodyislovingyou.blogspot.de/2017/07/in-desert.html
And I liked this one about how the infertility journey can change you; https://mamjojo23.wordpress.com/2017/07/08/hard-or-strong/
Ewwwww, that is gross (but also entertaining). All I can think of is Stand By Me. I fear carnivals. Something about the packability makes me question the integrity of the rides. And, sadly, I can’t eat the food anymore thanks to the celiac, so without fried dough I just don’t want to go. 🙂
I loved Mali’s post about negative thinking: https://nokiddinginnz.blogspot.com/2017/07/negative-thinking-in-infertility-and-childlessness.html