Mass. Trip ’14, day 4: Visit with cousins

Cousins’ house (Attleboro MA).  Visit my brother-in-law (BIL #3), his wife (SIL #2), and their three kids.  Also BIL #2 stopped by during the visit, but without his wife SIL #3.  I wish the BIL and SIL numbering weren’t so silly, but that’s pseudonymous life for you.
      Cousin #1 is now 13 and a fairly-stereotypical Asperger’s kid, given to loud self-centered speeches followed by storming off to play by himself.  I kept looking at this kid and thinking, “I wasn’t that bad, was I?” but it is impossible to know.  Anyway, I think he’s going to turn out just fine.
      Although there had never been any mention of it by email, BIL #3’s household has been vegan for over a year now, so our cheesecake was rejected (but the cookies were okay as a special-occasion treat).  Once again, SIL #2 served spaghetti, meatballs, salad, and garlic bread — this time the meatballs were faux, yet still tasty enough.
      BIL #3 showed us his most excellent find: Star Trek Continues.  It is amazing that one guy (Vic) built the sets, wrote the script, and cast himself as the chief BAD guy!  Pretty much everything that is wrong with this show (implausible motivations, convenient mistakes by bad guys so the good guys can always win, etc.) is a faithful copy of things that were wrong with the original series.  Too bad they couldn’t get funding for more episodes.
      I played Apples to Apples: Disney with Kid #1, Wifey, Cousin #2, and Cousin #3.  Some of the cousins’ moves were poorly thought out, such as playing an Evil Mommy card when my wife was the judge!  But they’re only 11 and 9 years old and it takes a lot of experience to predict how others will feel about moves that seem right to you.
      We spent some time discussing what a great place Canada is.  They did not mention how much they hate living in the USA (because you do not say such things out loud while living in a non-free country).  At one point, Cousin #1 announced that he was moving to Canada when he turns 18, causing his father to say, “No you’re not”.  So then Wifey and I went into our usual spiel about how it took five years to get permission to cross the border, and 12 years in total to go from “we should move to Canada” to “we have Canadian passports”.  And I *still* have never held a local job!
      There was some discussion about the pending settlement of my mother-in-law’s estate, but really there was nothing to say.
      Wifey picked up some purchases that had been mailed to the cousins’ house to avoid Canadian-import difficulties.  The Amazon.com package came with a nicely-itemized packing list, but the packages from Rainbow Resource Center did not specify how much they cost, which could have led to difficulties with sales tax at the Canadian border.
      BIL #2 said that he and his wife were thinking of visiting Toronto next year to see a sports game.  My house is “only” 90 minutes west of Toronto, so he might stop by for a visit.  Hopefully he won’t get lost on the way.

A maze of twisty residential streets, all alike (Attleboro MA).  We missed a turn leaving the cousins’ house and spent some time going in circles trying to get out of their housing development.

Panera Bread (Plainville MA, 7:00pm).  $44.83 for dinner.  I had read recently that Panera is now considered a better value than McDonald’s, which seemed odd because I used to think of them as overpriced.  Well, times change!  For only $7 I got a tuna sandwich, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, and a piece of tasty French baguette.  We would never have found this place if we hadn’t missed the turn onto US route 1 in order to get back to Interstate 495 towards our hotel.