Tag arcade

Two weeks in the life of Angel

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I wish I had some exciting reason that it’s been two weeks without a post. The reality is that I’ve been ghostwriting a novel and that every free moment I have has been dedicated to that client who is currently paying my mortgage. Luckily, I love the client, I love the story and I love the whole experience of being a part of the project so it’s not a hardship by any means.

The book publishing entity– Parisian Phoenix Publishing— has been paying the other costs of life. If you follow the blog there and/or read the Substack newsletter, you will see we are always doing something to keep the company and its authors growing. And if you need another reminder of why and where to buy books, check out the shop we’ve curated at Bookshop.org, where you can shop online and designate your favorite independent bookseller to receive the profits from the sale.

So, rather than try to catch you up with every bit of crazy while I’ve been away, let me provide this fine list:

The Initial Joys of Summer

  1. The Teenager only has a few more days of Teenagerdom and she has spent much of the last month renovating our garage into an indoor/outdoor living space. She is hosting her birthday party out there and I can’t wait to show you the final result.

2. I have started using the outdoor patio more as the Internet extends that far and there’s really no excuse.

3. We decided to try the Papa Johns Cheeseburger Pizza and their new Spicy Lemon Pepper Wing Sauce. The boneless wings are terrible, but the sauce is out of this world. And the burger pizza– especially with the $10 promotional price point–might be our new favorite food. The Teenager has proclaimed that all pizza should have pickles.

4. I spent some more time with my cat, Fog. We normally use a “crate and rotate”-style system for all the animals. For the last year, my boy Fog, our old tripod Opie and the cat the rescue gave up on, Canyon, have been in my room. We decided to let them free roam and this meant I got to spend some time during my long work days with my man, Fog.

5. Speaking of cats, our houseguest, Paulie, still loves to bite me, but he has gotten quite forward about being in my business.

6. We pre-gamed the Teenager’s birthday by going to Dave & Buster’s for some arcade time and then visited this strange convenience store with the old style poker video machines, alcohol, vaping supplies, penny candy, ice cream, strange snacks and all the household goods one would expect from a convenience store.

7. I made some new recipes including rhubarb quick bread (think banana bread but with rhubarb) and my own twist on fried pickles. I smeared/shredded cheese on a kosher dill pickle sandwich slice and then pinched it into a piece of Italian meat before breading and frying. Both were amazing.

8. My 2015 Jetta turned over to 71,000 miles. The Teenager has been driving it for work, so it only had 55,000 on it when I got laid off from Stitch Fix in September. But in other exciting news, before the end of the month, the Teenager should pay off her 2012 Nissan Rogue which we’ve had two years when we only planned to keep it for six months. It’s pretty much ready for a demolition derby now, but it was The Teenager’s first car loan and she paid it off six months early.

And lucky number nine….

(The Celts believed 9 was a holy number, because nine was a collection of three sacred threes.)

9. Today, I got to have a lavender matcha latte with my book-making, mixed media, painting artist friend Maryann Riker of Justarip Press. We stopped at Spectacular Coffee at Easton’s Silk Mill after indulging in a green sale (yes there is such a thing!) at Vasari Oil Paint.

The Unexpected Post Birthday Bliss

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Gayle and I have been friends a long time. So last week, she asked, as friends often do, “What are you doing on your actual birthday?”

My birthday was on Monday and nobody celebrates on Mondays. She offered to take me out, if I wanted to go somewhere and have fun. I texted back, “What is this fun you speak of?”

Enormous TV with the best resolution I have ever seen

I asked her the budget, and she said $50. I thought “arcade.” I have been trying to make it to various small arcades in the region, but as small businesses, they often don’t have hours conducive to my plans. So I looked up Dave & Buster’s, knowing we have one by the Lehigh Valley Mall.

Gayle said, “You want to go to a sports bar?”

And I said, “No…. They have an arcade.”

But further investigation revealed that the have half-price games on Wednesday, so I asked if we could postpone until then to take advantage. Gayle said sure.

She tossed lunch into the deal, so I ordered the Hawaiian chicken sandwich with pineapple, slaw, and sriracha. Gayle ordered a house salad and we agreed to share all the vegetables. I say all the vegetables because I replaced my fries with asparagus, and we got sides of Brussel sprouts and roasted cauliflower.

Surprisingly, the Brussel sprouts were a disappointment. They tasted too crunchy, as if they were fresh and raw. The seasoning was decent, but they didn’t have the decadent, drowning in roasted flavor that parmesan-crusted Brussel sprouts normally have when prepared in a restaurant. The cauflower was great— but the dipping sauces for both were heavily mayonnaise-based. And the asparagus turned out to be thin and perfectly dripping with goodness. As was the sandwich, which surprised me with how thick and hearty the patty was and how sweet and abundant the glaze was. A very messy sandwich, but worth it. 

With the server’s assistance, we purchased a Dave & Buster’s Power Card with something like 200 (or was it 250?) chips on it. At about 2:30, we headed into the arcade and started our exploration. My first game was a mechanical, full-size version of Hungry Hungry Hippos. I will tell you at our Lehigh Valley Dave & Busters, the blue and the green hippos have a disadvantage, the ball popper holes do not function properly. To digest a respectable amount of balls, one must take advantage of the yellow or orange hippo.

I taught Gayle to play Air Hockey, and Centipede, and then I challenged her to Mario Kart (on Easy) and then we did Hot Wheels. And Rampage! We tried axe throwing and tried our skill shooting hoops. We even did some electronic bowling. And we tried the kids’ games— Cut the Rope and Doodle Jump. 

I looked at my watch and it was 4 o’clock and even though we still had forty chips left (and at half-price most games costs 3.4-5 chips per player), Gayle let me have the power card and now I’m plotting a visit with the Teenager. 

At that point, I picked up the Teenager and we headed to Joan the Photographer’s house. Joan wanted to take me to Point Phillips Hotel for dinner, where they have an on-site smokehouse and some of the weirdness seasonal cocktails I have ever seen.

That region has very Pennsylvania Dutch roots— and my grandfather- and grandmother-in-law are buried in that area. At the restaurant, the waitresses’ shirts said, “if you ain’t PA Dutch, you ain’t much” which led to Joan’s partner claiming to be the most PA Dutch person in the room.

To which I made a challenge. The Teenager is 3/4 Pennsylvania Dutch on her father’s side. Darrell’s mother’s side is Pennsylvania Dutch (his grandfather didn’t learn English until he started school at age five back in the one-room schoolhouse days) and his father’s side is 1/2 PA Dutch and 1/2 Welsh.

The food (and cocktails) were delcious and then we spent some time at Joan’s house, where he partner learned, apparently for the first time, that the Teenager is/was a musician. Discussion ensured of her experiences playing low brass and the differences between a euphonium and a baritone. Some old marching band videos were shared, and one thing led to another and suddenly the two of them had a trombone. 

Amidst a near-full moon, the Teenager picked up a musical instrument for the first time in three years and even though she had never played trombone, she attempted to find some notes.

It brought back a lot of memories for both of us.