The Anthropomorphic Train

My new goal in life is to create some heartwarming children’s story, featuring a heart warming character, who through heartwarming hi-jinks, teaches heartwarming lessons to all good boys and girls. Then, I want to trademark it, brand it, market it and sell the living bejesus out of it and make obscene amounts of cash. Which I will heartwarmingly (and merrily) carry in bucket loads to the bank. This, my friends, is the American way, and good for the economy (mine specifically).

A few weekends ago, we hightailed it to Baltimore to spend a “Day out with Thomas the Tank Engine”at the B & O Train museum (a really cool place even without the presence of Thomas).

TRAINS! We introduced Ian to Thomas the Tank Engine (the useless, er, useful engine) a while ago. Specifically, Gordon. Andy bought a DVD entitled, “The Best of Gordon” (not realizing that it was all Gordon all the time. Hey! Who knew? We were mere amateurs at the time.) Gordon is this annoying snob of a train who thinks he is better than everyone else. Gordon is constantly getting into “situations” because he thinks he’s better than most. My personal favorite is when Gordon gets stuck in a ditch. I like to yell at Sir Topham Hat (he’s the dude that owns the railroad; in old, original versions of the Thomas series, they called him “the fat controller” HA! I love it) “LEAVE HIM IN THE DITCH”- to which Ian just looks at me blankly. Already. My children. They don’t understand me!

Look! Thomas! In, um, person!

Fun Fact Digression: When the Thomas series first came out (in the UK) Ringo Starr was the narrator for the series. When they “redid” the series for the US market - apparently all UK series need to be “redone” for the US market,because..um, because..we speak a different language? Anyway, in the US Thomas became Shiny Time Station and was hosted by- wait for it- GEORGE CARLIN! This forever cracks me up. Before this , when I thought of George Carlin I always thought of children’s TV shows! This was brilliant! Also Alec Baldwin was also a narrator. For a children's show!! Irony, I love thee.

Further digression: I saw George Carlin back in the mid 90’s; he was playing at a little local movie theater right down the street from my apartment when I lived in Anderson, IN. I forget the exact cost for a ticket but it was something absurd, like $1. Let’s just say, George seemed a wee bit bitter about the whole thing..

But back to Baltimore. The museum was only open, that day for ticket holders to the Thomas event. Don’t even ask what we spent for tickets. Although it was far, far less, than say, going to a Bruce Springsteen or U2 concert. And there was an actual, LIVE Thomas the train there, pulling an actual train, that we actually got to ride on. The train ride was pretty tame. We went backwards for 12.5 minutes, then forward for 12.5 minutes. Our side of the train faced, um, what I can only describe as the underbelly of the city. Well let’s face it, train tracks, in cities were never advertised as being the most attractive sites of any city. If you lived near a train track you were most likely, from the “wrong side of the track”- Ian, looking out the window, got to see all the trash, tires, and junk that was strewn about. Also a Baltimore City Police car (he got seriously excited about that because emergency vehicles are another true love of his).

My theory on the police car was it was there to act as a deterrent to any modern day train robbers. Then again, being that this was Baltimore, maybe it was merely abandoned there. (Kidding Baltimore! You’re a nice city! Really!)

After the ride there were kid activities to do: moonbounces, trains to climb on, a gift shop (of course! More cheap plastic objects for the house!) face painting, etc. etc. The museum is housed in the “round house” a HUGE round building where the trains, back in the day, went to sleep, um, were parked between use. It has a large moving round do-hickie that, can move the trains from one track to another. They did not spin the big round do-hickie (this is technical train language) while we were there. But I am sure someone thought about it.

Also, they had children’s train tables set up with toy train tracks and trains (all Thomas and his friends of course). This way, small, overtired, children could push, shove, and fight over a chance to play with trains, on tables with toys that they more than likely ALREADY HAVE AT HOME. Its fun for parents to watch, knowing they spent all that money, drove all that way, just so the kid(s) can play with a toy they own. At home. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Suckas. We, I must admit, do not have the Thomas train ensemble at home. We do have wooden tracks and trains, but they are not part of any mass marketing empire. Also our train ensemble is not assembled. It is strewn all over the place and our trains tend to suffer dreadful and horrifying accidents pretty much all the time.

What 90% of the kids were doing about 100% of the time. Too bad there was no bier garten at this event. The museum would have made a fortune!

Ve vill have fun! or else!

It was a fun day. Really! I swear!

"Wait", says Alex. "You mean an anthropomorphic train is driving this thing? OMG! If I could only walk..or crawl, or something..I'd be outa here!"

The only non-fun part of the whole day, was the fact that Alexander and I were both sick. Alex had been running temperatures for three days before the event. He’d go from normal to high. We’d give him Tylenol, wipe him down with cool clothes and it would go down. We went to the dr’s twice (no to strep throat) and he had no other obvious infections. While we probably should have taken him to the dr. again on Saturday (the day of the Thomas event) we didn’t since he did not start the day out with a temp. and seemed pretty perky that day. (Poor little guy would wake up from naps covered in sweat). Anyway, by Sunday, he was completely normal. So yay! I was also well by Sunday, but on Saturday I was ready to throw myself under a train just to end my misery.

And after a useful afternoon of checking out All things Thomas, we usefully went home, where all of us, except for Andy who was driving, fell asleep in the car..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This was not at Thomas, but at a vineyard the weekend prior. A barrel tasting. Alex did not find the barrels to be very tasty.

I prefer my wines a bit more milky

My face looks huge, yes?

Must always end on a cute note