day 10: cheektowaga, ny

we woke in the morning to the ebullient voice of our nephew porter paul and the tantalizing smell of our industrious sister and brother-in-law’s homemade breakfast (by which we mean that the couple ground their own flour. from wheat grain. in a hand-cranked grinder—are the frequent periods successfully conveying the gravitas here?). m got up first to strategically ingratiate herself to the lad before r had a chance. a simple game of ball tossing interspersed with some face-making (see left) did the trick nicely: auntie m, one; uncle r, zero.

after breakfast, during which porter paul had shied away from his unfamiliar uncle r, m acquainted herself with her little niece, whom she had not yet met, adelaide mae. at eight months old, addie mae is a sturdy gal, which i suppose is necessary for those younger siblings that wish to survive wilder, older brothers, especially those older brothers in possession of toy trucks bigger than said younger siblings.

after the kids (and us two weary travelers) woke up from their afternoon nap we packed into the cars, picked eric up from dental school and headed to niagra falls. on our approach we crossed the channel that connects lake erie with lake ontario. at points the pathway follows along just feet from the banks. the water looks calm and inviting at points, quick and turbulent at others. it rolls along like so many other rivers we’ve seen, unaware of the falls. r found the power, noise and mist intoxicating, while m thought the falls were smaller than she’d expected, though they do exert a mad, peculiar lure. even young porter paul had to be belted into his stroller to prevent him from climbing under the guardrails for a closer look.

eric suggested duff’s buffalo wings for dinner. when you go to duff’s, you order the buffalo wings, a fried vegetable (potatoes or onions) and a pitcher of beer or soda, not just because they are the originators of buffalo wings, but because that’s really all there is to order. this turns out to be a fine arrangement because the wings are tasty indeed. the t-shirts, pinned to the walls their prices, read ‘medium is hot / medium hot is very hot / hot is very very hot.’ although trying to push the envelope, r was too hungry to risk slowing down the eating process, and so we opted for the mediums. perhaps it’s the anticipation, but the highly-acclaimed wings, while delectable, were not galactic. let it be observed that this was addie mae's first dinner out, and let it be also known that she was a gem, content to gnaw on a stick of celery and take in the scene.

once the babies had been put to bed, the adults gathered into the basement for a fierce game of mariocart projected in enormous scale onto a hanging sheet. the effect was magical, and also a bit unsettling as the two most practiced players, eric and r, developed a close rivalry (m finished fourth every time, but let no more be said on the matter).