Day 5 - Long Island

Day 5 - His Autism - according to wikipaedia is characterised in one of three ways 1) delayed or abnormal social interaction, 2) delayed or abnormal communication, and 3) restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests and activities. If you exhibit any of these you are said to be on the autistic spectrum. A moments thought will tell you we all exhibit number three to some degree or other. Mostly we call them habits. But just think how uncomfortable and upset you are if someone drinks from your cup at work, or sits in your chair at home or has the temerity to change the presets on your radio. Low level stuff i admit - but it does kind of smack of being on the spectrum to me! Anyway, so it is on our trips to the states, we have a whole host of things we like to do because we have always done them - no one would categorically say these things had to be done and no one would admit to being upset if these things weren't done - but there would certainly be a general sense of things just not being right if these things were not done. Consequently, day 5 was spent ticking things off the list. These primarily were: - shopping in Tanger - eating fish - playing crazy golf, and - having an ice cream Doesn't sound like much i know, but as the time taken to organise any activity is directly proportional to the number of people involved then having an ice cream at a specific place and at a specific time is challenging i assure you. Tanger is an outlet mall - it a spread of asphalt, concrete and neon constructed for one purpose - to sell - and they do it very well, even james admitted he had spent more than he wanted and bought stuff he didn't really need but found impossible to refuse. But then he did spend 6 hours there - that kind of thing is going to  happen after six hours. Patti and I dumped the kids off and headed off to K Mart to have her eyes checked - it is truly astounding how everyday adventures can be. Eating fish may not sound too wild but as these are fish we have caught ourselves there is more behind this than meets the eye. Patti's dad has a boat and another of the great traditions is to take the kids fishing - mostly they don't bring anything back - not because they don't catch anything but because what they do catch is too small to keep - this year they caught a keeper! i have no idea what kind of fish it was but bert cleaned it and gutted it and we ate it. Actually the guys ate it- i don't eat fish - well only if it is in the form of fish fingers - but not if it is in the form of fish - it's the eyes - i can't eat things that look at me as i eat them - my least hated favourite fish is sole - sole has no eyes! I like crazy golf - who doesn't - but the most disappointing thing is coming last - which i did last year with a score of something like 101 - luckily we have a crazy golf in herne bay so only 6 months of practice means i had a respectable score of 42 - i tied with james! - though mostly because i cheated a lot. Ah well tomorrow is going to be taken up with mending the dock so time for bed!