An Elegy for Geauga Lake

I emerge from my pre-wedding blitzkrieg (twelve days and counting!) with sad news: though many of you probably never visited it, the hallowed theme park of my youth, Geauga Lake, announced late last week that it will be removing all but its water rides effective immediately, thus turning it into yet another water park.

I don't know about other areas of the nation, but northeast Ohio already seems pretty saturated with water parks-- Holiday Sands (although no one seems to remember Holiday Sands but me, so maybe I just made it up), Dover Park, Pioneer Waterland... This, sadly, only strengthens my belief that Geauga Lake, as a whole, will be dead within five years, making Aurora devoid of theme-related amusement, but leaving behind it one humongous parking lot.

Unlike many other people, I didn't bat an eye when Sea World left town-- I'm not a big fan of being splashed in the face by whales who are, quite obviously, swimming around in their own urine.

But Geauga Lake was a huge part of my life growing up-- I never worked there (though many of my friends and classmates did, throughout the years-- I prefered the quiet and air-conditioned-ness that my job as a local library bookshelver afforded me), but my dad, being a Geauga Lake FANATIC, took me there three times a week for ten summers: a total of over 400 times.

Did I get sick of Geauga Lake? Yes. There are only so many times you can ride the Big Dipper before you begin to realize that it's just not that much fun to have your soul rattled out of you on a mediocre wooden roller coaster.

But now that it's leaving, I can't help but feel a little maudlin. My dad and I spent many, many hours of our lives there together-- that space needle thing might not have been exciting, or even remotely fun, but it's always been a landmark in my map of the past.

So farewell, Geauga Lake: you will be missed. Except by my mom, who seems thrilled that she will finally be free of your chokehold on my dad.

Where to?

As a gift at my bridal shower two weeks ago, Ben's mom bought me a most extravagant Garmin navigation system. She and I both share an all-consuming fear of getting lost in strange places, so it was a perfectly suited gift.

Unfortunately, though, in the past two weeks I have not actually been called upon to go anywhere I don't already know how to get to (except for Old Time Pottery in Parma, which Garmin led us to most efficiently). So for right now, I'm mostly just performing the age old ritual of Fucking Around With My New Toy Until I Accidentally Break It.

So far, the best feature (other than its obvious navigational abilities) is the fact that I can customize the voice in which the Garmin speaks. For its first two weeks, it was an erudite, Russian-sounding woman named Jill, but just this morning, in a bit of a funk with pre-wedding jitters and mall anxiety (attempting to find a suitable gift for my parents), I changed it over to the soothing sounds of Daniel, a smoking-hot British dude who probably looks a lot like Colin Firth (at least, this is my aural impression of him).

Tonight, I might upload some MP3s and pictures to it, just because I can. And when the price of gas goes down to a more tolerable $2.80 level, I plan to drive myself out into the middle of nowhere and let Daniel lead me home with his sexy, sexy robot voice.

Things I will have time to do when this wedding is over:

1. Shave my legs more than just for bridal showers and dress fittings

2. Eat real meals, instead of nineteen fistfulls of garlic bagel chips from industrial sized bag purchased at BJs

3. Answer e-mail (I hereby declare E-MAIL BANKRUPTCY on all e-mails currently awaiting answering in my hotmail inbox)

4. Monitor TiVo for reruns of Adult Swim cartoons and shows featuring Will Arnett

5. Dwell on the fact that I have a creepy mini-crush on that kid who played George Michael on Arrested Development and is currently rocking it hardcore in Superbad

6. Order photos of the last nine months' worth of events from Snapfish (always uploading, never buying)

7. Write on my blog more than once every ten days or so (sorry, guys!)

8. Actually eat lunch, rather than spending lunch arguing with the people at the Aurora Inn, who apparently have no recollection of the block of rooms I reserved there

9. Go back to avoiding craft stores, instead of spending hours in them choosing just the right fake nasturtiums

10. Sleep. Oh, sweet sleep, I miss you.

Meanwhile, I refuse to give up the fact that our wedding is going to be mega-kick-ass. So in the end, it's all worth it. Superbad!