I'm pushing the odds

So I've met yet another imaginary friend from my Positive Discipline board and I'm still not dead and stuffed in a trunk!  Meagan (meeeegan) and her family were up from Florida (no, I couldn't meet her when I was in Orlando b/c they don't live in THAT Florida.  They live in the Alabama one).  I'm always amazed at how kids can be instant best buds with kids they've never seen before.  Ben and Sean were plotting evil and cracking themselves up quite thoroughly.  We went to eat at Great Sage--a terrific vegetarian place in Clarksville, MD, owned by a bonkers-but-fun former coworker of mine--and Ben was unable to play his usual building-things-out-of-sugar-packs-and-creamer game, so he and Sean and Christian wielded the big wooden salt and pepper shakers ("It's the Saltinator!  The Pepperator!") until the food came.  There was noise.  I'm fairly certain the staff were happy to see us go.

They were all quite lovely and not as scarred by the proximity to Alabama as I might have feared.  Or at least they were faking it pretty well.

Like music to my ears

2005 was the year in which I started listening to current music again!  I never thought it would happen to me.  I'd never be one of those moms with no idea what is cool, calling music "that noise", clinging to the pop hits of my youth. Somewhere along the way, the kids crowded out WHFS, the "alternative rock" station.  I never succumbed to Raffi and the Wiggles, but I did listen to a lot of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Dan Zanes, Laurie Berkner, and the Most Holy--Philadelphia Chickens.  There was "kid safe" non-kid music--They Might Be Giants ("What does he mean, 'chesspiece face?'"  "It's They Might Be Giants, sweetie.  It doesn't mean anything."),  Beatles, Bob Marley.  But I lost the cultural thread.  I didn't know the bands playing on Veronica Mars, I was missing cultural references. 

I'd dropped out in the Blur, Blink 182 era.  I didn't really like that stuff anyway. Now, 5 or 6 years later, WHFS is a salsa station.  Fun, but not what I'm after.  But Amazon is looking out for me.  Amazon knows I like Squirrel Nut Zippers, Elvis Costello, XTC...it gave suggestions, I listened to some clips, stuck them on my wish list and forgot about it.  On my birthday (Aug. 31.  Mark your calendar.  Buy now), my friend Stacey sent me two CDs from my list--Franz Ferdinand and Get Away from Me by Nellie McKay.  They both ROCK.  And the kids love them both, esp. Nellie McKay which is, in fact, full of naughty words, but people, get a grip.  And then I got the second Franz Ferdinand album--right when it came out!  Like I knew something about music! and it was also great.  Then Daily Candy, which sends me daily notices of cool things, listed some good songs.  One of them was by Rilo Kiley, and it was great!  So I got THAT album and the kids loved it.  And I just got Fiona Apple's latest, on recommendation of a radio guy, and it's great too!  So, either I've just become totally non-discriminating, or I've found a thread of music I like.  And now Pandora is leading me down the path even further, saying "well, if you like THAT, how about this?"  New music!  yay! 

And, as a side note, I suddenly got all these 80s mixes.  The pop hits of my youth.  Kids like that, too.

You know, it's quite possible that I'd grown so sick of our CDs that I'd have been enthusiastic about Jingle Cats, but go listen to something new today, anyway.  All the cool kids are doing it.

An assortment

Here are some things:

--Missing the Point  overheard at the Chinese restaurant on Christmas day (known to our Jewish friends as "The Festival of Lo Mein"): And elderly Jewish woman (and I know she was Jewish because a) she was in the Chinese restaurant and b) she had been going on earlier about "schmaltz" and "chopped liver") was excitedly telling her son and daughter-in-law that she had a new, better way to make latkes.  "You just put them in a casserole dish and you don't need to use any oil at all!  They're just as good and not so fatty."  A Great Miracle Happened Here!  Where there should have been 8 grams of fat, there are none!

--What my brain does when I'm trying to fall asleep  So you know how when someone has a kid who turns out to be quite the opposite of the parents, people make some crack about Alex P.Keaton?  While I was trying to nap yesterday, I ended up musing about this.  You know, Alex is not the opposite of his parents at all.  His parents were thoughtful (if smelly hippy) rebels.  Alex, really, is the same.  He has rebelled against his own parents, which has led him to his Republican stance, and he is a thinker, even if a misguided one.  Mallory, on the other hand, hasn't a thought in her head and is happy to go with the crowd.  Is mortified, in fact, at the thought of doing otherwise.  Mallory, then, in the one who is totally unlike her parents.  Your witness, sir.

Ben's review of March of the Penguins--"Penguins walking, penguins swimming, blah blah blah blah."

So this is Christmas

The barfing has stopped, praise be.  I made up the futon couch for Lily and I last night so that if she continued to hurl, at least it wouldn't be on the Tempurpedic (do not MESS with my bed or my TiVo, people).  I put down towels and then the sheet.  I put a towel between her pillowcase and pillow.  I had the barf bowl handy, as well as tea towels and 2 changes of clothes.  I was SET.  She, of course, slept soundly all night.  I, on the other hand, was on Red Alert and popped awake everytime something in the house made a noise.  Not. Restful.

She happily informed me that it was "mornin' time!" at 6:30, so we got up and I put Snow White into the VCR and fell back "asleep" on the couch while she gazed upon her beloved.  Then she wanted noodle soup.  Finally, Ben and Julianna got up, so I distributed stockings ("Julianna, it is not considered polite to say, "Why did you get me THIS?" when someone gives you a present.").  Julianna loved the little vinyl pheonix I gave her, Ben loved his parachute guy, Lily loved her kalidescope.  I gave them the "santa" gifts--games--and then I stagggered back to bed.  Crawled out at noon.  Muuuch better.

Ben has screamed and cried most of the day about one thing and another.  Steve first thought he was hungry, and food did calm him for a bit.  But then something else set him off.  Getting sick?  Maybe.  Flat out evil?  Seems likely.  It's the first night of Hanukkah tonight and he is outraged--OUTRAGED--that it isn't Hanukkah until sundown.  Whose idea was THAT?!?  WHY?!?  I WANT IT NOW!  I HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH!!!  Oy.  yet I understand there are those who like Christmas.  Go figure.  But hey, some people keep scorpions as pets, too.

Home for the Holidays

Well crud.  Julianna was barfing her guts out last night so we won't be going to my folks' house today.  She keeps gamely insisting that she's "feeling better" but it's not all that convincing with her lying on the couch like a 100 lb sack of potatoes.  So of course, all the kids are very disappointed.  They wanted to see the cousins.  And, of course, "What about our PRESENTS?!"  I assured them that I still had their stocking gifts, the "santa" gifts, the Hanukkah gifts.  "But what about the presents we would open tonight?  From Nonnie and Papa, from the cousin that drew our name?!"  So I said, okay, I'll give you a present to open tonight.  Ben burst into tears. "I've waited all this time and I have to wait until NIGHT?!? It's not FAIR!" (note to kids, scores of whom surely read this blog: "It's not fair" is not a defense.  Parents never go for it.  In fact, as often as not, it makes them want to vote AGAINST you.  Yeah, totally not fair.  I know.)  He was unconsoled by my telling him that even if we were AT my folks' house, there would be no presents until night time anyway.  I was able to cheer them up with the notion that now Santa would have to come to our house and we could leave the fireplace doors closed and he'd be trapped in there in the morning, tapping on the glass. Maybe he'd look up and see the dreidle lights hanging from the mantel and realize his fatal mistake.  The big ones cracked up while Lily sat there intoning, "But there's no such THING as Santa."  Right, that's why it's funny to trap him in the fireplace, sweety.  Holiday Magic manifests differently in our household of non-believers.  The annual Ideas for Torturing Santa will surely become tradtion.

I'm bummin' too, though.  Even though the house is way too crowded at Christmas, with something like 50 grandkids tearing around screaming and making shooting noises, it IS what we do.  And I like to be with MY parents on xmas.  I like to eat too many cookies and laugh about past holidays with my siblings.  Maybe play some cards.  Eat my dad's fruit salad for breakfast on xmas morning.  poop.  (I meant that as an expression of disappointment, not as part of the list of things I like to do.  Although I DO enjoy a good dump. But it's not especially magical at my parents' house).

So I plan to make real egg nog tonight, because nothing settles a queasy stomach like raw eggs and heavy cream.  I'll give the kids a gift to open, give Steve his gifts (other than the Nano, which he couldn't wait for), and tomorrow, we'll see how everyone feels.  If the barfies have passed we'll go to Delaware. My snowbird parents will flee for Florida sometime next week, hopefully we'll catch them before they go.

Update at 4 pm:  Now Lily is barfing, too.  We went to the grocery to get saltines and ginger ale for Julianna, and Lily hurled all over the sidewalk outside the store.  A nice nurse came up and offered to help, to go in and get my groceries for me.  I assured her that we could just go home and I'd come back without her.  Trying to console Lily she said, "Well, Santa's going to come anyway.  Don't you worry.  And he'll make you feel better."  Lily sobbed, "But dere's no such FING!"  I don't think Nurse caught it b/c she kept on.  And so did Lily.  I wanted to say, "Look, I think you're overstating the healing powers of Santa.  Even if he WERE real, I don't think there's anything in his mythology to suggest he heals the sick.  You're getting your theologies muddled."  But I just said thanks and scuttled away.  So now I'm trapped here w/a heaving toddler.  My stomach is queasy, but it's that weird am-I-hungry-or-nauseated kind.  Serious humbug here, folks.

Nothing is as funny as Uranus.

Is there anything with the comic staying power of Uranus?(See what I mean?)

>> Without such replenishment, the dust in the ring would slowly spiral in toward Uranus. Collectively, these new discoveries mean that Uranus has a youthful and dynamic system of rings and moons.<<

Y'see, the Hubble telescope has sent back pictures that show rings around Uranus. (snicker.  honest to god, nothing cracks me up like that.  I should have majored in astronomy and been happy all my days).

names, and too many critters

As of now, the babies are Mistletoe, Latke, Candy Cane, and Winter.  Winners can pick up their pigs in a couple of months.

And now we have 3 hermit crabs as well.  A neighbor girl had one and decided it was too much hassle so I said I'd take it.  And then I read about hermit crabs and discovered they're really very social.  So I went to the pet shop (damn, are their hermit crab rescues?  I didn't even check) and handed them my wallet and walked out with two wee crabs and a big pile of crap.

Crabitat:


And meet Solstice (named by Julianna), Sunny (named by Lily), and Sharkey (guess)


Sharkey was the original crab.  He's big and looks just like Mr. Krabbs from Spongebob, so *I* wanted to name him Eugene (what, you didn't know Mr.Krabbs' first name?  loser.), but nooooo.

Call me Dr. Doolittle.  Well, I never finished the Doctoral program, so we'll go with Master Doolittle.

home again home again

We're back.  Uneventful journey, which is the best kind.  No one wants eventful plane travel.

I went in today to pick up one of the foster pigs to cuddle while I read my mail.  There were 4 babies.  EEK!  Apparently, Autumn came to us preggers.  Now we need 4 wintry names.  Help name the babies!  If I pick your name, you get the pig!

Magic, my ass

Okay, even though my feet and calves and nerves hurt from a day in AK, I opted to join my crew in the Magic Kingdom on  Friday (was it Friday?  I have no idea what day it is at any given moment).  Everyone was just really wiped, so we didn't even get rolling until noonish.  Didn't actually make it to the park until 2 and had to be at the Contemporary for dinner at 5, so it wasn't really that long.  Took the monorail in.  Of course.  I mean, why would you take any other form of transport?  We can take a ferry pretty much anywhere there's water.  But a Monorail! (and, btw, Steve and I have driven the kids nuts by chanting "Monorail!" everytime it's mentioned,  in reference to the Simpsons episode.  Monorail!) 


That pic's just for you, people.  In Germany, STeve and I knew a woman who had been a Minnie at Disney World.  She could do the voice, one of the few allowed to speak.  Ever seen that video of a Disney stage show where Minnie falls off the stage?  That was Marti.

It was much more crowded, Steve said.  We headed right for the Jungle Cruise, stopping to take the pic of me in Mouse Ears and get Ben a sweatshirt, since I'd forgotten his at the hotel, and it was chilly ("But Mommy, you dont buy character clothing!"  "yes, but I'm not going to let my boy freeze and you can't buy ANYTHING in Disney w/o a character on it.  I mean, the ice cream is shaped like a damn mouse").  They hadn't taken the kids on the Jungle Cruise on Monday and children must be exposed to bad puns early, lest they develop no sense of humor at all.  I do love the Jungle Cruise, it's just so campy.  And after having been on the "safari" the day before, the mechanical animals were kind of hilarious.  Lily was terrified on the cruise.  Go figure.  I was surprised that they still had "headhunters" and scary "natives" on the cruise.  My offense-o-meter is faulty, but I did wonder what black patrons thought of the whole thing.

We tried to go to Big Thundermountain Raliroad but there was a LINE!  As if!  So we got a Fast Pass and headed off to Tom Sawyer Island, which the kids had missed on Monday as well.  Along with the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house, I remembered the Island as oneof my favorite things at Disney from my teenage trips.  I realized that they were my favorites mostly b/c there was no line, it was quiet there, and you could just meander. As an adult, it seemed more calculated, but really, it's still a welcome break.  You know, I'd spent like an hour out there.  I needed rest, people!  The kids loved Tom Sawyer island.  Ben found the fort and its wonderful, wonderful guns.  Lily discovered the Barrel Bridge--or squishy bridge, as she called it.  Lily, Julianna, and I went over that bridge about 20 times.  We did it once and Lily said "Let's do that a million times!" She giggled the whole way over every time.  And, to her credit, it is really fun.  It's just a bridge draped over floats, so that when you step, it goes down, so it's very bouncy.  Too soon, we needed to go get in the Fast Pass lane for the roller coaster.  Lily and Grandma went to Minnie's House (for the bazillionth time, apparently).

I am really amazed by the line structure at Disney.  It's designed so that it always looks like you're ALMOST there.  But you aren't.  You aren't even close.  Even with a Fast Pass, we had to wait about 15 min.  That's our limit, dude.  It IS a good coaster, not fancy, but fun.  But if I'd waited more than 15 min, I'd have been bitter.  Okay, more bitter.

As soon as we got off we had to hoof it to the monorail (Monorail!) to get to the Contemporary to meet Stacey and her lot for dinner at Chef Mickey's.  My love for the Contemporary is nearly unbounded.  It's the Hotel of the Future, people!  Those mosaics in the middle! The A-frame design!  The monorail goes right through it (Monorail!)!  I could sit in that lobby for ever.  In fact, I want to live there, with the mosaics and the monorail (Monorail!) zooming over head.  It's just perfectly futuristic.  Love it.  Walt knew about futurism, even if he totally blew it on the hey-lets-have-giant-8 ft-tall-mice!-in pants! front.  Sadly, I had stop gawking and go to "dinner."  Stacey had booked us a character dinner at Chef Mickey's.  Now, had it not been in the Contemporary, I'd have not gone anywhere near it.  But, you know.  Remember how I looooved that breakfast with Donald?  Well, it was like that, only all the kids were totally wound up.  Next to us was a room full of 8 year old boys with only about 3 grown ups to wrangle them.  They were...loud.  And then there was the horrible horrible loundspeaker blasting horrible horrible music.  Have I mentioned how much I hate Grandma Got RanOver By a Reindeer?  I did?  Well, let me must say again, I hate it a LOT.  So.  The room was crowded, there were giant, clothed animals coming in every few minutes (Lily: "Yook mommy!  A chickmunk!"  "Sure it's not a chincilla, honey?"), kids were pinging around like...I dunno...heated molecules, the music was loud, our waitress was kinda mean, the food sucked, one of the soft serve ice cream machines broke meaning that all 800 kids were in line at the same time, trying to get a spoonful of ice cream over which they could dump sauces and candies at the sundae bar...it sucked.  Let's leave it at that.

After dinner, there was a pin-trading activity.  Now, I knew little about pins.  Stacey had told us about pin trading and given each of the kids a lanyard and a couple of pins to get started.  There are these metal pins with characters on them.  Gobs of them.  Series.  Limited Editions.  All the "cast members" wear them and you can trade pins with them.  Generally, they'll give you what you want, if you're a little kid.  Grown-ups do this too, of course, and they swarm all over the web, tryig to complete a set or get that one elusive pin they need to complete their collection of animal villains from 1980s animated features. Whatever.  It is hard to resist, I must admit.  Luckily, I was able to channel my energies to my children.  We went to a Disney outlet store to get some cheap pins to trade.  Went a bit overbord, I'm afraid.  Then it turned out that Julianna was only allowed to trade 5 and Lily was only allowed to trade 2.  But they enjoyed it.  Even though it involved ANOTHER DAMN LINE.  Before they entered, Stacey warned Julianna to only trade with cast members b/c there are local "sharks" that come to these things and coach their kids to snag the "good" pins and take advantage of little kids who just want a pin with Belle on it.  I mean really.  People.  Get a grip.

Ben was dying to go back to the Disney Quest arcade, but Julianna, Lily and I just went back to the hotel.  And that was it for me.  No. more. parks.

Yesterday, Julianna stayed in with me while the others returned to Epcot.  They came back fairly early and we went to Boma again for dinner.  Yum.  Then I took Julianna to see the Harry Potter movie while the others went back to Disney Quest again.

Today, MGM was on the schedule, but it's 10:30 and Steve and Ben are still sleeping.  It's kind of yucky outside, so my FIL went to find indoor alternatives and he's hoping to push the Science Center on them.  But Ben is keen to buy this Star Wars thing at the Star Tours gift shop and Julianna wants to ride the Rockin' Roller Coaster, so we'll see.

Hey Kool-Aid!!

Have you tried the Kool-Aid at Disney?  It goes down sooooo easily...

I'm melllllting

Okay, I went into a park.  Now stop hassling me.  I'd never been into Animal Kingdom, and the promise of actual animals that are the normal height and not wearing clothes did lure me in.  I do love me a critter.  The started out at a hair raising 6:00 am.  People, the only time I see 6 am is if Lily has awakened at 3 am with a sudden need for cheese, a good poop, and 3 hours of Playhouse Disney programming.  I usually get to stagger back to bed at 6.  This is not a time for waking, motivating, and going places.

ESPECIALLY not if the place is "Donald's Breakfast-osaurus" (yeah, no kidding).  We got there before the park was open ,  slogged to some restaurant or other (I have no idea where it was.  We just followed the directions of the workers.  Camp Minnie Mickey is my guess, based on the "old time camp lodge" theming).  The  food was on a buffet and was reVOLTing.  Quite a change from the world class yummy buffet in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.   A little less time finding picture perfect castiron servingware and a little more time learing how to cook actual eggs would have been a good first start.  Powdered scrambled eggs sitting in a puddle of mystery liquid....ick.  The hard boiled eggs might well have come from a child's play set.  The bagel.  Oy, the bagel.  It was the least bagely bagel I've ever had.  Lender's are New York deli quality compared to these. No wonder all the Jews just keep right on going through Orlando on the trek to South Florida..  And then the characters came in.  I am 38 years old and those things still send shivers down my spine.  I fled the room, leaving them to do with my children what they would.

We went to dinoland after breakfast, to find that Ben was too short to ride the cool rollercoaster.  He was heartbroken and sobbing.  A "cast member" (that irks me for some reason, but hey, what doesn't?) swooped in,  and escorted us right onto Dinosaur!, hoping to cheer Ben up.  Turns out, no.  No,that was not a cheering ride.  It was Scary.

...more to come...

Okay, I'm back.  Scary and traumatic 'though the ride might be, Sean the cast member did impress me.  He came from nowhere, like an alarm went off at Central Command--WHOOP WHOOP UNHAPPY CHILD IN SECTOR 5, RESPOND!  He was this huge Scottish guy with a wry sense of humor and not at all like the scary humanoids  you see in the parades.  THOSE scared me.  The parade in Animal Kingdom is, for the most part, wicked cool.  Big body puppet things like they have in the Lion King musical, but really bright colors.  And the characters are creepy, that goes without saying.  But the dancing, make-up wearing cast members...*shudder*  Think Up With People, only like 35 years old.  Old enough to know better, certainly.  All the men looked like that dude from Will and Grace that everyone says is so funny (never seen it, meself). All the women looked like your mom did in 1964, but in white sneakers and bobby socks.  And, of course, Santa hats with mouse ears.  Sweet Lion of Zion, I am SICK of santa hats.  And the song "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer"  please, please make it stop.  I heard it 3 times before 9:30 am.  Surely that violates the Geneva Convention.  Not that this administration cares, but still.  Remember that that song was kind of subversive?  Your mom would act annoyed if you sang it and you felt so BAD.  I assure you that if Disney's piping it through the loudspeakers thrice an hour, it's lost its edge.  Oh right, what was I saying?  Sean.  Right.  Nice fellow.

Heartbreaker moment of the day:  Recall I mentioned that Ben loved the lizards?  Here in Florida, there are just lizards everywhere.  He was entranced.  Then as we're walking through Animal Kingdom, we see this pretty egret.  It's just striding along with us, like a really fancy pigeon.  Suddenly, it darts its head into the bushes.  And comes out w/a lizard in its beak.  Which it eats with relish.  And goes back for another.  Ben. flipped. out.  "I HATE THAT BIRD!  I HATE ALL BIRDS! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT!!!!!!"  oh he went on.  And he cried.  And it was really sad.  Poor li'l monkey.  We told the komodo dragon about it and assured Ben that it would eat the next egret that landed in his enclosure.

The kids got their faces painted.  the women doing the painting were really talented (I'm sure they get a LOT of practice) and the results were great.  Steve and I decided that that's what make-up should be.  If you're going to a party, you should be putting on swirls and sparkles, not just purple eyelids.


Lily the Cheetah:


Ben got a snake:


Note to gift buyers--Steve and I would like a giant flying fox enclosure built onto our house.  These are bats a little bigger than chihuahuas and looking like foxes.  They were SO cool.  We'd have happily stayed in the bat house the rest of the day.  I tried to get a pic of the one that spent about 15 min licking his own penis.  Probably explains why bat culture never really advanced much.

Barring a gift of giant Malaysian bats, I'd like goats.  We went to a petting zoo, which, of course, means goats (isn't there at least one animal besides sheep and goats that is safe to put in a petting zoo?  Anything? ).  As we went in, the keeper said we had to put away our maps b/c the goats like paper.  I don't think he was as clear as he might have been.  A goat, who we later learned was named Frank, stuck his head into the tiny opening in my mother-in-law's purse, snatched out her map, dove under the ropes that guests cannot cross, handed off the map to an accomplice goat and melted into the goat crowd.  It was brilliant.  The goats fell on the map like it was the very finest of treats.  The fellow whose job it is to clean up goat poo (stay in school, kids!) got the map away and told us stories about Frank stealing traveler's checks, free drink coupons, and more.  I kinda love Frank.

Other cool things:  De-vine, the woman with stilts on her feet AND hands, covered entirely in vines, who hangs out in trees and moves every now and then just to freak you out.  Getting to stay on the Kali River Rapids ride for a second pass.  The incredible attention to detail in the "theming" of the park.  The frosting on the cupcake we ate at the Tusker walk-up window.

Uncool: the absolute shit quality of the skirt I bought Julianna after she got drenched on the river rapid ride and could no longer walk.  The presence of monkeys.  The flippin' idiocy of my fellow tourists who drop their straws and drink lids on the ground, making it so that these items are banned from AK.

A few Disney pics

I'm sorry if these make you scroll back and forth.  I'm away from my photo editing software, so they're going up raw...

Julianna squashes the teeny weeny Germans.  They had it coming.


Lily and her beloved Snow White.  This is all she's talked about for weeks, "I'm going to see Snow White!"  For the record, she has never seen the movie.


I'm worried that Steve is going to leave me for the Fairest of Them All.  Apparently she was really good with the kids.  Who knew that was going to be something he looked for in a chick?  I mean, really.

Ben in Norway:


I just love this one of Lily:




\
Julianna looooved the People Mover. 


With the grandparents.

Not an axe murderer among them

I met 3 old imaginary friends from my "baby board."  I started posting with these women when Ben was a baby.  Claire is on both my baby board and my PD board and she came to get me at the hotel.  Her son Alexander hit it off with Lily, since Ben still had the morning surlies (gotta get that boy on coffee) and wouldn't even say hi.  We drove to Tampa to Karen's house, since she just had a baby (number 6!  hello?).  Amy and her boys came to Karen's too.  I was glad to finally meet them.  They were supposed to come to MY house last spring, but there was some still-not-totally-clear board blow up and the group split and there was much drama.  And no visits to Six Gables. poo.   Anyway, lots of kids, all adorable, all well behaved (mine weren't there, obviously).

The rest of my family went to Epcot.  I got a text message from Steve that said, "Epcot is lame.  Shopping and food."  But eventually they found the fun stuff.  Julianna and Lily both got to be in a show.  Ben found lizards in a bush and fell in love with the minature railroad.  I will now dedicate my life to finding a place to build a railroad village.  I looove them.

Last night, we had dinner at Boma, the restaurant in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  YUM!!  much, much yum.  The soups were insanely good.  A heavy hand with the sugar and the cinnamon, which is always nice.  The lodge is really gorgeous, too.  Quite impressive.  Those Disney people know how to build big things that catch the eye.

Today, the troops go to MGM.  The mama stays in and makes jewelry.  Maybe reads a book.  Who can tell?

The Happiest Place On Earth

Vacation, all I ever wanted.  We're in Florida right now.  My kids, husband, in-laws, best friend and her kids are all somewhere on the Disney property.  I'm somewhere on the Marriott property.  Alllll alone!  Just me, endless VH1 countdown programing, a big box of jewelry making supplies and a case of Coke Zero.  Life is good.  And quiet.

I did the Washington Post crossword puzzle.  I played solitare with actual cards.  I made a bracelet for a friend, earrings for myself, and started another necklace for a different friend.  I went for a walk in the sunshine around the creepily sterile property.  It always unsettles me when the plant life is alien.   Everything is green here, of course, b/c Walt Disney outlawed the icky seasons and their unpredictable changes.  All the palm trees have OTHER plants growing on their trunks.  Epiphytes, or air plants,are just stacked up on them.  We sold those damn things by the truckload at the Sea Shell Shop so long ago.  I could pluck off all I could cart.  Not that I would, because they're kinda ugly.  Also all these ferns growing out of the trees.  It's odd.  It's unnatural.  It is not the way of the Mid-Atlantic plants and, therefore, to be feared.

Tomorrow, I go to visit heretofore imaginary friends!  Hi Claire, Karen, and Amy!

I feel pretty!

Okay, if you have a self-esteem problem, this probably isn't the link for you.  I got this link from a friend who thought it was really cool.  It's face recognition software--you upload a picture of yourself and it tells you what celebrity you resemble.  My friend got Nicole Kidman and Annette Benning.  She thought, Ooh, cool program!  I got Helmut Kohl.  Really.  So, use it at your own risk.

http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php

Snow Day!

Snow fell from the sky, so school is closed (predictions of snow get a 2 hour delay).  Back in MY day, we trudged our butts up the drive to wait in the snow for the bus for the 6 hour ride to school.  An open-air bus, mind you.  Full of chickens and goats.  Or maybe that was that trip to Tijuana...I can never keep it straight.

Anyway, this was the view from our porch this morning:


So I trotted the kids out and shot a holiday card.  So here you go, HAPPY HOLIDAYS (and by holidays I mean all of them.  Take the one you like, Christmas, Chanukkah, Arbor Day, Ramadan, Grandparent's Day, whatever):



And it all quickly devolved into this:


To see the whole photo shoot, which IS fairly amusing, click here.

on Safari

After dropping the big Squids off at school, we're sitting at a traffic light.

Lily: Wook at dat, mom!

Me(seeing a squirrel on the sidewalk): Yeah, a squirrel.

Lily: Is dat a squirrel or a chinchilla?

Me:  That's a squirrel, honey.

Lily, with infinite patience: I not a honey, Mommy.  And I'm pwetty sure dat's a chinchilla.

In other news: I just lost a contact lens.  It popped off my eye and I went to put it back in.  It fell off my finger and onto the DuPont Lenzeater carpet.  I spent much time with a flashlight and a magnifying glass (note to Steve: Oh, that carpet has to go.  ew.) to no avail.  I'm sure the fact that the cat kept sitting her fat ass right in the middle of it all had nothing to do with it.  I'm annoyed.  I don't want to have to wear glasses to Florida.  I halfheartedly go down to see if I have an extra left lens from some previous lens loss...and YES, yes I do!  Woo hah!  Happiness reigns over chinchillatown.

Avast!

Okay.  Done.  Steve came through and remembered where the power drill was and I was able to get on with my shipbuilding.  It went much more smoothly before Ben got home, once he saw it, I had to keep shooing him away b/c he was leaping about, trying to fire the plunger from a whiskey bottle.  yes, yes he was.

In full sail:



And with the sail up (I made it like a Roman blind).  It goes kinda wonky, but hey.
Mr. Squidward keeps a look out:

shipwreck

In my quest to remain in good standing with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I've promised to make Ben's bed into a pirate ship of sorts.  I bought a mast today and have come up with ta plan for the sail.  But when I went to attach the mast...no power drill/screwdriver.  Hmmm.  It's not in the bathroom, where I left it.  Oh yes, Steve announced--perhaps a bit derisively--that he had put away the drill just last weekend.  So I look, but I cannot find.  I call him, he tells me that it is "where it lives" on a shelf in the basement.  But no.  He is stumped.  I am stumped.  What have we learned?  Well, we could reach for that tired old crowd pleaser "No good deed goes unpunished."  But me?  I prefer, "Don't put things away.  If you do, you'll never find them again."

The teapot revealed

Okay, enough.  Here's the damn teapot:



As I said, it's JUST a teapot.  When carried as a handbag, it's wicked cool, but there's nothing particularly remarkable about the teapot itself.  Really, to see people's faces when you pop off the top and pull out a lipstick.  It's priceless.  Or, more precisely, about $20 at your local Asian restaurant supply store.  Provided you live in the Sunset in San Fransisco.

And while I wasn't really going to put that pic of Ben in the grandparent's calendar, I'm now thinking I need a Calendar of Dorkiness for myself.  I'll keep you posted.

Which is the "dork month"?

So, I'm trying to make a calendar at Shutterfly...which month should I put this one on?

Meet you at the Concorde!

Steve works for a big company.  You've heard of them.  For the holiday party, the company rents out the new Air and Space Museum, the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center (doesn't that just roll off the tongue?).  It's big.  Very, very big.   How big is it?  Well, it's so big that when it sits around Dulles Airport, it sits AROUUUNND Dulles Airport.  Actually, it's so big, it not only contains an actual Space Shuttle and an actual Air France Concorde, it contains scads of other planes as well. It's so big that it's virtually impossible to keep warm, even on the government dime, so I got to be smug (for the second year in a row) about wearing a vintage cashmere cardigan instead of a spaghetti strap dress.  Here are some shots for scale.  No, we don't know any of these people.


That's an actual Concorde.  With a DC-8 next to it (which, by the way, is how planes should look.  THAT'S an airplane, folks).  And lots and lots of room for other stuff becuase this is just one little wing.  Hey, the airplane museum has wings!



It was large, I tells ya.

In addition to airplanes, the joint was full of food.  Many, many buffet lines.  Standard American fare (including a mashed potato bar, which I thought was the cutest thing), Indian food, Chinese food (which was to be loaded into little take out containers), all the sushi you can eat (which, it turns out, is rather a lot)...given the ethnic mix of the attendees, I think everyone was happy.  Oh, and dessert.  Lots of yummy dessert.  They had the now-required-by-federal-entertainment-law chocolate fountains, in dark, milk, white, and caramel.  Folks were a leeetle too impressed, given that you can buy them at Toys R Us.  And dude?  There was white chocolate cheesecake.  Who cares about crappy ass melted "chocolate"?  Open bar, need I say more?  The joy of wasting other people's money is that you can say "whiskey sour, please" have a few sips, ditch it, and move on to another drink.  Given the amount of food in my gullet, I could have cleared the bar and not gotten tipsy.  Oh, and glowing ice cubes.  People loooved those.  They kinda creeped me out.  "Gin and Tonic, hold the uranium, please."

Did I mention that there's a Space Shuttle in there?  I don't know which one.  One of the ones that didn't kill anybody, I suppose.  Steve does like to rant about it, dear thing.  We ran into one of his friends from work and Steve started to launch into one of his "space-based money waster" rants--a good natured one, though, because it's the holidays--and his friend kind of rolled his eyes like an indulgent teenage son and said, "Is this a Thing, like you and the UN?"  Yes.  yes it is.  But humor him or I'll kick your ass.  The cool thing is that he could snack on desserts while shooting baleful glances at it:



Here's the shot from the entry to the Hall of Failed Experiments



See the dude on his cell phone?  There was a lot of that.  They're like little navigation devices--"Meet U at the Concorde!"  Things are cool.

Speaking of cool things--Jet Pack!


Why weren't we pouring money into THAT technology, huh?  I could get the kids to school in a trice if we had jet packs.

We didn't stay very long, since we had to spring the kids from our very kind neighbors who were staying up past their bedtimes to entertain my spawn.  We essentially hit the ground eating, grazing our way around the hall.  Me, I'm a dessert gal, and I only regret that the richness of mousses and cheesecakes keeps me from eating as much as I want to.  Steve, on the other hand, was made very happy by the sushi, which came out on little baggage carousels.  It was kind of a funny scene, each conveyor belt surrounded by hawk-eyed sushi-lovers, letting the daikon and cucumber go by, waiting for that unagi or yummy yummy octopus.  Heeerrree it comes....YOINK!  Get yer tafetta ass outta my way, that's MY TUNA!

I wish I'd gotten a picture of the woman who had apparently been sentenced, by a rather cruel judge, to be the center of a table on wheels.  She was in the middle of a round table w/a hole in the center. Picture those crocheted toilet paper cozies with the doll in the center.  But in satin.   Her dress cascaded over so that the food was arranged on her dress and she could walk around offering treats.   And making it really hard for me not to walk up and say, "Uh, excuse me, but there's a bit of food on your dress."

In addition to food, there is much people watching.  I've come up with a few fashion rules that need to be stated, apparently.

1. White women look stupid in saris.  Yes, saris are beautiful, I wish Icould wear them, too.  But you look like you're dressing up for a grade school Pageant of the World.

2. If you wear a white blouse and black skirt or pants, you will look like The Help and people will hand you their empty plates.  It is your own fault.

3. Men: you have it easy.  Just wear a damn suit.  And yet, you insist on screwing it up by wearing Warner Brothers ties.  You think it makes you look fun loving.  You think it says, "I'm wearing a tie, sure, but I'm not The Man."  It makes you look like Weird Al Yankovic.  Just buy a grown-up tie.  You are 40 years old and, therefore, a grown up.

Me?  I was a fashion plate, in my matte jersey skirt and vintage cashmere cardigan I got at a thrift shop in Las Vegas.  My children have somehow made my dress shoes disappear, so I wore my slinky red boots.  And I carried a teapot as a handbag.  yes, I did.  It was cool, so shut up.  This is my one dress up event a year, now that everyone I know is married.  I go buy makeup beforehand and then try valiantly to apply it so that I don't look like I got into my mom's stash.  I've promised my imaginary friends shots of me trying a "smokey eye".  Luckily I watch America's Next Top Model, so I know how to pose. Here we have relaxed face, eyes empty;  3/4 face, and Fierce!



I couldn't get the eye quite right.  Then, halfway down our street, I realized I never put on mascara.  At all. I suck at being a girl sometimes.

Anyway, in addition to all of this, there were IMAX movies, rides in those simulator thingies, a comedy club, a dance club, several bands (including a Beatles cover band of 30something guys in wigs.  Watching them rock out to Green Day as the other band finished its set was cracking me up), and some guy relentlessly drumming.  It was...something.  Not your standard office party.