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.