We’ve made a habit out of ordering ribs when we go out to eat. I like knowing that the hounds will benefit from our dinner. And it makes me feel less guilty about leaving them home alone.

I love her freckled nose.

We went to see IllumiNations (a fireworks, water spout, laser light show at Disney’s Epcot) after Sweety took care of some things at work Sunday night. That video was just a tiny bit of the show. I decided to watch the show with my eyes instead of through my camera’s view. Awesomeness, people. A whole wheelbarrow full of awesomeness.

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Today I used some time off of work and visited a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. I felt a teensy bit of guilt that I was taking time off and not doing something with Sweety or staying at home to help LB with his sonofabitching social studies project but it didn’t take much to tamp that guilt down.

We met at The Cheesecake Factory. I was super pleased with myself because I left the house early enough to get there only to realize that I’d driven to the wrong mall. Luckily, I wasn’t too far from my intended target. We ate and talked there for a good four hours and it was great!

Then we watched Black Swan. It is a beautifully done movie. And a complete mindfuck. I’m fairly certain that I’m going to have some seriously whacked out dreams courtesy of it tonight. I can’t wait for it to come out on dvd so I can watch Sweety watch it. Or maybe I’ll go with him to see it in the theater. It was interesting enough that I could watch it again.

On my way home, right about the time that I was getting ready to call Sweety – he sent me a sweet little text. I was so relieved. I was afraid that he was going to give me shit about doing something away from home and he did not. That was nice. I’m going to remind myself of his niceness when I’m wanting to pull out my hair Wednesday night.

What is Wednesday night? That is the night before Thursday morning. Thursday morning is when LB’s social studies project is due. I don’t mind helping someone who is trying on their own too but LB isn’t trying to do a damned thing except bitch about having to read a book for the project (He doesn’t even have to read the whole book! Just 60 pages! He had it at his mother’s house the whole weekend and didn’t read it! I’m SO GLAD that he put off reading it until two days before he’s to finish his project! REALLY GLAD! Gah.) and exude general whiny grouchiness. I’m pretty sure that he’s doing the project incorrectly and he got all pissy when I tried to gently point that out to him so I’m trying to not have a complete attitude of “to hell with it” because I’d like to preserve my relationship with his father.

I think LB is just at that age. That teenage-shitty-attitude-age. We pretty much missed it (so far!) with BB but I think LB is going to make up for the easygoing nature of his brother. While watching a football game tonight I asked a question about something that had happened in the game and he replied with, “Duh!” in an overly loud and sarcastic tone. I don’t think that Sweety heard him because he was busy yelling at the television and it took everything in me to not throw a plate at tell him to go to his room and work on his damned project.

Wednesday night – I will remember the extremely lovely Monday that I got to have and that will keep me from losing it on everyone. I hope.

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There are eleventy-billion other things I should be doing right now. Conquering Laundry Mountain, making the bed and cleaning the house in general are at the top of that list. Making some toast and telling Oliver to quit barking at nothing is near the bottom of that list. Instead, I’m going to tell you about the trip to Disney that I took with the girls next door (ages 12 & 14) last month. I’ve been meaning to blog about it but had a ton of photos to sort through first.

This photo of the castle is my favorite. If you click it, you can see all of the photos I’ve uploaded. Then you can pretend that you went to three theme parks in one day from the comfort of your couch!

The Thursday before we went I called Sweety while I was on my break at work. The sneakers I had weren’t the best in the world and I was wondering if those insole-thingys you can put in them really make them any more comfortable. Sweety offered to pick me up after work so I could get some shoes. I said something about them needing to be broken in and he told me if I got good shoes that they wouldn’t need to be broken in. Oh. Okay. I had no idea. I thought all shoes were supposed to kill your feet the first time you wore them.

I ended up with these. I’d never even tried on a pair of Nikes before because I felt sure that the shoes I found on sale at the discount place were just as good. I have seen the light.

I wore these bitches while pounding the pavement at Disney for approximately 15 hours and my feet did hurt but it took about 8 hours and by the end of the day they didn’t hurt so bad that I couldn’t see straight. Nothing at all like the bloody feet that these beauties inflicted on me when Sweety and I went to the park a couple of months ago. I have worn them all over the place since getting them. I met Sweety with these, some capri jeans, a “New York” t-shirt and my glasses on for lunch one day. He said that I had transformed into my mother. I’m okay with that. I love my Mom.

Anyhow.

We left the house early Saturday morning, parked the car at the Magic Kingdom and took a bus to the Animal Kingdom. I knew we’d end the night at the Magic Kingdom and didn’t want to spend time driving from one park to another. The only thing we did at AK was ride their new coaster Expedition Everest. (That video isn’t mine. I was too busy screaming my head off to entertain the notion of videoing the experience.

Hollywood Studios was next on our list. By using Disney’s Fastpass system where you can get a ticket to hold your place in line and then come back later to ride things, we were able to hit all the big rides there with no really long wait and we caught some shows too. I swallowed my own puke on the Rock N Roller Coaster. I’d been on it before, just never right after eating a hamburger the size of a baby’s head. We also saw Fantasmic! It’s a giant light, firework laser-light kind of show. I! LOVE! IT! This show is the reason I wanted Disney passes. So I can watch it over and over. We also saw The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Lights…how I love lights.

Then we hit the Magic Kingdom. It was right around 9 p.m. when we got there but it didn’t close until 1 a.m. That was a nice surprise. Online the closing time was listed as midnight so we were happy to gain an hour! They have different parades and a fireworks show at the park. I asked the girls if they really wanted to see those or would they rather go on rides. We decided that we could watch parades and fireworks at home on the computer and opted for rides instead. We were incredibly lucky again using the Fastpass system and by skipping the parades. We were able to just walk onto a few rides while everyone else was busy watching those things and we used our Fastpass to ride Space Mountain.

I do not like Space Mountain. It’s a roller coaster in the dark so you can’t see what’s coming up or which way you’re fixing to go. While we were waiting in line to get on (at freaking midnight) they had to stop the ride for awhile but we didn’t know why. I tried to tell the girls that it was a sign to skip the ride but they didn’t believe me. I got tossed around like a rag doll. It was a good end to the day.

I loved seeing the looks on the girls’ faces while they were seeing everything all day long. It didn’t matter if we were going on a thrill ride or doing one of the “kiddie” rides or watching a show – they were happy. I was afraid that they might fuss with each other or feel like they were too old to have fun but it was great! I was so tickled that we got to ride and see everything we’d planned on doing at the park without wasting a lot of time waiting in line. I think the longest wait we had was at Space Mountain and that was due to the technical difficulties that happened.

When we left the park, instead of driving an hour home, we went to Vacation Village at Parkway. I’d mentioned in a post that I’d like to spend the night in Orlando but was too cheap to do so. The incredibly nice Poobah that I know at Vacation Village offered a room to us for free! (And he didn’t ask me to blog about it. I asked him if it was okay to mention it because I didn’t know if it was okay to talk about here since I’m fond of using the f-word.)

It was soooo great to leave the Magic Kingdom and be where we were going to sleep in less than 10 minutes. The best thing was that the time on the highway was minimal and I think I had to make only 2 turns to get to where we needed to be. Traffic leaving Orlando is crazy when it’s closing time at the theme parks but we didn’t have to deal with that. Yay! The resort is freaking huge and new. We didn’t get to the place until almost 2 a.m. and the man checking me in was so friendly. I was an empty-headed and tired idiot but he didn’t make me feel stupid when I had to have him draw me a map to my room because I couldn’t retain anything he was saying. We got to our room (It was like an apartment. Kitchen, living room, jacuzzi tub and a giant shower.), got showers and went to bed around 3 a.m.

When we were checking in I asked if they had late check-out and we certainly did that. It was right at 11 a.m. when we rolled out of there the next morning. As we were leaving and finally looking at the place in the light of day, NeighborGirl(12) said, “I bet lots of people have killed themselves here by jumping off.” while she pointed at all of the buildings at the resort. I told her that I figured most people that came there were on vacation and happy and not inclined to fling themselves from the balcony. I also said that if you were going to jump from a building to pick one that didn’t have a nicely manicured lawn with trees and shrubs to break your fall. Then I told her to forget that we had the conversation and to not tell anyone that Anna was giving her instructions on how to successfully commit suicide from a tall building. When Sweety heard about this conversation he told me that I better watch it or the girls would be grounded from visiting with me.

We went to one of the big shopping malls in Orlando to just wander around a bit and eat before going home. The girls had never been there before either so it was neat to walk around with them.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good time at the parks before. It was cool to go with kids who really enjoyed being there and were excited to do things. I love those girls to pieces!

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Last night I did something out of character. I went somewhere with lots of people and Sweety didn’t go with me. My new friend Mike‘s birthday party was at the VFW and I wanted to go. Sweety had planned on going with me but then got a touch of the cold or whatever crud I’ve been fighting for the past weekish. Part of me (the socially inept nerd part of me) wanted to beg off and not go. Say that I was staying home because Sweety was sick. By the way, if Sweety had been on Death’s door sort of sick, I’d have stayed home. I am not heartless.

But I decided, dammit! I want to go and at least say “happy birthday!”. I gave myself permission to just run in, tell him and some other friends “hello” and leave without my ass even getting a seat warm. Then I got there and contemplated tweeting my birthday greeting from the parking lot without going inside. Then I thought that was Crazy and went on in.

And it was okay. Even though I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin and had to go to the bathroom to whisper-scream a couple of times? I lived with only a small smattering of hives on my body. (By the way, this was the scene of the shushing a couple of months ago.)

Another thing – I didn’t drink any alcohol. This is probably the first time ever that I’ve gone anywhere where there are loads of people and didn’t drink. Since I’m fighting the black death a cold and I was driving myself, I figured it would be best to drink soda. I did go wild and crazy and drink REAL Coke instead of diet. Holy hell, how I love sugar.

I got to meet some people (Um, okay, one. Lauren Mack. And she was as interesting in person as I thought she was online.) that I’ve only known through Twitter and that was really neat. I don’t know why, but she reminded me of my niece. If my niece was a decade older and had blonde hair.

After almost two hours, I decided to head home and ended up timing it just right. As I was getting ready to call Sweety to see if he needed anything, I got a text message from him. “need food” When I called to ask what he wanted, all I heard was a strangled whisper of “food…ginger ale”. I headed into Wallyworld to forage for food and felt light on my feet. I was pleased that I’d done something that made me uncomfortable socially because my mind wanted to do it worse than my racing heart did not.

While pushing the buggy around the store at around 10 p.m., quietly singing my personal theme song to myself and pretending that I was a secret agent in search of milk – I felt pretty good with me. I haven’t really felt that way in awhile.

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