ABCs of Trip Reporting, Pt. 2-Life Can Be Crappy and Then You Move On (3/7)

[Captain_Oblivious]

OOOHOOOHH I know, I know, I know where you went. ( where's my horseshack smilie when I need him)

I know you had a juggling, swinging good time clowning around too

 

[All7OfUs]

I had a really good reply to this, but it's probably not appropriate for a Disney forum. So just pretend I made you laugh!

:laughing hysterically: I think it had something to do with... never mind I'm laughing too hard to type it.

OOOHOOOHH I know, I know, I know where you went. ( where's my horseshack smilie when I need him)

I know you had a juggling, swinging good time clowning around too

Yes, among many other things this evening. I think we went to bed around midnight or 1 after some other really cool stuff!! This seriously might have been my favorite day of our trip!

 

[maroo]

Hello everyone! I am back!!

I am sorry for my long hiatus from the DIS. I hope to explain a bit about why I have been gone so long - it is a mixture of several things and I hope you will not mind if I catch you guys up on my world real quick - then I hope to jump back in here. I have a LOT of catching up to do on this thread!

Several major things have happened in the past few months that have affected my world in real life and have just taken up my time and thought space to the point where I just didn't have the time or mental/emotional energy to DIS.

First of all, Lauren is settled at college! Helping get her settled in was quite an accomplishment for her parents and me. Lauren has hired 4 wonderful ladies who are splitting 14 eight hour shifts a week to take care of her. This is paid by the State Independent Living Waiver and if Lauren did not have it, she could not live on campus at school. But it literally took an act of "congress" - we had to get a Legislative Review in order for it to be approved in time for her to get to school. Then we had dorm stuff to buy and all the regular "college" stuff to do, too. It was a busy few months!

Now that Lauren is settled in, her Mom and I are splitting "night shifts." The state does not pay for anyone to stay with Lauren at night - and her family can't afford to pay a nurse all night - so her Mom and I split sleeping at the dorm. It really isn't hard - in fact, I am here right now just playing on the computer and watching TV. It is kinda fun to be a small part of dorm life and the only really hard part is finding a place for my dog, Muffin, to spend the night - but I have lots of friends that are playing "foster Mom" to Muffin and she is happy to be hanging out with bunches of people, I suppose - lots more fun than hanging out at my place all the time.

But the main reason I have not been on the DIS is that my time and energy has been wrapped up in a federal case. Literally a Federal Case. Through one of my jobs, I basically came across some records that suggested a terrible crime was being continually committed against people who could not really stand up for themselves. For the last few months I have spent countless hours meeting with lawyers, pouring over reports, creating spreadsheet after spreadsheet to provide details that will help describe the issue and prosecute this person and meeting with federal investigators myself. This has resulted in (finally) the defendant being put in jail. This week I had to give testimony regarding the issue to a Federal Grand Jury. Now that I have testified and since they are in jail, I feel ok sharing this much with you guys.

For obvious reasons, I could not go "public" with this on the DIS. My life is pretty transparent here on the DIS and many people here know me in real life - I consider many of you to be dear friends of mine - but while the person was still out there and not realizing that they were about to get in major trouble, I simply could not post anything about it on the DIS. There was a real flight risk, which is why the person is sitting in jail with no hope for release any time soon. I hope you guys understand.

I will still be a little vague until this person has been indicted for their crime - but that could take quite some time. Now that I am confident that they have been caught and are not going to be getting out of jail for some time, I feel comfortable saying this much on the DIS. Many people in my area know about it now, it is no longer a major secret, but in fairness to the defendant and the people who are still unaware of this person's crimes against them, I will still be vague here.

I will ask you, PLEASE, if you are my Facebook friend - please do not post about this on my Facebook page at all. Please, please. There are FB friends of mine that are still not aware of this. I almost did not post this here because I really don't want posts on Facebook suggesting anything is going on in my world. These people don't come on the DIS, but out of respect for them, I hope that my friends here will refrain from mentioning any of this on my FB page. I am not mentioning anything on there, either.

This person will very, very likely eventually be indicted and this will become public knowledge at some point. I won't mind sharing more details at that time, but for now, I hope this is enough to sort of explain where I have been.

I have enjoyed living life on the DIS - and I am glad to be back! Even my real life friends have either been "in" on this whole thing and have been one of very few confidants or have found me to be too busy to spend much time with them and not really having any idea what is "wrong" with me. I have friends in real life that are wondering where I have been for the past few months, too.

Anyway! I am back! I hope that you guys will forgive my long absence!

Now I have a LOT of reading to catch up on.

 

[Poolrat]

Mary,
Glad to have you back and for all that you have been through. I hope all the legal issues get sorted out and you can finally put that ugliness to rest.

 

[Flossbolna]

Hello everyone! I am back!!

Mary, it is wonderful to have you back!

And thank you very much for sharing your story - at least as much as you feel you can. Having worked for the prosecution office (similar to the DA's office in the US), I can very well imagine the stress you have been under. And I very much admire you to actually takes steps to get this crime investigated instead of just looking the other way - which would have made your personal life much easier.

 

[marvali]

Welcome Back Mary! What a busy and stressful time for you! Congratulations for making the difficult choice and standing up for what is right!

Been keeping up with your reports about Lauren on FB. So happy for her!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi Mary! Sorry you are going through so much. I'm glad to hear Lauren is getting settled in. So wonderful of you to stay with her. I'm proud of you for standing up for the victims - alot of people would have shook their heads and looked the other way.

 

[All7OfUs]

The afternoon marched quickly on, and yet we still had so much to see! We had spent a fair amount of time in NOS, went all the way around the park on one of Walt’s beloved trains, and had walked through Fantasyland where we were “rewarded” with not one, but two rounds of happy, dancing, singing dolls. But before we left the “happiest cruise that ever sailed, we hit up that ever-now-famous (to us) charming little bathroom with the dancing marionette girl. Then we slowly made our way towards Bear Country:

Hope to ride you tomorrow!

Looks fun, but no time today…

Once upon a time, I was a CM inside the Blue Bayou Restaurant. Specifically, I was a hostess who seated guests, set tables and eventually moved up to cashier. It was a wonderful job that paid well and was a ton of fun! I’d work for Disney again in a heartbeat- maybe in my old age...
Anyway, Mom and Aunt Cherrie agreed to let me ride Pirates for a trip down memory lane while they found a shady spot to just sit and talk for a bit, while I stepped over to here:

The line was not horribly long, and I think I got to:

in about 10 minutes. Seriously, I did NOT know that the loading area had a backstory name! You learn something new every day! The pre-show and queue area to this ride is so vastly different here at DLR, and frankly I MUCH prefer this whimsical scene and the bayou cabin scene! I love how it gives a sense of traveling from South Florida and on into the Caribbean with cute little features like twinkling fireflies and dead guys with crabs crawling around them,

and this charming place to stop off for some great Cajun fare:

More scenes along the way:

I had a wonderful and raucous cruise to looted cities and back, and quickly met back up with the others. They were ready to move on, and we remembered that we had been headed to Pooh just after we peed. So that’s what we did. I am quite pleased with how these photos turned out as compared to my ultra-crappy POC ones. The lighting makes all the difference, I guess. Anyway, enjoy the scenes of the Poohy-est ride at DLR!

Now, you must know that although going through IaSW twice can drive one nearly insane, going through Pooh twice generally does not. It is shorter, and the song is far less annoying. So we opted to stay on when we came back to the ride launch area where the background noise is buzzing bees. For some reason that just strikes me as so clever and appropriate!

After cruising through the 100 Acre Wood a second time, we started to ask each other if they were hungry. You know how women do that. Men just come right out and say, “I’m hungry!” Women are more demure in groups of just women and hint around to pass off being polite. After a bit of word jockeying, it was unanimous that we were hungry and by the time we’d actually sit down, order and get food, we’d be REALLY hungry. But where to? Well, first Aunt Cherrie wanted to stop off and look for a couple of gifts for her kids. We ended up here where she found a couple of T-shirts,

And I browsed around too, and found those gifts for the winners on my other thread. I hope you enjoyed them; this is where they were found 

Who doesn’t love the Disney-esque theming oozing from every nook and cranny and ceiling?!?

We made our destination of the New Orleans Café- the other place you can get a Monte Cristo Sandwich, but without the wait.

By a stroke of wonderful luck, we were the very last party they allowed in as we hit it right at closing! We ended up with an indoor table, and were mighty glad of it, as the evening took on a chill that we were ill prepared for. Even so, a door was propped open and we sat a little cold, yet the laughter and stories warmed our hearts, as did the food!


The menu looked fabulous and we had a really hard time deciding what we each would get. I am not a huge eater, so I let my mom decide what to get, and we would split. For starters, we ended up with these:

POMME FRITTES!!! (Glenn and Magdalene, you oughtta LOVE that photo!) They were positively amazing! They were perfectly seasoned, perfectly crispy, perfectly dipped in the side sauces! And of course after all that, it was pretty tough to finish the smoked salmon spinach salad Mom and I shared, and for Aunt Cherrie to eat all of her seafood crepes- which were equally tantalizing! She raved about them for the entire meal, and was generous with sharing. By the time we settled up and left, it was time to find a spot for the fireworks.

I won’t leave you with a bunch of blurry, sad attempts at the show, but instead try to paint a picture of the pure awe Mom and Aunt Cherrie were in. They sat/stood there utterly amazed at the beauty of what they were seeing in the sky and on the castle and on the children’s faces all around us. They could hardly believe that such an remarkable show could exist and be transformed by the music, light show and general scent of Main Street.Like the young ones nearby their faces were carved with wonder and delight at each colorful explosion, and yes, my friends, there were teary eyes and full, content hearts.

We were rather quiet as we headed back up Main Street headed toward the Anabella for the night; what more could be added to the magical feeling we all shared. Something had transcended words; for a few moments all was right in our world.

 

[PlutosRHM55]

Doing some catch-up here, school pulled me behind

Oh, more Taters! They seem to flock to O’Patty very quickly! No matter how big how small or how barker-ish they are. Maybe I’ll have to buy one of those barker-ish ones, they seem interesting. And glad to see Tate O’Patty got himself a new nose, a much better job than MJ’s

Oooooo… Ghirardelli! You guys definitely are on the right track and all your sundaes look delicious and HUGE! I haven’t really been able to check out the Ice Cream shop side of the place, enjoying the free samples on the other end… Mmmmm… Free is always better haha

Oh wow, you definitely got through a lot of “shopping” done even with the little Florida rainstorm. And the shop Tate thought was World of Sports is actually Team Mickey, just an FYI for you And I see you have photographed the one place (Basin) I was confused about, since I know someone who went there, but I couldn’t figure out where it was… now I know I missed it

Oh, I love the Lego Store! They have some great lego sets out now, hopefully I’ll be able to see those when I’m back in WDW. Hopefully it will still be there and they haven’t changed it by then…

Can’t wait to read more!

 

[PlutosRHM55]

Glad to see your back, Maroo! I hope you’ll be able to sort out of your legal troubles soon and get back to just relaxing without having too much on your mind, but good to see you made the difficult choice to do what’s right and have all this investigated. These things don’t happen overnight and you’ve endured a lot. Again, I hope everything is straightened out and all ends just as well for you. Happy to see you’ve gotten Lauren all settled in though, good luck to her! And best wishes to you!

 

[Poolrat]

Glad to hear the trip down memory lane was as wonderful as you imagined it to be.

Twice through Pooh is better than twice through the singing dolls.

Fireworks always bring me to the happy place. Something about the contrast to the darkness of the night and all the beautiful colors that leave me in awe.

 

[PlutosRHM55]

So great, your mom and aunt let you go take a trip down memory lane and ride POTC again. It looks so much better than the one in WDW. I'm guessing that's why most have to worry about long lines for this ride than in WDW. I definitely must try it out when I go in April

I see the Pee before Pooh prophecy is fulfilled It looks so adorable and I love the ride vehicles for this Pooh ride. Everything else seems the same though, but adorable nonetheless And yeah, riding Pooh twice would definitely not bother me, probably because there is more than one song hehe

I must say, that I have a counter-argument to men being very forceful when they are hungry. I can think of one situation where that doesn't happen and another situation where a lady acts like this, but I won't go into that... I'm just saying

The food at Cafe New Orleans sounds delicious, mmmm... though I'm only looking at those Pomme Fritters haha But I think your description of everything else adds to it. I'm in a foody-mood right now, but I'm not forcing food to come before me, am I? Hehehehehe

Awwww... the way you describe your Aunt and your Mom watching the fireworks is just beautiful! It truly shows how deep a long love for Disney can go. If only I could see the day somebody I knew, who has been going to the Happiest Place on Earth as long as them, would walk around the park with me. Their perspective seems very powerful and gives you a great perspective into the place, you may never see again

Can't wait to read more!

 

[KatMark]

Mary, welcome back, and we certainly understand about your absence.

Liesa, what a great update. How sweet that your Mom and Aunt let you ride POTC while they sat and chatted. And love that you rode Pooh twice...it is one of my favorites at DW.

Your lunch sounds simply delicious and I am now sitting here drooling (Mark's not home so I skipped dinner).

I now have tears in my eyes reading about the Fireworks show and everyone's reaction.

Sounds like a perfect way to end a special day.

 

[glennbo123]

Sounds like it was a wonderful evening. I'm glad!

Pomme frittes should really be served with mayonnaise, but I'll let you slide since you liked them so much.

 

[maroo]

well...

The indictment did come overnight...

Here is a link to one of over a hundred articles about this. I found out this evening.

It has been a very difficult night...as the lady that helped me put together the numbers and present them to the Federal Govt was also indicted - facing up to 125 years in prison. This was a shock to me.

She is one of us - the good guys. Three kids. One of those parents that go watch their kids games and track meets. At the wrong place at the wrong time and trying to do the right thing...
just a terrible night for us here.

Link is from an Arkansas news website. Hoping this never ends up on CNN.

http://www.katv.com/story/15430409/3-charged-in-alleged-miss-chemotherapy-fraud

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Wow- that is crazy stuff. I'm so sorry for they young lady who was caught in the fray. I hope she can get justice quickly. You did the right thing, Mary, even if it is painful now.

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Leisa, once again you have shared your day at DL in a way that makes us all experience the joy and the memories with you!

 

[ladylyons]

Maroo you did a great thing even if it's hard now. That's got to be hard on the lady who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hope things go swiftly for her.


Liesa your update put tears in my eyes. It's always emotional to go with people who see the magic the same way you do. Love the updates as always!! As you can see I survived our busy crazy weekend and the first days of school for my older two!! They absolutely loved it and can't wait to go back!!

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Hi Lady! How was your DLR trip? How did your mom do? Hope it was great!

 

[ladylyons]

Hi Lady! How was your DLR trip? How did your mom do? Hope it was great!

Hey!! We actually decided to reschedule the trip, just to much going on to be able to leave for a week before the kids birthday party, school orientations and starting school (which went great!!!). We're going now Oct 21 - 26 and doing the Halloween Party. We've never done it before so I'm really looking forward to it. My mom is still going to be coming with us and she's just as excitied as we are.