Words, phrases, origins, from reality to fiction, they not only lead you
through a story, they can become PART of the story.
In the novel Lucifer's Hammer, part of the title was derived from the fictional amateur astronomer who first discovered the comet, thereby getting it named after him, Tim Hamner.
As the date approached and the odds of it impacting Earth dropped, it became know as "The Hammer."
It was either going to be an incredible light show lasting a couple of weeks, or the end of the world as we know it.
Two scientists doing a television intervue described in laymans terms what it would be like if the comet actually DID hit the Earth, and that is where the euphemism "Hot Fudge Sundae" came from.
It is not just one single entity, but a comet is made of thousands of solid and partly solid space metals, ranging in size from pea gravel to miles across.
This means that as the Earth rotates, all parts of it would be eligible for the nucleus of the comet to come in contact with.
With sea strikes being the worst due to tidal waves and tsunamis.
THe scientists likened the situation to a hot fudge sundae , with the earth the basis.
The strikes would create volcanic eruptions worldwide throwing molten lave in the air, the amount of water vaporized from gulf and ocean strikes would all be thrown into the atmosphere resulting in weeks of nonstop driving downpours and twisters and hurricanes. The tidal waves would cut chasms and channels right through low lying areas, turning for example, the state of Florida into a new system of islands,mush like hot fudge running down the side of a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The smaller parts of the nucleus of the comet would be like sprinkling nuts on the top of the sundae.
No, Hot Fudge Sundae does not really describe what happened to me, with my brain being the main subject instead of the Earth, but I just liked the phrase so much I used it anyway, so please, allow me to exaggerate this aspect of it.
By the way, In Lucifer's Hammer, Hot fudge Sundae landed on a Tuesday, what day will it land on this time?
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Friday morning, August 3rd.
After the disappointing Luau we have nothing planned at all on this day, only thing we want to do is spend some early quiet time by the Kidani Pool.
We headed over there about 8:3o in the morning , we were told there'd be about a 10 minute wait for the internal shuttle, so we said heck with it, and drove ourselves over and parked. After two roundtrips about the pool, Smidgy finally decided on a table and chairs and we settled in.
I'm going to use this opportunity to throw in some random Animal Kingdom Lodge pics I took this trip,not necessarilly of the Kidani area but mostly from Jambo House.
And for the record, I/we, much prefer the Kidani pool area to Jambo, but I would not want to be way down there in a Kidani room, you'd never go into Jambo House, and that is what makes the resort so special, and believe me, it's a long walk from Kidani.
Oh, before we go any further, I was remiss in my last chapter and left something out. This was a "you probably had to be there" situation, but at the time I thought it was really funny.
Before the Yellow Jackets started and before the Podium Animal Talker guy was rounding up kids to play games next to me, we were both just sitting in loungers next to each other, reading, when we heard this God-awful scraping sound that kept getting louder, and we both looked up.
From our left, here comes a young, strapping cast member dragging a lounge chair past us until he disappeared in the distance to our right.
We both just glanced at each other and shrugged, went back to reading.
20 minutes later, now, from our right, same, young strapping cast member has now herded up a new lounge chair, and is half carrying, half dragging said lounger back to the original starting position, somewhere off to our left, and disappeared again. Even the cast member podium bird answering guy just stood there with his head slowly moving left to right, just watching.
Smidgy and I glanced at each other once again, only this time she provided the much needed "caption" to this little ongoing cartoon:
"Wonder what a good "chair walker" makes exercising chairs at Disney?"
It was perfect timing:
I laughed, and even the stoic bird talking cast member heard her and laughed himself.
And now, while we are at it, one other thing I left out from last report:
While we were sitting at the Lou-ough, Diane suggested I at least take Some pictures, like of the hunky guy in the black shirt on stage.
Well, I tried, but I guess my aim was off a little bit.
Hey, I did get most of his arm though. this was the extent of all the photos I took at the wonderfull Luau. Did I mention you should stick to Hoop de doo? Even if it gives you Poop de doo doo?
A far better show.
But the Kidani pool is really, really pretty, and has an off to the side, kinda hidden great kids play area, that even older little kids would get a kick out of, at least at first, exploring. This is where the last time I "accidentally" blasted a fully dressed Diane in her summer dress with a water blaster canon, who, amazingly, didn't see the humor in it.
The area is very likable by all members of a family, I think, the proberbial, "something for everyone" applies. I can't believe how "lush" it looks already, since it's barely two years old.
Oh, but I did, and that's all that matters!
And so, once again we are sloths laying by a pool.
We had no doubt that this is about to become a lost endeavor once the kids get here, it's going to be go, go, go, and it certainly was for Diane, would have been for me too but......
Even with our pick of the "table and loungers" litter, they have that inner ring and outer ring thing going on here too, we ended up choosing a spot right where the outer ring went in to the pool. There wasn't any tables right next to the pool.
As we just settle into our lounge chairs, not 2 minutes later, I hear a "Tsk, tsk".
Yep, no doubt, Smidgy is unhappy about something.
I can try and ignore it, which means it will now persist until the end of time or the Cubs win the pennant, whichever comes first, or I can get it over and ask,,,,,,,
"What's the matter, pratell?"
"Well what do you think is the matter?"
Uh oh, gonna have to maybe work at this one.
"Look at this, we have a great spot, we can at least see a good section of the pool from here and no I'm not crazy about the ping pong table between us and the pool, but who plays ping pong when it's 95 out, but right in front of us, ritht over there on the right, is a garbage can!"
Well, she was right.
One of those enclosed square garbage cans was sitting there as you walk to the inner section, the kind with the side doors that open when the cast member changes the bag. The kind that says, "Push" on one side.
"it's ruining the whole view!"
"Well, I';m sorry, " I told her, "Not much we can do about that, though. You don't want to move, do you?"
"No."
One final "Tsk" and that was it.
Or so I thought.
Not ten minutes later I heard this terrible scraping sound, and almost jumped out of my lounger.
looking around, you got it, there's Smidgy dragging the whole square container through the opening, around the corner where it was now just out of sight.
She came back with a big smile on her face.
Sweaty, but smiley.
Ok, looking now for some Kidani Pool photos, I know I took a couple:
Well, looky loo, she has once again taken one more picture of me with my back turned lying in a lawn chair reading,, hmm, why do I feel like I'm being set up for something later in life with all these pictures of me doing nothing?
"Your honor, as you can plainly see, my husband is totally useless, all he does as the dates clearly show is lie around day after day, doing absolutely nothing, if this isn't mental cruelty...."
I also want to say the slide here is a good one, better than the Jambo House pool slide, no doubt about it, and only hurts your back with the connecting ribsections a little bit.
If I was to list the top resort slides, it would be, (in random order)
Stormalong Bay slide
Kidani Pool
Maya Dig Site Pool at Coronado
Luna Pool at Boardwalk
Hard Rock Pool slide at Universal Orlando
We then settled into a period of total slothdom,
alternating between the table, loungers and pool when we got too hot.
We had brought some snacks from the room, and they have an outdoor mug refill station, so even though we were nowhere near our room it was no problem.
This time though, when the Yellow Jackets moved in, and yes, they were over here as well, we were ready to go.
I considered one more dip in the pool, but remembered we drove over, and my suit was dry right now.
I had one other little problem;
I had been lying here a long time, and man, the sun once again soaked up all my strength.
Trying to get out of the lounger was no easy feat, and I got to use one of my favorite lines again,
"Ok, who turned up the gravity?"
When I finally did get to an upright position, all of a suddent it was like the whole pool deck was spun like in "Wheel of Fortune." I very quickly went from getting out of the lounger to standing, to a quick collapse into a chair next to me by the table.
"Wow, what the heck was that?" I thought.
"Wow, what the heck was that?" she said.
"I have no idea, standing just made me really dizzy."
It was true, that was the only explanation I had.
No alcohol was ingested yet today, and no, painkillers had nothing to do with it, I'm not even sure if I had taken any yet that day.
Rest of the day was pretty uneventful after we drove back.
I ran for ice again, we sat outside on our balcony listening to the YJ annoy everyone. When it got dark out, I wanted to go spend some time looking around the lobby at all the artifacts and relics and whatnot, thinking that without the light coming in that giant full wall window, it might be easier to see in there with artificial light, But I was wrong again, the displays and exhibits didn't have their own lights.
Even Smidgy couldn't see anything, much less read the descriptions most of them come with.
Pretty much just ended up walking around, looking for hidden spots we hadn't seen before.
One outside stairway that led down to the savannah viewing spots had sitting areas between floors, with what seemed like a party going on, so we walked on over to see what was up.
Bad Smidgy and Nebo.
Guy walks up to us looking at our chests and tells us to keep walking , nothing to see here, keep walking, this is a private party. I realized he was looking for name tags.
His "private party" almost cost him his "private parts" when he was just about to put his hand on my shoulder to help me on my way, you know, to show me he means business, but at the last second he thought better of it and dropped his arm. Fine, we left.
Dinner that night was the meal we were supposed to have last time we were here, Johnsonville's "Beddar with Cheddar" smoked sausage which is really tasty, macaroni salad, and,,,,,,
no, not Cheetohs, those are running way too low, this time it was Doritos, which I don't care for near as much.
I'm always surprised that I don't cut myself eating them, it's like chewing on razor blades to me.
(oh, my mind just did way to good a job picturing that, and I got a chill up my back)
With that, we wind up our last day at Animal Kingdom Lodge, in our studio villa.
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Saturday morning, Augustus Ceasar's 4th day
didactic indeed!
don't ask
That morning I cheated;
I hate having to change into a suit at a pool restroom, so in case our room is not ready, it won't matter to me because I am already wearing it in place of underwear.
Bell service came , I went and pulled the car around in front, gave the dude 5 bucks and away we go!
For about a mile and a half.
From Osceola Parkway we made a left on Victory Way, and a right into what has seemed like home to us oftenly.
"oftenly?"
For the first time in a long time, we were actually concerned about how the check in process would go this time, this is the first time another family/and or room was involved in the equation.
We requested adjoining rooms in the fifties, second floor.
Hopefully, we'll at least be close, and on the same floor, they don't have to be right next to each other, but, well, you know, walking distance.
It's about 9:30 in the morning now, Kim told us she'd call us when they got near on Magical Express in case we want to meet them at Check in. This would be 'around' 1:30, so our checking in first would be the important one, the problem is, if we don't like our assigned room and switch it to something better, that doesn't mean the other room is coming with!
This almost could not have worked out better though.
Did not get fifties, instead, we were put in the sixties, and area that was still "preferred".
We asked for second floor, and we got it.
We asked for adjoining, and instead, even got 'connecting'.
Our rooms faced a courtyard, if you walked to the end of the hall/walkway on one end you looked right at the lake.
Walking to the other sides end had you looking right down on the Hippy Dippy Pool! This was right where the elevators and staircase and ice was.
In other words,,, a REALLY convenient room. Rooms.
Nope, not changing nuttin!
It wasn't ready if I remember right, and yes, I'm blurry on a lot of things this leg of the trip, but we were pretty sure it would fulfill our needs and we took it.
Boy, if we'd only known more on the importance of the defintion difference between "connecting" and "adjoining".
Let me put it this way, that evening, things did not go well.
Yes!
Love the Kidani pool area...had never been there before until last year when I took my niece and nephew. My nephew (4) loved the slide although he would only slide down half way and then stop himself...every time!
Ahh well.
