In retrospect, I suppose it was my fault. I started it.
She was fine sitting by herself, reading, but I had to go and plug her in.
I walked over to the DSA near our pool and a woman was sitting on one of the benches, reading.
I also noticed for the first time this trip two lizards on the edge of the sidewalk across from the smoking area, enjoying the warm concrete.
I lit up and propped one foot up on the bench on the other side of the ashtray, then I noticed what the woman was holding.
It looked to me like an Etch a Sketch, only without the knobs. I've never seen a Kindle in person but I didn't think they were that big.
So, I blew it. I opened my mouth.
"Excuse me, is that a Kindle?"
It was then that the filibuster started.
"Oh yes it's a Christmas present to myself that I bought because I always buy myself a Christmas present for Christmas even though it's still November but I didn't want to put it off when i knew I wanted it anyway so I went ahead and bought it for this trip that I'm taking with my cousin who isn't here right now since she's in Animal Kingdom right now so I thought I'd just come over here and read for awhile and it's a shame she feels that you have to go to parks when your in
Disneyland but to each there own I guess and yes this is the biggest Kindle you can get and it's just great cuz I can download books from all over the country into it and read them,,,,,,"
She just went on and on.
I tried to interject a couple of times, but there was now no stopping her. I thought I could at least steer the conversation towards a question or two I had about the Kindle but I couldn't get the whole question out, she wouldn't let me.
"......like reading stories about true crime a lot since those are the most interesting to me but not my cousin but she's weird so I don't put much into what she thinks anymore and....."
It was an amazing thing to watch. Amazing.
Then I saw Smidgy walking up and I was overjoyed to see her, believe me.
"....and I thought what's 280 bucks since I really want one anyway and the downloads are 9.99 a book so that's no big deal and I can download books from all over the country....."
This time I tried and didn't stop in the middle just as Smidgy walked up, only now I'm a bit sarcastic, "Are books that come from farther away better than regional books?"
She never stopped talking as I was asking that question and to Smidgy it looked like I was being rude talking over this woman. Then she also learned.
I looked at her, "Hi Honey."
".....some people say this size is too big but I don't think so it's just right for me and I really don't care what other people say since,,,,"
Diane looked at me with raised eyebrows but all I could do was shrug. Then another woman came up and lit up a smoke. Meanwhile, the Manic Motor Mouth still hasn't come up for air;
"......this one is one of my favorites that I have read before...."
We both said Hi to the new woman, introduced ourselves and just ignored MMM. New woman said she was from Boston, we told her Chicago and then Boston asked MMM where she was from.
"......what's neat is you can change the size of the type if you want and even thought my cousin hates it when I do that it's still my Kindle and not hers and I don't care what..."
Boston just looked at her but she was mostly talking to the Kindle, so new woman Boston tried to talk to us again when MMM suddenly thrust the Etch a Sketch in my face right in the middle of new woman Boston's question to me.
"..... you can see how clear the type face is and you can even set the margins and......"
Boston's eyes almost popped out of her head. She looked at me and I almost burst out laughing, the situation was so ridiculous. Then she snubbed out her half smoked smoke and turned and walked away.
Even worse, Smidgy looked at me, shook her head and said, "I'll meet you by the food court," and turned and left too.
Ruh Roh.
"..... you like to read books this is not a bad thing although I think maybe my cousin should ...."
I looked down, even the lizards were gone.
"Oh my goodness, look at the time. Sorry, gotta run, gotta make our food court reservation." And I turned and chased after Diane.
The weird thing with her was that she didn't seem hyper, or ADD, or someone who looked like they were going to burst if they didn't get something out. She was more like and android or something, running a program or playing back a tape.
At the food court we got our second disappointment, along with finding out the raised the prices on the burgers by now calling them, "Angus".
We had been mostly snacking all day and weren't starving. But we knew we needed to eat something before we left on our excursions for the evening and decided to split a Nachos Supreme and an order of fries. She went for the Nachos, I went and got the fries.
I fared much better.
At the table we have BBQ suace , mayo, mustard and ketchup for dipping the fries, then we inspected the nachos.
It was basically a paper bin with chips and some cheese sauce drizzled onto them, very little beans, meat, tomatoes or anything else that should be there. I've gotten them before for my meal at times and they were just great.
Not this time.
Almost nine bucks for this?
Smidgy brought it back up to the window and complained, they gave her a little bowl of some extra ground beef and cheese sauce in it.
Even then, she had to ask for more so they added a bit more to it.
A real disappointment all right.
The fries were just great though, they don't skimp on the fries at the grill station.
Back in the room we made a couple of drinks and prepared fuzzy cups for our odyssey. Or oddyssey.
We also grabbed a couple small bottles and put them in our pockets as well. These were bigger than normal little bottles and made of glass so we didn't want to bring them into a park. The merchant told me it was a smooth vodka though, and she turned out to be right.
This will begin the travellogue portion of the chapter, and hence, the title. Notice all the modes of transportaion, it wasn't planned out this way.
Down at the bus stop we hopped on the Magic Kingdom "BUS", didn't have to wait long for a bus but it was standing room only. Apparently lots of folks going to the Christmas Party tonight.
At MK, the killer was that there was no easy way to get to the Contemporary from the Pop bus stop. Pop is the last bus stop there, and the closest one to the Contemporary but there is no cut-thru there, you have to walk all the way to the front of the MK, then you can take the walkway to the CR.
We wanted to check out Bay Lake Towers since we have friends that we might be able to rent points from someday, and I'm always interested in checking out new pools, pool time is my favorite time. But Diane mentioned that we may not be able to get into the pool area, you need a keycard for that.
Heh heh, we'll see.
She also wanted to check out something about Pinocchio here, some kind of Christmas exhibit I guess in the Contemporary.
Well, she was half right.
It was BLT itself we couldn't get into, need a card to open the door. I tried my Pop room card, no luck.
So we just hung around for a couple of minutes.
We saw someone walking up so we quickly walked away, then timed it so when we turned around we were right behind this guy.
"Crap, I forgot my camera." "Hey, can you hold that door for a second?"
And we followed him in.
Nothing struck us as that special inside, we followed a sign that said to the pool to find another door, but this one was unlocked. Down a pathway with ornamental trees brought us to the pool.
From what I could see it was a pretty cool looking pool. It was just getting dark now, and nobody but nobody was there, lifeguards, swimmers, nobody. It was like they all started clearing out when we walked up. hmmm
We found a hidden corner and had a smoke and enjoyed our fuzzy cups, what was left.
I took another picture.
I had already sized up the picture and didn't see this person walk into the shot, she thought I was taking her picture and waved at me when I put the camera down.
That's something I truly miss about my old Canon Sure Shot, you had to look through the viewer to see what it was you were about to shoot. With digital cameras I have a hard time seeing the framing in the LCD view you get, especially in sunlight. I normally now just aim the thing in what I hope is the right direction and pull the trigger.
I can always delete it later.
I can't tell for sure where the sun comes up from here, very important if you're a morning pool person like me.
Don't want it to rise behind the Towers where there's no sun until 11 o'clock but I'm willing to give it a shot someday.
Then we left the way we came in and walked over to the Contemporary and visited their pools.
I had forgotten what they looked like and they surprised me, they looked rather elegant, especially the inner pool.
I would definately like to spend time here.
We have never stayed at a monorail resort, almost stayed here once with a PIN code 5 years ago but ended up choosing the Dolphin instead, not realizing we can get the deal we had for the Dolphin anytime. We blew it that time.
Oh yeah, pool pics:
Again, wish I could see it in the daytime.
Let's enhance the photo this time:
Then we went upstairs in search of Pinocchio.
Pinocchio was laid off.
That was LAST year.
Believe me, if you are looking for Holiday Decos at the Disney Resorts, don't waste your time at the Contemporary.
So we went and checked out the Wave.
Uh uh, nothing special about this restaurant.
Next was the Contempo Cafe.
Seemed pretty confusing in here to me. There are signs that say some of the offerings, but no prices on them, you don't get the prices until you punch in your orders at these Kiosks. But we had a goal in mind, our fuzzy cups were empty, we need a mixer.
And right over there is a refillable mug station. Hmmm.
It was real tempting, but I didn't want to get in trouble for refilling an illegal fuzzy cup, how would that look on my record? She went and got a bottle of Sprite from the grab n go section, I waited holding the cups while she paid for it.
Right outside the eatery were restrooms and I ducked inside to dump the little bottles of vodka in my cup. Back outside the bathroom Smidgy had already done the same, just standing there by a wall phone. Before we added the Sprite though, I really wanted some ice,,,,,and the ice dispenser is right over there in the refillable mug section.
Heck with it, I didn't care, I grabbed both cups and went and dumped some ice in them, then we poured the Sprite in and we're all set.
To the "Monorail" we go. Standing in line there I now wasn't sure if we could bring cups like these on, so we both tried to hold them low, nobody stopped us.
We exited at the Grand Floridian.
And wow! What a line they had there to get on the monorail, it looked like a Pop Century Magic Kingdom bus stop line.
The first thing you are going to see when you walk inside from the loading area is white, and lots of it. Oh, it's a gorgeous lobby all right, really impressive looking down.
Smidgy wanted to play with the camera:
We walked around up there as much as we could, found a little alcove looking out at the resort:
Then we headed downstairs to check out the Gingerbread house.
When we were here 3 years ago in December, I snapped off a small piece of shingle and popped it into my mouth when no one was looking, now on one side there's a display set up where you can buy different components of the structure; i.e. shingle, siding, railing, chimney,,,,,etc.
I think a chocolate sump pump was going for 6.50.
But it really was impressive with a lot of work.
Then we went outside to walk the grounds a bit and find a smoking spot.
The inner courtyard pool had some kids in it, but most of the deck all around it was empty.
On our side, we saw a stoner guy sitting at a table by himself, swaying back and forth.
Yes, of course Smidgy had to talk to him.
"Is this a designated smoking area?"
"Hey man, how ya doon?" "What's a dezzigated smoking air?"
"A place where they allow you to smoke," I said.
"I'm lowwed to smoke," "See?" "I'm doon it right now."
I rolled my eyes, "Thank you very much."
He went back to swaying and we moved down to the end away from him and sat at a table off by ourselves.
It was very pretty. When we have visited here in the past we both thought it was too snooty for us. Too white, too prissy and we wouldn't want to stay here.
Now?
HORSEHOCKEY!
We'd both stay there in an instant if we could. There was a time we felt we just didn't belong in a place like this, ,,,
don't feel that way anymore. Hey, if stoner guy is allowed, their clientelle status would only go up, right?
Right?
The pool;
Then it was down to the lake and the lakeside pool:
Just a lovely night it was, only wearing short sleeve shirts, no rain, it was just perfect.
And it was the last night it was like this.
At the marina we took the "Ferry" over to the Poly.
Arriving on the beach after the long pier walk I glanced up at the main building that houses O'Hana and I made the cross sign with my hands. Yes, my last trip here is VERY fresh in my memory.
With plenty of time to wait till the festivities start, we went over to the pool bar and I ordered a couple of Lapu, Lapus.
"Well thank you," Smidgy said, "Just what the doctor ordered."
"Oh did you want one too?"
I gave her one of mine.
We had tossed the fuzzy cups before we got on the ferry, pretty much in the nick of time too, at least for me.
The bottom had gotten real soft and seemed about to let go.
Don't worry, we finished them first, not a drop of alcohol was harmed in the making of this chapter.
We've got 15 minutes until the Water Pageant starts, with the
MVMCP Fireworks starting at 9:30 so we walked along the beach path and turned onto a path that led closer to the lagoon.
While we were doing this, I was looking around a lot for someone I had no idea what they looked like.
This is hard to do!
Try it sometime.
Before the trip there was a woman who posted her sometimes and said she and her family were staying at the Poly about the same time we were, she's 1971BDay, I believe, I remembered her name is Kathy, husband Jeff and also from the wonderful state of Illinois.
But they were going to be at Epcot tonight, too bad she wouldn't get a chance to meet us, she said, because of ADRs.
But I kept a lookout for someone I don't know what they look like anyway, just in case, expecting somebody to run up to us and go "Nebo!"
How arrogant is that?
Then a strange woman came running up and yelled, "Nebo!"
They had left right after dinner and she told her husband she wanted to go down to the beach to see if we were there.
She is terrific. We talked for only a few moments before she ran away again, only to return this time with her husband, Jeff, and 3 kids, I believe.
I thought we hit it off very well; we talked a lot, we barely even noticed the Water Pageant, and it wasn't uncomfortable in the least.
Heck, they were drinking, we were drinking, the kids were very cute, Diane took to little Hannah and was on the ground playing with her. I was talking to Jeff at the time and paused, pointing Hannah and Smidgy out to him,
"Isn't that cute?" "They already play so nice together."
He laughed, then said the magic words, "So, ready for a drink?"
We both got beers, then they left us alone to watch the fireworks, which were ok, I guess, I expected a little bit more. We joined them again by some loungers and this time I bought the round. And they almost got away without me taking a picture, funny how you can forget a camera in your pocket.
Kathy, if you're still reading this, the pleasure was all ours.
Then it was time to rewind the tape; back on the ferry, back on the bus, walk to the room.
So, it was "bus" to MK, "walk" to Contemporary, "monorail" to Grand Floridian, "ferry" to the Poly.
With the "airplane" ride to Disney in the first place, the only thing missing was a "hot air balloon" ride to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Right, Smidgy will be getting on that.
In the room:
Clicked on the weather channel again for a minute, Wednsday high, 65, then getting much colder with a slight warm up on Saturday.
Ok, 65's not so bad, maybe some pool time after all.
Fool!
goodnight all, hugs
! That and he never scolds them - unless they are about to kill themselves.
Heaven forbid you go to Disney and unexpectedly need to purchase female products at Everything Pop 
