P.O.T.C. On Stranger Rides! The Missing Chapter,,Final Thoughts,, Preview Thoughts.

[kath1210]

It's from an old Saturday Night Live skit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ELlI1nrjE

I hope the You Tube link works.

 

[PirateKate]

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that episode where they drop the turkeys!

The Tour with the ZZZs sounds like it was pretty bad, although I will say, I found it very enjoyable to read about.

Did I understand correctly that they're putting Keurigs in the Alligator Bayou rooms? That would be awesome! Imagine starting every Disney day with a cup of coffee that didn't taste like mud.

I'm interested in who knocked on the door. Once at CSR, someone called our room and said we had an envelope at the front desk, which was really weird because no one knew where we were, but it turned out they had a Disney gift card for us. Not sure why, but I wasn't complaining! Anyway, I hope they were knocking on your door to give you a gift card!

 

[shan23877]

Taking the toaster for a walk?

I must know who's knocking at the door! More please!

 

[pkondz]

I would think you would be exhausted.

Nah. Everybody's long gone before I get to the end.

Oh, more than that, it not only sounded good but I thought maybe the same thing, it was a long walkway and it even had a bend in it to make it hard to tell.
I actually closed my eyes once and took ten steps in each direction to see if one way felt harder to do, but it was the same.

Next time, bring a tennis ball. Funny that you thought it 'tho.

Great smiley.
Wanna see the scar?

No, thanks. The eye was quite enough, thankyou.

Good question: definately more involved this way, but no long waits for a bus, and the ride is much nicer.

Quality over quantity. Check.

Ok, "The "lay" of the land " was really a very LAYme joke, so don't feel bad.
Ken Lay was in the news for a long time, he was the indicted and convicted CEO of ENRON which went bust.
I believe he died before he even went to prison.

I have to admit, I never really paid much attention to the ENRON scandal, although that was the first big one wasn't it? I did vaguely remember that one of the convicted died before prison, but the name escaped me... pun intended.

 

[nebo]

It's from an old Saturday Night Live skit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3ELlI1nrjE

I hope the You Tube link works.

It worked just fine Kathy, I never saw or heard of that before, thanks.

Wow, I'd forgotten all about that episode where they drop the turkeys!



Did I understand correctly that they're putting Keurigs in the Alligator Bayou rooms? That would be awesome! Imagine starting every Disney day with a cup of coffee that didn't taste like mud.

!

Hold it, keurigs are single cup coffee makers?
You mean Nescafe can't make single cup packets? What makes you think they will switch brands?

I have to admit, I never really paid much attention to the ENRON scandal, although that was the first big one wasn't it? I did vaguely remember that one of the convicted died before prison, but the name escaped me... pun intended.

Enron, Worldcom, Tyco.....actually, Ken Lay was mainly an older figurehead at Enron, the real honcho was Jeffrey Skilling, who is longtime Chicago weatherman Tom Skilling's brother.

As far as the fifth floor to fourth floor bit, Disney is great at doing that.
Park your car at Animal Kingdom Lodge and walk into the lobby. You are now on the 3rd floor!

 

[nebo]

Hey everybody, I have to nip something in the bud, that's all my fault.

I didn't think it would go in this direction but I can see why from what I've done in the past.
I'm talking about the knock on the door.
No, it's not a good thing, this knock, and I'm afraid some of you might feel embarrassed by comments made now when I do come out and talk about it.

But please don't because you didn't know, it will all be explained when I post the next chapter which should be tomorrow night. nebo

 

[jcc0621]

OMG! The Walnut episode was on last weekend.

Here's one - He was dressed as Mr. Peanut and he was shelled by a rogue elephant.

 

[buzz1121]

Oh Nebo! I think I am going to give you a . Your last post really said just enough. Just know that whatever you say, it will be right.

None of us read just for the fun, we read because we care about you and Smidgy.Your style of writing is so genuine. I think it makes us all feel that we personally know you, even though most of us haven't met you in person.

I'm thinking of you Nebo.

 

[kath1210]

Oh Nebo! I think I am going to give you a . Your last post really said just enough. Just know that whatever you say, it will be right.

None of us read just for the fun, we read because we care about you and Smidgy.Your style of writing is so genuine. I think it makes us all feel that we personally know you, even though most of us haven't met you in person.

I'm thinking of you Nebo.

Well said, Buzz. I feel the same way Nebo.

 

[jakeybake]

Hey everybody, I have to nip something in the bud, that's all my fault.

I didn't think it would go in this direction but I can see why from what I've done in the past.
I'm talking about the knock on the door.
No, it's not a good thing, this knock, and I'm afraid some of you might feel embarrassed by comments made now when I do come out and talk about it.

But please don't because you didn't know, it will all be explained when I post the next chapter which should be tomorrow night. nebo

It's all good my friend! No worries.

Personally, I follow the TR's and think of them like I am listening to a family member recount a story from a recent trip. Like listening to your favorite and most fun aunt and uncle or cousins tell a story.

A lot of what you see on here is similar to what you see on facebook. Everyone says how great every single aspect in their lives are and embellishes on every single thing.

I knew you were all about being real and honest the very first time I lurked on a TR and I saw your comments about "Vikes" and "Fuzzy Cups". I knew that anyone who would share that with total strangers is a straight up, honest person.

I hope you continue to keep it real, regardless of how bad it may sound in your head before you type it up.

Total appreciation on my end!

Jay

 

[Thumper_Man]

Oh Nebo! I think I am going to give you a . Your last post really said just enough. Just know that whatever you say, it will be right.

None of us read just for the fun, we read because we care about you and Smidgy.Your style of writing is so genuine. I think it makes us all feel that we personally know you, even though most of us haven't met you in person.

I'm thinking of you Nebo.

Well said Buzz. Mrs T. and I feel the same way. We've all been to Disney so it is so easy for us to be right there with you and Smidgy as you tell us of your adventures. It's as if we're on vacation with you two, even though we only know you through your TR's and the pictures you post. We're all here for you two and always will be. Whatever you have to say my friend, will be alright.

 

[dwheatl]

Well now I think I know what the knock was, because Smidgy and I seem to have been living somewhat parallel lives lately.

OMG! The Walnut episode was on last weekend.

Here's one - He was dressed as Mr. Peanut and he was shelled by a rogue elephant.

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!

 

[Thumper_Man's Wife]

Mr. T said it for the both of us...I just wanted to butt in and give my own

 

[nebo]

I want to thank all of you for your comments and nice words, I'll have the next chapter up in a little while.

OMG! The Walnut episode was on last weekend.

Here's one - He was dressed as Mr. Peanut and he was shelled by a rogue elephant.

Ok Janet, yu got me on that one. ?

Well now I think I know what the knock was, because Smidgy and I seem to have been living somewhat parallel lives lately.


A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!

But Danielle seems to know what it is.

 

[Rozz]

Oh my word!! I’m away from the DIS boards for a couple of weeks and come back to a nebo cliff hangar that has me totally clueless as to where it might lead! Is it serious? Is it pure nebo humor? I skipped most of the chat so I could get caught up with the trip. This may have been a mistake! While waiting for the next installment, I am going to go back and read the chatter.

 

[nebo]

As I was heading to the door to go and fetch us some ice, there was a knock from the other side, I opened it.

A man stood there, a castmember and told us that our sons been trying to get in touch with us. I thanked him and with that, he walked away. We also had a message on the room phone from the front desk saying the same thing.

I didn't know if he meant sons, as in plural, or son's, as in a contraction. I then left for ice as Diane went to check her cell phone for messages. All the way to the ice room a sick feeling in my stomach just got bigger and bigger.
I've had a lot of them this trip, from hearing the air leak out of the valve to blowing out the exhaust to no being able to see on the interstate but this time the feeling inside me was far worse.

As far as checking for messages goes, it was a good thing he came and knocked.
Please understand, neither one of us are cell phone people, she has one for emergencies but otherwise we prefer life without a constant interruption no matter where you are.

When I got back with the ice, she was on the phone talking, hung up, made another call, talked some more while I just stood off to the side and poured us a couple of premade Margaritas from the bottle.
I handed her one but she wasn't really looking, for that matter, neither was I, I was too busy listening.

_____________________________________________

Folks, I said I was going to leave this out until the end of the trip, but after talking it over with Diane, we decided to tell it as it happened, let the chips fall where they may.
Besides, since you all know this anyway it's like trying to ignore the "elephant in the room" as they say.

I have a feeling we may lose a lot of readers telling the story this way, but hey, I'm sorry, there have been plenty of laughs on my reports up till now, and there will be after, but this is a part of what happened concerning us, and I can't leave it out.

Smidgy was told that her dad who's in a nursing home is now on oxygen and not expected to last the night!

All I could do was stare at her when she told me.

Please follow along with my timeline here, and note certain dates, they really come into play on what happened concerning us.

This is September, back in February Daddy was living at home still with his son and daughter in law when he fell and broke a rib.
His bedroom is on the second floor, but his dementia was getting worse all the time, and it didn't take much convincing to him to go into a nursing home.

In March, he was a new resident of a Lutheran Nursing Home in Arlington Heights, Il. one week later we were all there to celebrate his 87th birthday.

From that point on he had plenty of company and visitors between us and Danny, Diane's little brother who still lives in the house. It's about a half hour drive for both Danny and us, from opposite directions.

From March until September, we saw him about ten times more than we used to, we also brought home his huge pile of laundry every time and did it at home to bring back with us next time.

Smidgy went a couple more times than me, she even saw him 3 days before we left on this trip, had him out in the courtyard even, too, sitting by the fountain that he liked. I was going to go with too that day but made a spur of the moment decision and went and go all new tires for the Santa Fe so I wouldn't have to worry about tires while driving. You know how that worked out.

But it didn't take too long to get really sad with him.

I didn't have the chance to really know him like Diane had, but he was one of the greatest men I ever met in my entire life! He had a southern, Andy Taylor type of logic that would just make you stop talking, and start thinking.

He never swore, I never heard him raise his voice but in his own quiet way he was the E.F. Hutton in the room, when he talked people listened.

Unfortunately, from February,, sliding until September, he went from jagged, broken speech, to short sentences, to just one word sentences to where you really weren't sure if he knew who you were. It was just brutal to watch it happen to someone you love.

But evey once in a while, he'd surprise you:
About 3 weeks before he passed away, he turned to me and suddenly said. "So, how's the eye?"
Yeah, he still knew that!

But near the end it wasn't Daddy any more, he had already left us and there was nothing we could do about it.

By the way, Danny and Diane also have a sister, Roxie who lives out in Massachusettes , she had even flown in once to see him at the home.

When Smidgy saw him a few days before we left, she even talked to the main nurse who takes care of him and asked her her opinion.
She basically told Diane that he could last a long time yet, go on your trip and don't worry about him.

But now, we don't know what we should do.
Everything in the world was now against us if we tried to get back in a hurry.

First, it's almost dark out, can't leave until morning.
Then, no way will I try to drive this car back with the exhaust broken the way it is and risk a major accident or engine damage.
I talked to concierge and they told me that the AAA, Goodyear Car Care Center is either closed on Sundays, or, if they are open only do small jobs due to shortened hours, it'll have to wait to Monday at the earliest if the exhaust needs replacing.

We also had another big problem:
We didn't book these rooms.
The only part that we booked that was under our control was the 3 nights at CBR.

It's not like we can pay the penalty to Disney for a cancellation and go home, this stay at BLT and our upcoming stay at AKL is paid for with points from our acquaintances we know, this was the guy who divorced us back in '99. It's kind of a stretch to refer to them as "friends", even though we like them.

So we had sent them over 1400 dollars a while ago to pay for all the points they are giving us. No way can we ask for that back. And I'd really hate to burn that bridge and never be able to book through them again.

By the way, this trip was being planned way back in December when we were freezing our butts off at Pop, and as soon as we hit the 7 months out timeframe in February, our friend Kelly, the lawyer's wife booked it for us.

I am going to be fast forwarding us now, mainly for clarification.

We didn't know what to do, but there didn't seem to be much we could do ourselves now, so we went back to Epcot that night.
It was very strange and we didn't stay very long, even left before Illuminations and went back to our room.

The next morning there was still no word yet, and we were hoping maybe he'd pull through this crisis, at least until we got back.
I know that might sound cruel right there, but it's honest.
We hated to see him suffer so, and it was time for him to start his new life with the Lord.
We just didn't want this passing to take place when we are 1200 miles away.

This was a Magic Kingdom day on our schedule, with EMH tonight and we walked over there that morning, but our hearts weren't into it.

We left at around 11:30, cancelled our reservation at Tony's and went back to the room to make more calls.

Once before about a month ago the home called us and said he was in a bad way, and when we hurried over there we found him sitting in his wheelchair eating lunch, then we took him out to the courtyard, maybe this time it will be the same thing.

Diane's cell phone rang just as we walked in the room.

At 4:30 in the morning on September 11, 2011, on the ten year anniversary of 9-11, Diane's father passed away.

This started a flurry of calls between her brother, sister, and our sons.

Since Roxie is out in Boston, I suggested he be put in storage until we get back, but they said the funeral home said we can't do that, he won't look as good.
Um, yeah, no one looks good dead.

Smidgy told them all our problems with trying to get back in a hurry, and I guess that was taken as we won't make it back because then the wake and funeral were set up at the funeral home for Wednsday and Thursday, so now what?

We considered trying to catch a flight back, just leave things as is and just fly back home and then back again.
But that wouldn't work because it's when we have to check out and check back in again, and if we pack up early we'd have to throw out all the food cuz it's going to go bad in a hurry sitting in a car in a parking lot here in the summer. And where do you park the car while you're gone?
Lots of problems with this plan, we don't even have carry on bags with us.
Another issue was money: There's really only enough room on the credit cards to get the exhaust fixed, no way can we add two round trip tickets to the cards now too.

It was a logistical nightmare!

It was looking more and more like we weren't going to go back for the funeral.
A couple other thoughts came into play for us:

Like I said, this was booked way back in February, our only trip this year and again, that's what I hate about renting points is that everything is out of my/our, control.
But a couple reasons for this trip was because of all the crap I went through with my eye,,,, and also a reward to us for quitting smoking.

Hey yeah, the quitting smoking!
Want to guess who was the happiest person when they found out we quit smoking?
That's right, Daddy, he always hated smoking.
Even near the end when he could barely talk, sometimes
we'd sit with him and have a hard time finding things to talk about and we'd mention to him again that we still are
not smoking.

A few times he was able to reply, "That's great!"
(yeah Dad, after all these years of you hoping we would quit, it finally happened)

There is also that small matter of what we went through just getting here this trip, I doubt we have ever been so scared as we were at times.

But what made the decision final for us came early next morning.
Monday morning we got to the Car Care Center just after it opened, not too long later, we found out that absolutely no way on earth should this car even think about attempting to drive anywhere, much less Chicago.

And after they order all the parts and they are delivered and installed, it won't be ready untill late tomorrow.

That would mean we couldn't even leave until Wednsday morning.

Once again, we talked, and talked, and talked about it.

"Daddy would have wanted us to not rush back because of him."

We had gotten to spend a lot of time with him during his last few months, certainly a lot more than most of the people that will be at the wake who never even saw him at the nursing home, and we'd rather have folks spend time with us during our last days then come see us after we died.

So, ok, we are staying.

But, and this is a BIG but:

this only makes sense if we realize this is what he would have wanted us to do,,,and,,,,,let ourselves realize that this is a good thing since his ordeal is now over, and realize that it makes no sense to stay if we don't let ourselves enjoy the trip.

With that all said, I hope you all understand our position, or at least respect our decisions even if you don't agree with them, these were hard calls to make.

We will soonly continue the trip report in it's normal fashion, skipping over Saturday night and Sunday and begin anew on Monday morning.

And Dad?
If you can read this;

Smidgy is still your little girl.

 

[mmeb144]

OMG, Steve, that was a tough bit to read. I really feel for you, man. I watched my dad deteriorate from cancer over a year and a half. I wasn't there when he finally passed in the hospital, I had seen too much over that year and a half. So, no flack from me on that. You two made the right decision for you. Anyone who says anything else doesn't know whereof they speak.

 

[IheartDDuck]

That was so difficult to read. I'm so sorry that you both had to go through that. No judging here. You made the best decision that you could make at the time. Sometimes it's impossible to do exactly what you want to do. I would have likely made the same decision. And I agree with mmeb144. Anyone who would want to judge or stop reading doesn't choose to understand the situation. It's so easy for us to sit here and say "I would do this and I would do that". But you know what? Saying you would do something doesn't mean anything once you're actually faced with the decision.

You made a good choice.

 

[nowellsl]

We had gotten to spend a lot of time with him during his last few months, certainly a lot more than most of the people that will be at the wake who never even saw him at the nursing home, and we'd rather have folks spend time with us during our last days then come see us after we died.

Well that just says it all right there! I feel the same way!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

You did the only thing you could do Both my parents passed while I was 5,000 miles away. I know how hard that is