Mr. Silly
I am a robot
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2006
- Messages
- 260
Dramatis personæ:
me - aka Mr. Silly, Philosopher-at-large, oddball, loving paternal unit, et al. Very bad with quotes. Sometimes slightly absent minded. For being such a boring person I am told I am pretty dang weird. Also I never smiled as a child. Seriously. Also I have a poorly chosen nick-name, as I am a melancholic prone to fits of ennui. Also can use peculiar diction at times.
Haley - AKA HaleyB, H., Frau, dear. The maternal unit in the family. The planner, the navigator, an iron fist in a marshmallow glove.
Sophie - A sweet little princess. Scary smart, loves to play practical jokes, tell jokes, and make any immediately available materials into an art project. Occasional girly-girl, but a butt-kicking hell-raiser if need be. Not the most inclined towards empathy with her brother.
Max - Middle child, suffers occasional Jan Brady Syndrome, has a very sweet heart, and kind disposition usually, though Sophie has tried her best to break his patience with some success. Bright, funny, and occasionally a touch melodramatic. For example, at one point he picked up a camera pointed it at himself, clicked a picture, and said, "you know what that was a picture of? Me never getting to do anything fun." Is disturbingly obsessed with TV.
Ryan (brief cameo appearance) - Oldest son, away at College now, but drops in for a little while. Scary smart in that way that can sometimes be a detriment since he doesn't have to work at most things to get them, but then if something is difficult he is less inclined to pursue it. If you are a somewhat smart and learned person it can be kind of disturbing when you have a child who is way smarter than you, BTW.
Prolegomena to a prolegomena to a subsequent trip report:
'Prolegomena,' for those who might not be familiar with this wonderful yet sadly underused word, means a thing to be read before something else. In this particular prolegomena it will be related that HaleyB will not be writing a trip report, because Mr. Silly took notes, and H., seeing that he was taking notes, foolishly chose to not take many notes at all. Sadly most of Mr. Silly's notes were found to be in such a state such as to be unrecoverable, as will be explained in more detail later.
Since the previous sentence related all that was to be related later in this prolegomena, please disregard this sentence and continue reading the next prolegomena.
Seriously.
Skip this bit. It doesn't say anything, and will only leave you the worse for having read it. Alas, by continuing to read, you leave me no other choice but to cut this short before a seriously
Prolegomena to a subsequent trip report:
It has become the style of many trip reports to include long digressions, references to pop-culture, and pop-cultural icons, TV shows such as Seinfeld, and West Wing, and to refer to other trip reports with knowing winks and clever allusions.
While you can expect that a digression or two might appear, Mr. S. doesn't really watch much TV, and in general is not to up on pop-culture, has a horrible memory for quotes from Seinfeld, and has only seen about twenty minutes of West Wing.
He also is a bit obsessive about reading up on Computer Science, and reading everything posted to reddit.com
He also reads a lot of old literature that can cause a few peculiarities in diction. He also refers to himself in the 3rd person at times. While this could perhaps make Mr. Silly an outcast, a pariah, and a general scourge, he begs your forgiveness and shall do his best to redeem himself in whatever manner this humble report might avail.
Haley's addenda:
Diction is not the only thing that is peculiar about Mr Silly.
"A journey of a thousand paragraphs begins with a single syllable."
I kept a notebook of our trip. That sentence in the quotes up there was the first sentence. In case you were wondering. Unfortunately, my script is cramped, style terse, and the whole thing is largely illegible, so if sections of the trip report say something like "wext ov Spad Mtn," it's because my printing is crap. It always has been. In school I was often marked down for poor handwriting. This probably contributed to my despair as a child, but it certainly was a lesser worry since I had far greater woes. Woes that I will try not to relate for fear of depressing both readers of this report. On more than one occasion Sophie looked at my notebook and laughed, and then tried to read parts of it, mocking my script. It was more like thirty occasions. It became a favorite pastime of Sophie's. Much to my consternation. In case you think I am exaggerating, here is an example page, selected at random, illustrating my script:
While I can make out about 68% of what that particular says, and can fill in many lacunae, I am a trained professional.
Brief Biographical Note:
I grew up in Souther California. For various reasons I will not relate here, I was a sad child. I never smiled, and have actual photographic evidence to prove this. I am much happier now, since I have a wonderful spouse, and brilliant children, a good book collection, a fine collection of ancient coins, a number of thriving aquatic plants, an excellent Guitar, several fine Ukuleles, and a relatively stable life, but it was not always so. As a child I did not have a Ukulele. And I never went to Disney World. I got to go to DisneyLand pretty often, since my mom really likes it there. It was, after all, the Happiest Place on Earth.
My Father was never much of a fan of the place, but he had some friends who could score us these big fat ticket books (this was back when you used tickets to get on rides). The tickets had a perforated side where you could, like, detach them from the book, which was cool. Actually I think at the time it was tubular. To the max. We were fully stoked. (note the archaeo-slang, I was trying to convey a sense of what things were like back then - note also that I actually was depressed and utterly wretched (even in the Happiest Place on Earth), but I put on a good show to prevent others from contracting my melancholia) when they pulled out the E tickets, since the ride was going to be *****in.
While a teenager I had a general principle that I would not wear a corporate logo on my clothing. Even an alligator or one of those little guys riding a horse was too much for me. Mickey got a pass until my Mickey shirt eventually wore out. I still wear a DisneyLand hat all pretty much at all times, except when sleeping, showering, or when I am involved in other acts in which hat wearing is inappropriate. Though I am enough of a Philistine that I eat while wearing a hat fairly frequently. So I knew the ins and outs of DisneyLand pretty well, but I have only been to Disney World as a adult, and then only about three or four times, so Disney World still holds great mysterious things to be discovered, while DisneyLand is an old well known friend which I have explored quite intensively, though I still find a few new things there too, esp. in Pirates/Haunted Mansion, the two great pinnacles of Imagineering. Both of which are better in DisneyLand, BTW, because New Orleans Square makes them fit in better.
Haley's addenda:
Diction is not the only thing that is peculiar about Mr Silly.
What Mr Silli fails to note in his brief biological note is that because of his familiarity with Disneyland, which is the happiest place on Earth, he may tend to compare the offerings of Disneyland to WDW. He may also wonder why Disneyland is one word but Disney World is not.
The Flight
We got up at some hour I can't recall, and then went off to the Airport. We packed up the few last minute things, such as iPod and computers, and headed off to ABIA. On going through the indignities of the security check, we realized three things.
A) We were an hour and a half early for our flight.
B) I had forgotten my power supply for my MacBook, and H's PowerBook's power supply has a different interface.
This had a few implications. First, it meant that I would not be using my computer in the Airport. Second it meant that I could not use the computer to play a DVD on the flight, as we had previously planned. Third it meant that I would not be taking any notes while at Orlando, since that would consume the precious few hours of battery life that I had pretty quickly. Fourth it meant some other things I can't recall, but which I think were quite profound to me at the time.
Haley's addenda:
After waking up but before our arrival at the airport we also ate a huge breakfast at Jim's and stopped by the bookstore to pick up a copy of the book Sophia was reading but left at school (Because of Winne Dixie).
ABIA is code for our local airport, so as to throw off any potential stalkers.
I believe the fourth implication of Mr S not having a power supply for his Macbook was that Mr S got to sit by himself on the plane while I sat with both max and Sophia. The fifth implication for the forgotten cord is that any argument for paying for internet access in the room would be quickly countered, so I did not bother. Just prior to our trip Mr S's Dad was ill in a scary way. We had planned on adding the internet access as a way of staying in touch, but he recovered enough before we left for this to be unnecessary.
A Quick Note on Recall
I had an unfortunate medical condition come up in March which caused me to have to take a medication to prevent its recurrence. The initial medication I was taking was so mind-bogglingly awful in its effects that I could not bear it. I decimated short term memories, mangled medium term memories, and badly warped long-term recall. That last effect was not so bad, since it meant that I seemed to recall that I was born into one of the last aristocratic families of Huntington Beach, and was tutored by a wizened old gnome who taught me the secrets of magic as I grew up. And there was a castle at the end of my street with its own racquetball that also could be used as a makeshift movie theater.
I switched medications.
My wonderful older memories turned out to be false, but the new side effects were less bad, if still weird in some indescribable way. Though there really was a castle at the end of my street. Seriously. The meds. still affected my memory to some degree, but not so much.
I refer to the new medication as 'Brain Softeners', in case you see the term come up.
My short term recall is still stunted which means that there might be omissions that would seem puzzling to people who like H. who were also there.
My short term recall is still stunted which means that there might be omissions that would seem puzzling to people who like H. who were also there.
I also might inadvertently repeat myself.
So if you are H., sorry. To everyone else, just keep in mind that most everything I say is likely false, including this sentence.
The Brain Softeners also cause me to forget computer power supplies, in case you wondered.
Back to the Airport
Knowing that I could not keep any notes on the computer, I ran off to the book store to try to find a nice journal to scribble things in.
The book stores in ABIA are utterly horrendous, and truly awful. In addition to my not finding any great classics of literature that I could find (besides 'The Complete Idiots Guide to Sudoku,' which surely will be widely read and admired in 2106), I also could not locate a single blank book. They had planners and organizers, but those were really not quite what I was looking for. I considered buying a Frommer's guide to Disney World and just faking it. But I was sure someone would notice. I went to the counter and inquired. The gentleman running the register referred me to a rack of toiletries, which on the bottom shelf carried Mead memo notebooks in a variety of colors. I chose blue to match my mood. Also because my iPod was playing Django Reinhardt's "Blues en Mineur."
I knew that I had limited time with my iPod, since I hadn't bothered to pack the separate charger, assuming I would charge it with my computer, so I was trying to maximize my enjoyment of it. By the way, I am currently a little obsessed with Django Reinhardt, the greatest guitarist who ever lived, and indeed one of the greatest musicians in the history of recorded music, a brilliant composer, and an all around remarkable, though enigmatic person. Every note he played seemed to be based on some a perfect divine pattern that he somehow beheld, which caused his music to be a kind of divine revelation, a revelation all the more profound when you consider that he was an illiterate Gypsy who could not read music. By the way, the preceding is the long form of the phrase, "I bought a mead notebook to write notes in." Behold!
My initial notes (beyond the aforementioned first sentence) were fascinating to me, but less fascinating to just about anybody else, since they were either about Django tunes I was listening to or about a book I was reading that likely would be of no interest to anyone reading this (a scholarly book about the complexities in understanding the development of the N.T. Canon, and the conflicts that went into choosing which books which were to be selected out of an already wide body of literature).
At the airport I did not take any trip related notes since I was mostly reading or playing my Uke., which I had opted to take as a carry-on, since I am sure it would be smashed to bits in normal baggage, and that would probably cause it to go out of tune, and tuning an instrument that uses pegs is a pain.
The Flight
Since my computer had a very finite battery life, and since the seats on the plane were three wide, I suggested as we boarded that both kids sit with H. who could recharge her battery. So I sat alone, wretched that I only had my iPod and my book, and could not sit with our restless kids, furtively struggling to entertaining them.
It turned out that they only watched about 20 minutes of a DVD, BTW.
Since the front of the notebook was dedicated to scribblings about Django, Eusebius, and other stuff, I flipped the book over and started from the back for trip notes so they would not get confused. The convention I have developed for referring to pages from this side of the book is to suffix the page # with an "r" to prevent confusion.
There was a later note added regarding the flight which said, "
The Other Airport and Our First Ride In Orlando
Here things become a bit more clear as I have no specific memories that I can recall, but have some notes that I can decipher. They read: "Landing - Good. On arrival. took them to other Airport Piece. Cool Ride. Maybe needs a bit updating." - Mead memo p. 3 r.
Here is my exegesis of Mead memo p. 3 r. 1-6:
The landing was good. On arrival we rode our first ride, the tram that carried us from the Airport Terminal to the other piece that I am not sure what it is called. The ride on the tram was fun. Max and Sophia rode the tram standing up, and put their hands in the air. I might have encouraged this. Once the tram hit the station we made our way to the Magical Express. The notes read:
"on arrival dowl, Magical Express, I carried all carry-ons - fam ran off sans-me, claiming I was slow." - Mead memo p. 3 r. 8-12
Exegesis:
Lines 8-12 are fairly straightforward. We went down to the Magical Express. The family had dumped all their carry-ons, so while I worked at picking them up the rest of the family took off and then when I caught up with them chided me for being slow.
From this point will simply give an exegetical account of the notes without the original text. I only included the original text here so you can get a sense of what being a textual scholar analyzing my notes can be like. There are various scholarly controversies regarding the readings of these texts, I will mostly omit them, though I will add here one controversy.
H. claims that the reason I was slow was not due to carry-ons, but rather because I was writing notes instead of following them.
I think that the text here speaks for itself, and I must have been delayed not by note-taking, but carry-ons. I also did this in the hope that it would bore both of you so badly you would move on and then I would not need to finish the report, but could go on to fiddling around doing other stuff, but it turns out you are surprisingly tenacious about reading a rather uneventful report.
The Magical Express Bus - Ride Two.
As we got on the bus Sophie and I found a quarter on the Bus floor. My notes say "Cha-Ching!" It was a nice start to our vacation that we made a small profit on the bus ride. This was definitely not a foreshadowing of the rest of the trip.
The next trip related items we have are drawings. The first was a drawing of Sophie that went really badly so it quickly became a drawing of an alien, the other a drawing of Sophie if she were a Japanese cartoon character with shorter hair.:
This was followed by an image of a moose:
There were other drawings including this parakeet:
We were playing a game I had invented on the plane where one person names an animal and the other has to draw it. Now you see why I am not an artist, but a computer nerd who does computer related activities at a large-ish computer company.
There are certain jokes we repeat at just about every opportunity at DW. Whenever we are on any ride that is not a high speed adventure, but a calmer paced sit-down boat-ride, or a slow tram, or a bus to the I always ask something to the effect of, "Wait, do you have your seat belt on? This one goes upside down once we hit the underwater section. The triple-loop is crazy." At one point many many years ago I could convince them that we really did go upside down on the PeopleMover/TomorrowLand Transit Authority, or that there was a drop just like Splash Mountain on Pirates of the Caribbean. Those days are long gone, but the jokes persist. I bring this up since I checked to make sure Sophie had her seatbelt on.
Sophia has a habit we are trying to break. She chews on her hair. I pulled the hair gently from her mouth a few times, and used the pointer finger rubbing across the a perpendicular pointer finger while saying "chop-chop" to try to deter her. She did not recognize the "chop-chop" gesture, which I had thought was universally understood as a sign of disapproval of some act. I had to explain its significance to her. We played a few paper games. They she whacked me and said, "you're the punch-buggie." It took me a few weeks to realize that she saw a VW out the window. On the bus Sophie got distracted by the Infomercial played on the screen before us. We specifically chose seats with a nice view of the screens. We are not always especially clever. Here's what the back of the bus seat looks like, by the way:
There are other notes regarding the bus. They are legible but inscrutable. This second Disney Word ride was less exciting than the tram. We were stuck sitting on the bus waiting thirty minutes before the bus left, which dampened enthusiasm. The added irritation of the infomercial was like a fine layer of grit rubbing one's soul, actually strengthening the will to resist Disney marketing despite the fact that we have already bought into the whole picture and have paid cold hard credit for it.
Haley's addenda:
About the cold hard credit comment. Just so that none of the good people on the budget board don't have a stroke, we use cold hard credit as a convenience only. We do not carry a balance on our credit cards, as a rule, because debt makes me uncomfortable.
Bus to Epcot - Ride Three
That subsection title is misleading. We actually first checked in, which took an aeon, then walked for an additional aeon on an epic walk out to the 80s to our room. I am surprised we were in the same epoch after all that, let alone era.
Haley's addenda:
A bit more about check in. As the ME bus pulled up to the Pop (1st stop! Yippee, of course we were the first ones on he bus) I was ready to rock-n-roll. I had thoughtfully taken seats near the front of the bus, and I had a check in line avoidance plan. The plan went like this, ditch the family and sprint for the check in line. The plan worked, I was first in line and waited only a brief minute or two to be called forward.
Our CM was kind and helpful. But the room they had us in was one that had been blocked for the GG. Three rooms... hang on, did he say "three"? I reconfirm this, and think "Why three?" I know there are more than three of us. So I ask who is assigned to the other two rooms. Also I glance at the map and realize we have been banished to the outer limits of the Pop. So while he is trying to figure out who is in the other two rooms, I mention that I know I asked for 60's and so did several others in our group.
Turns out, according to this CM, they tend to put the GG' out there, far far away. Like the bus from Epcot. Far far away. I mention that the room location stinks.
Also he says, this is strange, no one is in those rooms. So I think to myself, hmm. And ask him to look for sheridac's room assignment. Nope not in the block. She has a nice location in the 70's. Hmmm.
Nice CM guy then tells me that if I want I can request a room change in the morning. Then he looks to see what will open up tomorrow morning. There are two nice spots in the 70's, I should ask for those. So I thank him and go on my merry way. We want to try to get some time in Epcot, so we need to get going.
As we walked, we began to hear lamentations and the gnashing of teeth from our children, despairing their sufferings at such an agonizingly long walk. Really, there should be a tram into the 80s.
I realized that I was a bad parent, as I was causing my children to suffer a similar despair as I did as a child. And I recalled a solemn vow I made to myself as a child that if I were to ever have children (which I doubted), that I would not forget the depth of torment that my soul suffered as such, and that I would try as hard as possible not to subject my own children to such a thing as the particular thing I was brooding over darkly. At the time it seemed a safe bet that I would be dead before procreation age. I lived near the Long Beach Naval Depot where nuclear weapons were stored, and heard frequently about the threat of imminent demise from a nuclear attack from the Reds. I remember one teacher in 5th grade tried to comfort us by explaining that we should be happy as we were sure to be vaporized, and the survivors were the ones who'd really suffer.
I also had no idea of the annoying complexities of parenthood, and how easy it is to slip into the same habits as one's own parents. Now I know, and that foolish vow makes that knowledge all the more bitter. As we walked, we knew that the walk back to the buses too would be an agonizing, tooth gnashing ritual as well, which added to our mental anguish.
We were also relieved that H. had grouched when we checked in and had demanded to not have a room that might as well have been in Texas. This was blamed on the Magical Gathering thing that H. had set up. As counter-intuitive as it might seem, being trapped in the 80s is not very magical. They eventually told us that they were booked at this point, but some rooms in a desirable spot would be opening the next day, and so if we returned around three we would be sure to be able to get one. They lied about this, but at the time they had no way of knowing they were lying.
The walk did indeed take an aeon as had been predicted. On the walk we discovered Love Bugs. The cars in the lot were plastered with them. The ground was littered with them. They also ran into the kids freaking them out. Despite the fact that they are not physically harmful, they look positively evil, so they are scary. Also lots of them were mating. Fortunately the kids were relatively unfazed by the explanation that they were mating, so uncomfortable bird/bee discussions that were focused strictly on birds, bees, and Love Bugs, and not on humans at, all were averted. For now. One bug landed on me and I rather gently flicked it off me with a finger, and it immediately fell to the ground and looked dead. Luckily it was just stunned.
Since I had been looking over my previous progress as a parent, and was lamenting some failings in instilling a deep-felt sense of moral values in the children (they are really good kids, but still, you know, sometimes you just kind of are driven by stuff), I gently lectured them on the values of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity, which are the most important attitudes one can cultivate towards one fellow (hu)man and even other creatures. So I commented on the fact that we might want to think more deeply about going randomly stomping on every Love Bug in sight since for all we know they suffer pain just as we do and might be conscious of a lot more than one might think at first.
I also mentioned that when waiting in lines at Dis. that these attitudes helped to soften the irritation one might feel towards others. The other people are just like us and just want to be happy and enjoy the ride as we do, so we should be kind to them. And on and on.
It was a long bus wait.
I think I might actually have more pages of notes on this bus wait than any other thing. I will try to stop soon, but one particular incident must be noted. I was giving some examples of unkind behavior as the sorts of things one would want to avoid. A particular example I offered was describing a theoretical conversation with a cast member in which the question, "can I talk to a Cast Member who is not a mental cripple?" was used. Just at that point a lady was walking past us who gave me a *very* funny look.
Finally the bus arrived, and we boarded, greeted the driver kindly and respectfully, and got in position.
We always like to try to make it a point to be respectful towards all people we encounter and not to ever treat anyone as a lesser, since
a) you never know when life might deal you some unexpected change such that you are in a position of getting a job as a bus driver or what have you, and
3) People are not their jobs. People who do less fun seeming jobs (though maybe driving a bus is fun to some people) and face the public get treated poorly too often. People appreciate being treated as the real people they are, and like it when you are friendly to them.
This bus ride was similar to the Tram, but more fun. The kids stood on the bus and tried hard not to use the handrails. I have in the past commented that we should just get a bus pass instead of Disney World vacations, since the kids' favorite ride seems to be the bus, and it would be *much* cheaper. And the public-transit style buses are the most preferable type, since they have nice wide aisles to stand in and handrails. Seeing that we are once again going to DW this clearly has not been heeded.
On the bus I asked Sophie, "how many times have you grabbed the rail?" "None." I poked her on the side of her neck. She started giggling and grabbed the rail. I realize that this might not be the best example of kindness, but the joy/enjoyment factor was overriding me there.
At Epcot
We arrived at Epcot at 7 and bolted to Ice Station Cool. As we approached Ice Station Cool H. mentioned that Ice Station cool had a new distinct name. I mentioned that that sentence was indistinct. It had been rebranded as Club Cool, lost the snowplough/tractor and cave thing, and was closed. It closes at 7. A person opened the door to let us know we could not come in, as it was closed. But they were sorry. We were thirsty, even know that there was no Watermelon soda. There was still the Vegita Beta, which is Vegita Beatitude in my mind.
As we walked past the closed Club Cool towards the Land one thing was worthy of notation.
"Nice Plumbagos."
Seriously.
It is in the notebook. I'll scan it if you doubt me, though since you won't be able to read it, you'd still have to take it on faith.
Just in case you are not a botanical type, the Plumbago is a lovely evergreen shrub with very pretty bunches of blue flowers that bloom all year long except in Winter. It can be pruned to grow like a vine or a shrub, and has a great name. They are in the potted flower displays in WDW all over the place. They are also used as vines in many places such as the Jungle Cruise, and in Animal Kingdom. They seem to thrive in Fla., and I found that they were used very extensively in WDW. I like plants, but to do well they need as much care as kids, and I am barely passable at handling kids at this point, so I don't do much growing of them, and just enjoy them vicariously.
We reached the Land. I jammed off to get fastpasses, as is my job, though sometimes Sophie helps me in this task.
Last time we were out, we bought a blue waterproof card holder at a water park with a nice long lanyard. I tie the lanyard to a belt strap, and put the keys in a pocket such that I can easily get to them by pulling on the lanyard, and this system works well for us. I keep all the keys (they are tickets, keys, charge cards, and other things, but calling them keys is simple, and it also means that I am the Key Master (this opens up GhostBusters jokes about the Gate Keeper, Zuul, and other Ghost Buster topics). When others leave with a key to do some task I enforce immediate return of the key when I next see them and regularly check and count the keys to make sure we have them all. I also am the one who passes out the keys to the correct parties as we enter a park so that they can get in, and immediately collect them once we have entered. When I go to get fastpasses I store these in the blue cardholder also, keeping the fastpasses grouped individually.
We were hungry, so we went to the food-pit to see what there was to eat. Haley had apparently written out details on desirable dining and got us started towards our appropriate destinations. Sophie Got some Beef strips on a salad that she thought sounded good a nesquik to drink and a fruit tart for dessert - dining plan counterservice meals make things so simple and yet so calorie laden. H & I got goat cheese salads, iced teas, and Creme Brulees. Max got something that was safe for him, I think rotisserie chicken. I always like it when this comes up since H. always calls it a rotary chicken, and I picture that model my brother had of a Wankel Rotary Engine, where is morphed into a Wankel Rotary Chicken. And thus I get to think of the work Wankel, which is implicitly amusing, and of rotary chicken which makes the whole thing silly enough for my to laugh at.
I don't have notes here for this stuff, so I might be off in some essentials, but here's my recall:
The food stations were in these separate pods, so I waited at the salad pod as a few people before me slowly and methodically each ordered a chicken greek salad, and then ordered the same for other family members until there were like ten of these somehow being ordered, and I wondered at how many people there were here, and also wondered at what point I could put an order in. But I was kind and compassionate, so I actually liked them as they made my order delay and delay, and wanted things to go well for them.
And then I ordered our salads which had goat cheese and beets, and they looked really good.
On getting to our table, I found that the salad was indeed good. I couldn't get Sophie to like the beet she tried off my plate, which is a shame since they are very good for you. Very purifying, beets will pull bad things out of you. She liked her flatbread and beef slices, and was okay with her cous-cous mixed with salad. She did not like her lime dressing, I tried some on my salad and it added a new dimension of good to the salad, so I was pleased.
Anyway, we all enjoyed our main courses and when dessert time came along, I was delighted with my Creme Brulee, which was awesome. Sophia liked her dessert, a fruit tart, though she was selective about which fruits she would eat. I can't recall what Max ate for dessert, but I think it worked out for him for the most part, though he had to avoid some of it.
Having eaten, we got in line to use our FastPasses for Soarin. It was dead, the FPs took about 20 minutes to mature. In line for Soarin I wrote notes about what we did. What I wrote looked like it said, "Haley drinks Nosqil." Haley noticed this and was puzzled. I will note that it in fact said "Haley drinks Nesquik." I don't drink raw cow milk anymore, so the idea of drinking nesquik seems like it would make me retch, but apparently H. drank some of Sophie's drink and did not retch.
A strange (to some, though really a more typical to us) conversation started.
Me: (noticing H. who is lacto-intolerant chugging milk) Did you have your lactase?
H: No.
Me: This is among the worst places to have gastrointestinal ballistics.
H: Among, what's worse?
Me: It would be more dreadful if you were alone in the desert, with no TP, had diarrhea, no trees, no leaves, and you are like seriously blasting chunks with some force so they are spattering...
H. Changing subjects
Me: so you can't wipe, all you have to wipe with is sand.
H: Blech
Max: Blech
S: Blech
Me: Hey, now that I have a notebook, I was able to record that conversation that we would have otherwise all forgot.
Haley: Now that's a proud moment.
Sophie: Hey it's a short line
In case you were wondering, this is not a trip report designed to soothe and calm the reader.
Haley's commentary:
Max had some fruit for dessert and was happy with it, as he is not a complainer. However I did notice him eyeing our treats and so I formed the plan of getting him some non-dairy 'ice-cream' latter at Everything Pop. In addition to her fruit tart Sophia also had a cinnamon roll. Free dining is fun.
I went to tremendous efforts contacting WDW chefs and food managers to try to insure that Max would have some treats available to him. I talked at length with several Chef's and exchanged e-mails with a few. I was assured that there would be dairy free ice-cream, brownies, and cookies available at our food court. Sadly every time I tried to get him the cookie or the brownie they were "sold out" of them.
Unfortunately, although Disney goes to great lengths to provide such foods to their guests, they fail utterly in training the food court staff. So my request for dairy free ice-cream was met with blank stares. Then I was told they didn't have anything like that. I assured them that they did and suggested they ask a manager or chef. They did, in fact, have dairy free ice cream in the back freezer. It took them approximately forever to go fetch it for us. But I am getting ahead of myself. We are still in Epcot right now.
The Beet/Goat cheese salad was, indeed, good. In fact it ranked as one of my two favorite counter services venues. In a way it is a shame that it was located in Epcot, and not (for example) the Magic Kingdom. This is because my very favorite counter service location (and Mr S's too) is also in Epcot, the Tangerine Cafe. Yum.
Really I only took a sip of Sophie's Nesquick. I was not overly concerned about the consequences of such a small intake. The real reason I took a sip of it was because it was chocolate flavored. I had passed on chocolate in flavor of creme brulee for dessert. So I was looking for a chocolate fix.
Finally a real ride
We boarded Soarin. It was cool. We smelled the Oranges, though it was not as strong as some in the past. We saw hidden Mickeys, even where they may not have been intended, as is our way.
From here we bolted across to Test Track. The line was short enough that walk-on would work, though we grabbed fast passes, since they would be up by the time we were off so we could loop it and get on even faster. We got into Test Track at 8:46. I have notes I took while riding which show how dedicated I was to this whole project:
We looped it.
As we walked out the exit we heard the fireworks going off, so we watched it from a distance on the bridge thing not far outside of Test Track.
As a bit of meta-commentary, it's a bit odd that it took so many lines to go over the carp up to the good part - Soarin/Test Track, but then somehow those merited a very few paltry and terse lines.
Back to the Pop
After that we were done with Epcot and went back to the Pop. We took the bus back, but the trip was apparently uneventful. H. wanted to get a dessert that would be good for Max since the one at the Land had been very limited, he had been able to pick out a few fruit pieces of a dessert, but had to leave the rest. The Pop was chaos. The lines were epically long from everyone getting back around this time.
So the wait in the dessert line was long.
Sophie and I went to look at the new pins. There were a lot of new ones, and some of them were really cool. Like Mickey as a Locomotive Engineer with a nice locomotive. We had a set of trading pins, and one of the fields that I wanted to try to trade to get more was transit related items - a mickey on a Loco. would be perfect. We also wanted to try to get some Haunted Mansion/Nightmare Before Christmas pins. There were some cool pins along those lines too. Also there were some cool Mission: Space pins with the rocket you 'fly' in the mission. But without much of a chance of dying, even it you were to fly it really fast. And there were other really swell pins as well.
Also Sophie had found some swim goggles that she wanted since her last pair were forgotten/broken.
Since the line was about 20 people long at all the registers, I recommended we find the things we want and pick them up later. H. and Max finally got their Ice Cream after an epically epic wait.
Sophie showed the googles to Mom who mentioned that we were against swimming tonight with our room out in Egypt, so we should wait until the walk to the pool doesn't tire you out so badly you just want to take a nap by the pool. She also looked at the cool pins we found with some interest.
Max approached me with Mickey Boxing Gloves on.
M: These are cool.
I: Because you can box?
M: No, cool because they are cool.
Sophia: Goggles are what we need here.
She has persuaded H. of this, and they selected the most expensive pair as the one to get.
As I go to the counter to buy the goggles I note something really disturbing (besides the haphazardness of my verb time agreement). There is a Halloween pin that is Mickey dressed as Maleficent. I mention to H. that Mickey is cross dressing as an ice queen witch. That's just messed up on a lot of levels.
H: No.
I: Well, you know the whole thing is trouble, we have a cross dressing Mickey.
H: No, she has eyelashes.
I: Mickey would put on false eyelashes if he was cross dressing.
I: You know, writing down this whole cross dressing episode is troubling.
Max: Why?
I: We're strange people.
H: (to Sophie) Can you go a little slower?
S: Okay. (she goes slower)
I: Umm, there are people behind us.
Soph: You said to go slower.
I: She was joking. You knew she was joking.
Soph: 2 Reens CP (whaaa?)
I am afraid that that last bit of notes was utterly illegible. Remembering "2 Reens" is not so magical, so if anyone has any suggestions for what might have been a great thing for Sophie to say in that context, let us know, and we will adjust our memories accordingly.
After that we went to the room and went to bed. Thus ends the first day. Wow this wound up being long. I think we might be a bit more brief if there are any follow up posts.
I thought this was a note about flamingos. Written in poor handwriting. Who knew there's really such a thing as plumbagos???? (Well, you, of course)
I thought it went out with lumbago and the vapours. Thank you for the extra education. I am sure I am now more erudite (or do I mean crudite?) than I was just moments ago. 
