My great aunt uses a walking stick from time to time and we thought if she were ever feeling particularly rebellious, these might be an alternative. Shes quite a character and one of our absolute favorite people.
This concluded our shopping trip. Robert bought a pack of about 9 postcards, but that was all the spending we did.....for now.....
We were both beginning to get hungry, but our plan was to get room service in the room while we watched the first part of the American Idol finale. We dont normally watch AI, but we both really liked Adam Lambert and wanted to see his final performance.
So, we decided to just grab a snack at The Mara. First, we had to find it.....
As we roamed around, we stumbled upon the map in the lobby (yeah, that scouring of our map earlier wasnt as productive as we thought.....)
We finally found the elevators
and a cool light fixture
I thought the area around The Mara and the pool was really neat, so I kept clicking away with the camera because I didnt want to forget anything about this place.
This was about where things started to go a little south....
Side story/pit stop: On our December trip, we had a little......discussion, yes, lets call it a discussion about pictures. Robert would stop dead in his tracks to take pictures of anything and everything. Flowers, characters with other peoples kids, etc. Now, Im all for pictures (as you can probably tell), but it got old having to just stand around while he took ten pictures of the same thing. When Im in Disney, I take one picture and keep going. I suppose that is why some of mine didnt make it past the editor. Robert, on the other hand, takes a picture, reviews it, deletes it if it isnt worthy and repeats until he gets the perfect shot.
At one point, I decided he could take pictures and I would just walk around or shop in the vicinity. This didnt work. We were in the MK and he stopped in Adventureland to take pictures of Rafiki from afar with other peoples kids. I suggested that we could get in the short line and just ask him to pose for us. Well, that was shot down as a bad idea. So, Annie Leibovitz continued to stand in one spot (where we were in the way of traffic) and try to get Rafiki with no kids in the shot. I told him I was going to go to the bathroom around the corner. He nodded, but I knew he didnt hear me - ladies, you know what Im talking about, that intuition that he didnt hear a single word you said, but nodded so you would stop talking? Yeah, that was the nod I received.
I went on to the restroom anyway, because I thought this might be a good teaching moment. Someone tried to call my cell phone while I was in the restroom...wonder who? When I came out, I noticed Robert wandering around the Aloha Isle area with a slighty annoyed, slightly worried look on his face. When I walked up, the conversation went something like this.
Robert: Where did you GO?
Me: I told you I was going to the restroom if you were going to stay there and try to get pictures.
Robert: I didnt hear you say anything.
Me: Shocker.
We had already had one discussion about the stopping to take bunches of pictures of the same thing until he got a shot he liked. So, I told him that if he wanted to do that, fine, but I didnt want to just stand there and waste park time. I suppose we never really reached an understanding about this.
On the road again: Okay, back to May of 09. After I took the picture of The Mara menu, I noticed someone putting his huffy pants on. Stupidly, I took the bait and asked what was wrong. He proceeded to tell me that I had blessed him out in December about taking too many pictures and that here I was taking a picture of everything in sight and that we didnt have unlimited space on his computer for pictures and so on and so forth.
I tried to explain that my problem was not with the number of pictures, but with the stopping, reviewing, and so forth that took up a lot of park time. Now, if we took trips where we had more than 2 park days, this wouldnt matter so much, but weve never taken a trip where we had more than 3 or 4 days in the parks. I realize that I shouldnt be so commandoish in the parks, and I am working on it.
I also tried to explain that we had no other plans for the afternoon apart from wandering around the resort and taking pictures. This didnt help because he continued to be annoyed with me.
We went in The Mara and I asked what he wanted to eat. After perusing the menu, I suggested we get an African stew because it seemed to be the most unique item. He said that didnt look like enough. I told him I would go ask because I really wanted to get that and, after all, this was just a snack. He said he had lost his appetite and was going back to the room. *sigh* Men.
When we got back to the room, he was mad and I was starting to not feel very well. My lupus is almost always triggered by stress and fatigue and within the last few months, seems to also be triggered by low blood sugar. Well, the tiff, hunger, and fatigue were starting to wreak havoc. I laid down on the bed and threw myself a little pity party complete with streamers and party hats.
After a few moments and what I suspect was a pity party of his own, Robert apologized for getting so mad at me and we talked out the situation. He asked if I wanted to go back to The Mara but I really didnt feel like it and asked if we had anything from the car in the room. He had forgotten to get any food from the car, so I rested a minute and then we went back to The Mara.
When we got there, I asked the CM taking orders how big the African stew in a bread bowl was. She simulated the bowl size with her hands and I decided that was plenty for both of us for a snack. Thankfully, Robert agreed.
If youve never been to The Mara, first off, you should go, and secondly, it was different than any other CS I have ever seen. There is a CM in front of the open kitchen area who takes your order and gives you a beeper to come back when your food is ready. When your food is ready that CM trades you a receipt and your food for the beeper.
While we waited for our beeper to do its thing, we looked in the cooler for drinks and such. Robert discovered the red pepper hummus (we LOVE us some hummus) and the house made pita chips. We got that and some drinks and our beeper signaled that our food was ready.
All of the above was beyond delicious! After we finished, Robert asked for the recipe and they said they would print it for us. A CM came out soon after and had several copies of the recipe. She handed one to Robert and then started to hand one to me. I told her that I was with him and would just use his copy. She said, Okay, but dont fight over it. Hows that for some irony?
Part of the ridiculousness ensued because Robert and I could not agree on some aspects of the placement at first. It took a long time for each one to point out what they didn't like and then for the other one to point out why they thought it would work. Thankfully, Mom is a wondrous referee, and helped us figure it out without re-enacting one of the "wild animal" scenes from Mean Girls.
It is also a good example of where I spent a LOT of my time while at the lodge. Yes, my name is Laura Beth and Im a balcony addict.
