Adventures in the Happiest Place on Earth: How to Lose Your Magic Band and Still Feel Like a Winner

Only my son could create his own attraction at Disney.

It was 100 degrees and 100% humidity at 9:00 a.m., and we were in Animal Kingdom. Our sights were set on a show and we were running late, so we were moving fast (and sweating). Not that the show is all that compelling, but it’s air-conditioned and we had a Fast Pass we didn’t want to lose.

As we crossed a bridge near the theater, my daughter asked to stop for a picture. Knowing that it could potentially turn into an extended photo shoot, followed by an Instagram Posting Fest, my husband gave her an exasperated look, and she said “Never mind,” and started walking again. My son hung back a second looking dazed and slightly stricken, and muttered something under his breath.

“What?”

“I might have lost my . . .”

“What?”

“I might have lost my Magic Band.”

“WHEN? WHERE?”

“Over the bridge.”

“Oh my god, seriously? How?”

“It must have been loose, and I put my arm on the railing, and now it’s gone.”

We all peered over the bridge, expecting to see it about 20 feet below on the ground or in the water. But it was lodged in the bridge’s trestle (I’m not sure that’s what it’s called, but I’m going with it), about 10 feet below us. No way to reach it.

“We need one of those grabber thingies,” my husband declared, and darted off to find the nearest Cast Member. Lo and behold, he only had to travel about 10 feet, and she had a grabber thingie! Apparently that’s part of their uniform.

About 15 minutes went by, and it was clear that we were not going to be able to reach the Magic Band with the grabber thingie no matter what angle we tried (including climbing the fence and dangling over, which the cast member definitely didn’t recommend).

Additional cast members arrived, each of them trying different angles. At one point our original cast member was actually ON THE GROUND–lying on 100-degree asphalt–trying to get the grabber as far down as possible. Hang on, I have photos:

A curious crowd was beginning to gather. They seemed to think a child had fallen overboard, or an alligator had been spotted in the river.

The bridge was getting crowded, so I started telling people (as quietly as possible) “Nothing to see here folks, no one fell over the railing. It’s just my son. I mean, my SON didn’t fall over the railing, but his Magic Band did. We’re trying to grab it. Anyway, move it along, please.”

Eventually the big guns had to be called in: The Cast Member with the Really Long Grabber Thingie. Ok, that sounded wrong. But you know what I mean. The problem was, the grabber was so long that to get it at the right angle, the part you had to squeeze with your hand was too far away. So they rigged up a second, shorter grabber to act as the “squeezer.” It was really quite amazing:

Just as things were looking up, two cast members who had started out on the bridge threw a kink into the plan. They had gone down to the ground to see if there was any way to reach it from there, and they started shouting and waving. Here they are shouting and waving:

“Knock it down!” they kept saying. “Knock it into the water and the boat will get it!”

What boat?

THAT boat. Which appeared to be decorative, not really serving any purpose other than making you feel like you’re in Africa/Asia/Avatar Land, and the captain just looked confused by all the shouting and waving.

“I don’t think knocking it into the water would be a good idea,” I said. “How would the guy on the boat be able to reach it? He would also need a long grabber to get it off the bottom of the river.”

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” one of the cast members said. “It looks deep, but it’s only a few inches of water.” Gasp. Disney, you never cease to amaze me with your witchery!

It didn’t matter anyway, as that ship had sailed. But wait, there was another one right behind it!

The captain of this one was also confused by the shouting coming from the land and above his head, so that opportunity also passed. Fortunately the crew on the bridge had largely ignored Chip and Dale down below, and the Man with the Longest Grabber Thingie triumphantly produced the wayward Magic Band.

HOORAY! A cheer went up from the crowd. Actually the crowd was just me, my husband, my daughter, the cast members involved and a photographer who was stationed on the bridge and had been watching the melee when he wasn’t ambushing happy families for unexpected photos.

And boy was magically (and sheepishly) reunited with Magic Band.

Do you see the nice man with the white shirt and the tablet? At the end of it all, he pulled us over to a shady spot and gave us three fast passes for our “trouble.” Seriously? We were the ones causing the trouble!

And THIS is why Disney World is, indeed, the Happiest Place on Earth.

Not all who wander are lost: Or, maybe they are?! My latest crazy dream, which ends with an interrobang.

Ok all you psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, mind readers, tarot card readers and fortune cookie makers, here’s a doozy for you. Please let me know what you think my latest crazy dream means. And no, I’m not going to accept “you’re insane” as the answer. Here goes:

I was still in school, either high school or college, or I was an adult going back to school. I was in a class that was culminating in some kind of performance later that evening. I wasn’t in the performance, but I had an important behind-the-scenes role, like maybe stage manager or AV or cue cards, so I was nervous. We were getting ready to switch classes and then . . .

I was somewhere else, very far away, in a busy city. I didn’t recognize it, so it probably wasn’t New York, but I felt like all I needed to do was get over a bridge and I would be able to figure out which way to go to get back to Cranford. (Why Cranford? I don’t live in Cranford.) I struck out towards a nearby bridge (I have no idea how I knew the bridge was there, or whether it was the right bridge), and started running.

Except that I couldn’t run. Something was keeping my legs from stretching very far, so I had to kind of hop and jump. Then suddenly there were people all around me, all running to get to the bridge, and I panicked because I was hobbled and everyone was passing me. Then I realized that I was wearing a jeans skirt that had slipped down so far that it was squeezing my legs. So I yanked it up and was very relieved to be able to run, then thought “Shit, my skirt was so far down that I’ve been mooning everyone behind me this whole time. Oh well, never mind, at least I’m running now.”

Then I wasn’t on the bridge. Instead, I was in a dark room with lots of fabric on the wall and there was a man relaxing on the floor, or maybe a bed, and he was eating some kind of huge souffle or bread. He looked a little like Harry Belafonte. A woman came out of nowhere and told me he’s a bike messenger and can take me where I need to go. But first, he needed to finish his breakfast. There was kind of a pimp/prostitute vibe to it that made me uncomfortable, so I told her I was in too much of a hurry and I wasn’t sure I had money anyway, and I ran off . . .

. . . into a place that was like a combination between a mall (what’s with malls in my dreams?), a game show set and a circus. I kept trying to get people’s attention to ask them which direction to go, but they were all too busy either running a game show, or a three-ring circus, or working at the stores. There were no spectators or shoppers, just people running things. I kept trying to find a path through the chairs and set elements to get their attention, but I was on the outside of everything and there was no way inside. I wondered how everyone on the inside had gotten there, and then I was . . .

. . . in an airport. Yes! I could get a flight! Except that I couldn’t figure out where the terminals were, or what the Departing and Arriving boards said, or where to buy tickets. And I realized that I also didn’t have my purse. However, there was a little wristlet dangling from my right arm (I took a moment to thank myself for preparing this life-saving wristlet before the dream began), so I checked inside and found my passport and some cash. Nothing else. No driver’s license, no credit cards, no phone. Knowing that I didn’t have enough cash to get a flight, I started running out of the airport.

Then bike messenger guy/Harry Belafonte showed up, and he had a second seat on his bike. How many tandem messenger bikes have you seen? I’m guessing none. I’ve now seen one. “Do you know how to get to Cranford?” I asked. “Follow me,” he said. Which seems kind of silly now that I think about it, since getting on the bike seat behind him would kind of require that I follow directly behind him at all times.

We got going pretty fast and I was feeling better about things, but suddenly we were back outside, in the same city where we started, and it was cold out. Mr. Belafonte stopped and made us get off because the sidewalks were icy and it was too dangerous to ride. I say “us” because there was now another person with us, a younger girl, maybe a teenager, very thin and pale. She started complaining that we weren’t riding, and I thought “Who are YOU to complain? This is MY ride! And wait a minute, why am I planning to pay this guy for the ride when all he’s doing is walking his bike beside us?”

I looked at my watch (suddenly I had a watch), and it was 1:00 p.m. I was so relieved. Even though I had missed the rest of my classes for the day, I could possibly make it back in time for the performance. Which I assume was in Cranford.

And then . . . I was in bed, the crazy dream was dissolving, and I heard someone splashing in the bath. Whoever it was came out of the bathroom and walked toward me, and I was embarrassed because I had a huge chunk of cheddar cheese in my hand and was about to cram it in my mouth.

Thankfully that whole last part was also in the dream, including the cheese. I woke up sweaty and panicked, my neck so stiff I could barely get out of bed, my jaws aching from (I guess) grinding my teeth.

I never found out if I made it to my destination . . . Probably because I haven’t made it there yet in real life.

Ok, never mind all you psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, mind readers, tarot card readers and fortune cookie makers, I think I just figured out the meaning of this dream and so many others before it. The question is, how many more of these awful dreams will I need to have?????!!!!!!

By the way, I learned this from a recent episode of the show “Explained”: A question mark and an exclamation point together are called an “interrobang.” I’m happy to have provided this explanation/exclamation for anyone who has always been wondering.

A very long and rambling thought about short-term memory loss: Or, as I also like to call it . . . Saturday.

Don’t you hate it when you’re standing in line at the grocery store having a conversation with your son about Bai water, or something else for sale at the checkout, and you think of something clever and funny, like melding two words together into a new one, and it’s so good you have to pull out your phone to make a note of it, but it’s time to pay so you have to put your phone away, and then when you get home you remember that you had this really clever thought but you can’t remember what it was, so you ask your son, “Hey, do you remember that really clever word I came up with in line at the grocery store?” and he responds “You didn’t say a clever word at the grocery store,” so I rephrase it: “Do you remember something funny I said while in line at the grocery store?” and he responds “No, you didn’t say anything funny either. Can I have dinner now?” and you still can’t remember it but you know you will at some point if you just start writing, and it turns into this ridiculously long sentence on your blog that you haven’t touched in months, but you STILL can’t remember it?

I sure do.

P.S. I’ll remember at 3:38 tomorrow morning, I guarantee. Please feel free to check back then. I just know it’s going to blow your socks off.

Dreamscapes: The Whole Foods Mall of Japaris

Feel free to make what you will out of THIS crazy dream!

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I was in a huge, cavernous shopping mall of some type with some of my friends (I couldn’t tell which ones). I didn’t know exactly where the mall is, but somehow it was a cross between Japan and Paris.

The mall was an odd shape, with a narrow stairwell (it reminded me of being in Notre Dame, with the steep concrete stairs and little windows looking out on the world) that would wind its way up to the next floor. Along each stairwell there were open buckets of all kinds of goodies—candy, toys, small fun items (like the bulk section of Whole Foods), and I understood that you were supposed to take what you wanted and bring it to the nearest register. But it was so tempting to just take a few small things and stick them in your coat pocket. I didn’t . . . at least not yet.

Even though it was indoors, everyone was wearing coats. It was so tight in that stairwell, people were jammed together in two lines, like going up the escalator from the train to the main floor in Penn Station. When you reached each floor, the space was wide open and there were vendors everywhere. No actual stores, just people at kiosks or just standing there selling their wares. It reminded me of the artists lined up along the streets and bridges in Paris.

Each main floor of the mall was so huge, it echoed. At each floor there was some kind of performance, and the point of each performance seemed to be to scare people into thinking they were going to run into you. One group of performers was dressed up like huge robots or transformers, all in black and on stilts. They were terrifying.

At the next stairwell, I couldn’t help myself and I took a handful of Swedish Fish, but for some reason each one was on a stick. Swedish Fish Skewers. I kept trying to get them in my pocket, but the stick was in the way and the crowd kept shoving me. I dropped two, and held onto one, hoping there were no hidden cameras.

At the next open level, one of my friends wanted to go look at something and I tried to follow her but instead I went looking for a trash can to throw away the Swedish Fish so I wouldn’t get in trouble. A group of performers on bicycles appeared, careening all around me, and one came to a skidding halt right in front of me.

I ran, but realized that I dropped the Swedish Fish. I looked back and saw it on the floor, and for some reason I was so sad, but I kept running.

And that was it.

Dreamscapes: Applying for a Job

I’ve been feeling a little stagnant on my blog. For some reason I’m not feeling that creative lately. But my brain has been very creative, delivering vivid, complex and bizarre stories every night that I remember in detail the next day.

I figure my brain is trying to tell me something. I have tons of great stories in me, they are just having trouble coming together cohesively. So my brain is giving me bits and pieces, little puzzles that, when I figure them out, will be the start of some really interesting stories.

This is one of many from last night. I can only guess what the imagery and recurring themes are telling me about myself. I don’t want to put too much thought into it right now, though. I’ll just blurt out everything I remember and later, maybe the stories will start knitting themselves together.

Applying for a Job

There was an open job at the school, and I went for an interview. I brought a little pamphlet with me that described the job. I was met by a guy (no one who works at the school in real life) who took me to a kind of dusty attic atmosphere place in the school with an old, beat up wooden desk. Nothing else around. I was wearing an old-fashioned dress.

He asked if my test was scantron. I looked down and it was now a tri-folded test with the little dots. Apparently I was supposed to fill it out for him to know whether I was a good fit for the job. I felt so unprepared and embarrassed.

He asked why I thought I would be good at the job, and I forgot what the job was, except that it had something to do with surveying, and I was good at doing surveys. Plus, I have an advanced degree so I could probably adapt quickly. I tried to cheat and look at the title of the job on the other side of the paper, but I could only see part of it, and it didn’t make any sense.

Suddenly I had a couple of those round thin chocolates (the kind that would normally be covered in foil, but these weren’t), and they were melting in my hand. I tried to get rid of them but one fell out of my hand and rolled under his desk. I tried to look and see if it had touched his shoe. I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t seem to notice.

I shoved the other chocolate in my mouth and tried to swallow it but it was all over my face, and it got worse when I wiped my face with the hand with the melted chocolate. I was trying to keep my composure while he talked, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying.

Finally we sat there in silence for awhile.

He walked me out, and it was the exit to a different school I had seen in other dreams, similar to my own elementary school but I had only been able to see the exit in previous dreams.

Then I was in my house, but it wasn’t my house. It was a huge, grand room, all wooden from top to bottom, like an attic, with slanted ceilings and nice furniture, leather chairs. No other furniture around that I could see, it was like there was a spotlight on the center of the room.

For some reason I was thinking “If only the interviewer could see this beautiful room, and my beautiful house, he would have a much better impression of me!”

Then I thought “I should have talked to him about the job, admitted that I knew nothing but was confident that I could handle it, show him that I have previous business experience, get him talking and show him that I’m not just a mute dummy covered in chocolate.”

The room narrowed and turned into more of a crawlspace, and I had to wriggle my way through. That’s all I remember.

Not a resolution. An evolution.

 

I was at the gym the other day, slogging along on the Precor without much enthusiasm, and noticed that World’s Toughest Mudder was on one of the TVs. As I watched the elite women and men making their way through the course, mile after mile, hour after hour (and day after day!), hurting but still going strong, I started getting motivated and pedaled faster.

One by one they crossed the finish line and I cheered for them. By the time I finished my workout, I had actually gotten a workout, instead of just going through the motions.

A moment of inspiration struck: I will do a Tough Mudder this year!

WAIT. I have already done a Tough Mudder. Two, in fact. So I know that I CAN do it. In some ways just committing to do one is harder than actually completing the course. And to be fair, it’s been five years since my last one. At a certain age, five years makes a difference. (Sigh . . . knees.)

No matter. I will do what it takes to make sure I’m in the best possible shape by October. I might not be able to make it up that damn half pipe at the end (WHY do they put it at the end????), and I know I won’t be able to jump into the dumpster of ice water. I have too many emotional and spiritual scars from the first time.

I know my limits, but I also know that they don’t need to hold me back. Just like an obstacle I know I can’t conquer, I can walk around things I know I can’t do (even if there are people on the sidelines booing you), and go on to conquer something different. Like jumping from the platform into the lake. I couldn’t do it the first year, and it took many false starts the second year, but I eventually did it.

This is not a resolution for 2018, it’s a commitment to keep evolving. Keep trying new things (or old things I haven’t mastered), keep learning, keep going.

Whatever you are working on this year, just keep going! Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and rewarding 2018.

Be careful what you say, Echo is listening

Not long ago we bought an Amazon Echo (some opt to call it Alexa, which I voted for but my husband wasn’t comfortable giving stern commands to an inanimate object with a human’s name), mainly to listen to live radio and podcasts in the kitchen while we’re cooking. It didn’t take long for us to realize that it’s not necessarily a one-way communication device. Or inanimate.

Not that Echo moves, but it does sometimes seem to have a mind of its own. Either that, or we have ghosts.

Working from home, I hear everything that happens in the house during the day. The wind travels around the house and makes it creak from one room to the next, the front door makes cracking noises when it’s not locked, car doors slam, kids at the school across the street scream like feeding hyenas during gym and recess, the heat thumps on and off, ice cubes plunk in the freezer, and the cats click throughout the house on overgrown nails I really need to cut. That’s about it.

Except, every once in awhile I hear a soft, warm, concerned, almost maternal voice say something like “I’m sorry, I can’t find what you’re looking for.” Or, “Would you like me to add alt country as a station on your Pandora account?” Or even “I can order a multipack of toilet tissues for you on Amazon, using your Prime account.”

Every time I hear that voice I freeze, thinking “Oh my god. I didn’t talk to Echo. No one talked to Echo. WHO IS ECHO RESPONDING TO?”

Cautiously–but casually (as if someone is watching and judging me for being afraid of a small electrical device)–I’ll walk into the kitchen to see what Echo is talking about. By then she is silent, but the cats are usually sitting on the kitchen floor, looking at her on top of the fridge, the blue swirling light that means she has been alerted to conversation now turned off. I never know if they are watching the conversation, or instigating it. I’m guessing they are spectators, as they would be ordering something more cat-friendly than toilet paper.

More recently, Echo has gotten a little mischievous. Maybe we’re not talking to her enough and she’s lonely, bored, and starting to lash out.

One day I was getting something out of the fridge for my son, and he was right next to me. I don’t remember why; it’s not like I need help getting anything out of the fridge. He looked up at Echo and said “Remember when Dad said ‘Echo, volume 10,’ and it was SO loud?”

I looked at him in horror and suddenly everything went into slow motion, like that final, horrible scene in Platoon, and before I could say “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” (which I would have said in slow motion while tackling him to the ground, if we were in a movie instead of in our kitchen), Echo went to volume 10. The jazz station was on, which could have been a good thing, except that at that moment, it was a raucous drum solo complete with mirambas. It was deafening.

Ok, I thought, I’ll just tell Echo to turn the volume down. With my hands over my ears, I yelled “Echo!” The blue light didn’t come on. “Echo! Volume down!” Still no blue light. That bitch was purposely ignoring me. Then my son got into the act, screaming “Echo, volume down!” at the top of his lungs, which only made it more chaotic.

“Pull the plug! Pull the plug!” he yelled. I could reach Echo, but only with one arm, and couldn’t pull the plug out with only one hand. Paralyzed, I held the cylindrical device close to my face and continued hollering. Finally, the blue light came on and Echo heeded my command. Traumatized, I told her to turn the music off completely.

In the welcome silence of the kitchen, my son said “Whew,” holding his hand to his heart and repeating “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I’ll never do that again.”

I don’t know if he was apologizing to me, or to Echo.

An ode to crazy hair and Hormel turkey pepperoni

My daughter has a nest of baby hair that hovers at the top of her head. No matter how much she brushes, smooths, or sprays, that collection of shorter hairs gradually stands up to form a breezy little dirty blonde halo.

I call it her nimbus.

One day in the car she told me that she could feel the baby hairs moving when she turned her head, like they were a separate entity. I told her to think of them as pilot fish. They are a colorful, happy little tribe of fish that follow her around as if she were a benevolent girl shark.

In fact, they are also her biggest fans. They don’t just follow her because they need her for sustenance, they actually adore her! Can’t you hear them all cheering as they dart back and forth, I told her, keeping up with your every move! Go, go, go! We love you!

That gave us a good laugh. At least she has a sense of humor about her appearance, which is unusual for a 15-year old.

It also gave me an idea for a children’s book about a little girl who hates her unruly hair. Her mother tells her about the pilot fish, and also suggests that her crazy hair could be a special halo of flowers that she takes with her everywhere, or butterflies. Many scenarios about what her hair could actually be ensue, and the little girl eventually decides that it’s more fun to be special. Of course it has a happy ending, it’s a children’s book.

This is one of many children’s books I think about . . . Another one stars Pepper Lonely, a girl who loves Hormel turkey pepperoni and the Beatles in a time (the present) when neither one is in fashion. I personally think both are always in fashion, but in the book, we would be in some faraway land where neither thing exists. Maybe a kingdom of some kind. She would be Princess Pepperlonely. Listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band over and over.

The lessons would be (1) Hormel turkey pepperoni is very, very good. And so versatile. (2) The Beatles are cool, even if you live in a faraway land and have never heard of them. (3) It’s ok to be different. Be like Princess Pepperlonely.

And Hormel would pay to sponsor the book, which would result in a happy ($$) ending for me as well.

One of the days, I will actually write these stories. Now I just need a good illustrator.

 

 

 

What I Gained by Giving up Weekday Drinking

Here’s my second finalist article for the Parent.co monthly writing contest. I don’t think either of them won, but it was fun to enter–and always nice to see something you wrote published!

https://www.parent.com/what-i-gained-by-giving-up-weeknight-drinking/

 

I bought a $12 container of popcorn because I was afraid of a Boy Scout

Yes, it’s true. But there’s more to it than that. I’m not scared of all Boy Scouts. Just this one. And I’m not convinced that he was a Boy Scout at all. More like a Man Walkabout, without a uniform.

It wasn’t Halloween yet, so I wasn’t expecting anyone in a costume when the doorbell rang. Strange timing, I thought. About 8 pm, not terribly late but later than UPS usually delivers and it was already pitch dark.

Not knowing whether I wanted to answer, I peered through the living room window, where I could see the profile of a person standing on the front steps. Not a neighbor, not one of my kids’ friends, but also not someone with a clipboard or a stack of pamphlets. So I flicked on the overhead light and opened the door a few inches.

“Hello ma’am, I’m with the Boy Scouts,” this obviously grown man person without a costume or a Boy Scout-related chaperone said. Come to think of it, I didn’t even see a car, or bike, or any other mode of transportation. Did he walk here? And if so, from where?

“I visited yesterday and your husband said he was interested in buying popcorn, but he didn’t have the cash at the time.”

Then I saw the container of popcorn he was holding up. Yes, it had a picture of a Boy Scout on it. Ok, that’s promising. But wait. He walked here from wherever he came from, carrying only this one order for a single customer? That didn’t seem right.

“Um, ok.” I said. “How much is it?”

“Twelve dollars, ma’am.” Shut the front door! I mean, I didn’t actually shut the front door. At least not yet. Twelve dollars for what would cost a couple bucks at the grocery store? That’s crazy talk.

“Just a second,” I said. And then I did shut the front door, long enough to yell up the stairs to my husband:

“Hey, did you agree to pay twelve dollars for Boy Scout popcorn?”

A moment of silence.

“Oh yeah, but I didn’t have enough money.” Some rummaging ensued, and my husband came down the stairs with his wallet.

“Oh, I still only have two dollars. Do you have ten?”

“Hang on another second,” I told the Man Cub waiting on our steps, and got my wallet. Thank god, I had a ten dollar bill.

“Here you go!” I said cheerfully, shoving the money out the front door and grabbing the popcorn.

He said thank you very much, and I watched him walk away to . . . wherever he had come from. I almost expected him to disappear into the evening mist.

On one hand, I wanted to be annoyed that my husband had summoned this person back to our house with the sole intent to take my money. But then I remembered the time I ordered four years’ worth of magazines from an adorable young woman with a very sad back story and photos to prove it, only to find out a year later that I only had a year’s subscription.

Gullible, much? Or just afraid to say no? A little of both, I think.

It’s probably best if we just stop answering the door.

I wonder if the popcorn is any good?