Diagnosed

So, all the tests are done and all the tubes are out. A week and a half of sleepless nights are over and I feel a surprisingly strong sense of relief and I am no longer annoyed at, well, everything (Christian is heard to breathe a sigh of relief from his Redmond office).

It was confirmed that I have a hiatal hernia, which I knew. It's a sliding hernia, the more common type, thankfully, as a paraesophageal hernia is v. v. bad and can cause icky problems, like esophageal strangulation, which sounds like the esophagus would make little acky noises and hold its hands to its throat in the universal sign for "give me the Heimlich".

Anyway, the hernia isn't large, which is good, but it's either caused the sphincter at the base of my esophagus to become incompetent (useless thing) or the incompetent sphincter caused my stomach to migrate into my esophagus. Chicken...egg...

Interestingly, I also have a wastrel esophagus. It doesn't perform its job adequately, and sometimes not at all. The wretched manometry showed that the muscles don't move in synch to push food down, and sometimes give up all together and just flap around while looking for a place to nap.

Consequently, I can get a Toupet fundoplication performed to correct the hernia and limit the reflux, but this procedure isn't quite as effective as the full fundoplication, for which I'm not eligible because of the layabout esophagus. Another wrench in the works is that I'm too heavy right now to ensure the best outcome from the surgery. I actually felt a little sorry for the doctor, as he seemed a trifle nervous to bring up my weight, as though I would heave around my ass and smother him in outrage for letting that taboo subject be discussed amongst strangers, like my weight is an illegitimate child or Auntie's affair with the neighbor's hunky son. But really, saying I need to lose weight is like saying that global warming exists. We know it's there, it doesn't have a quick solution, but it's perfectly manageable if we all work together and exercise some restraint. Consequently, before I get the procedure done, I need to get the plump little ball rolling. Support and solidarity are requested.

Tube in, stomach contents out.

First three of four tests are done. First test, horrible. Large tube embedded with metal sensorballs inserted painfully through nose and down throat, inducing several vomiting bouts, embarrassingly, and then had to swallow salt water and viscous gel meant to simulate chewed food, all to test muscle strength and coordination as well as sphincter capabilities. Scrumptious. However, husband's love proven yet again, as held hand and petted head and lifted me up, while I oozed liquids from eyes, nose and throat. Wonderful husband. Love husband.

Finished test and then very happily sedated for second, of which absolutely nothing is remembered. Lovely drugs. Hiatal hernia confirmed. Had yet another tube inserted through nose, down esophagus and into stomach, fortunately while groggy enough to not care. Came home and was surprisingly alert, although surprisingly exhausted. Oddly, no reflux and belching now, irritatingly. Want proof of vexing issues. Where is proof? Need acid now. Must keep diary of incidents, but few incidents to report, as of yet.

Shelly and Angie came over and gave beautiful present, cupcakes and ice cream because they are loveliest friends and wanted to help. Shelly even taking me back tomorrow so I don't have to drive. At 7:30 am. Must buy chocolates for that.

Tube out tomorrow morning and then barium swallow. Consult with doctor at 9:30. Cross your fingers and hope for possibility of laparoscopic repair.

It burnses, it burnses.

Day five off Prilosec. Scope not for two more days. Esophagus burns. Throat hurts. Acid bubbling up from lack of sphincter. Intestines cramping from unaccustomed levels of gastric juices. No caffeine as makes more burning. Finally understand what endoscopy clinic questionnaire means when asks if stomach symptoms interfere with every day life. Can't sleep. Wake up coughing. No voice. Can't sing. Must constantly eat bland food to give hydrochloric something to do. However, all food sounds horrible as want to vomit all the time. Very burpy, which causes much embarrassment.

Bright side, lack of energy means I re-finished front and back of Aran sweater as only want to sit on ass and watch Coupling marathon. Don't want to work tomorrow as will be very busy and is Christian's birthday. Want to celebrate (in limited fashion). Can't wait for glorious drugs for scope.

By God, it works.

Thank you, Boombella.

Edited to add video!

Wait one cotton, pickin' minute...

Have I misspelled Sweetener this ENTIRE time?? Did I accidentally change it? I know I spelled it right when I first made the blog as I LOOKED IT UP. Am I going crazy?

Submishe

Thanks to being browbeaten into compliance, I've submitted my shawl (despite the fact that it's still not flat and thin enough and needs to be blocked again) to the Puyallup Fair to be judged in the Home Arts category. I love that quilting, cross-stitching, sewing, pickling, canning, knitting, crocheting, etc are still called the home arts. I've been trying to think up other, more suitable names for them, like:

1. You've Become your Mother Arts
2. Go Home and Fix your Husband a Drink Arts
3. Would You Like Some Cool Whip on that Jello Arts
4. Jesus is my Accessory Arts
5. Feminism Never Happened Arts
6. I am a Feminist and I'm Doing this Because It's Fun, I Swear Arts
7. I have Fourteen Cats Arts

I also have to say that I was pretty amused by the guidelines for submission. One area the judges will pay special attention to is cleanliness of the submitted piece of knitted, crocheted, quilted or cross-stitched work. I'm picturing a nicotine-stained afghan knitted in Red Heart Pound of Love acrylic with bits of Spam still stuck to it. The image is very clear.

Heartachy

It's a cosmic punishment for being so smug when he first came home with us. I know that. That's what happens when you have pride. You get part of your cuticle torn away from your thumb. Poor Christian.

We're having some aggression issues with Sasha. We were foolish (so foolish!) when we first brought him home, and we have unleashed upon ourselves Nature, red in tooth and claw. Literally. I doubt that Sasha had any structure in his previous homes, if his behavior is any indication. He gets frustrated very, very quickly and his moods can change faster than a teenage girl's. All of the bird books espouse structure and consistency in the same way that books about human children do. They need rules, the books say, they need to rely upon their humans for the guidance as well as for food and shelter as, in their captive situations, they cannot provide any of these things for themselves. Don't begin patterning your bird with negative behavior when you first bring them home as it will lead to problems down the road. Carefully monitor your bird's posture and vocalizations as they will tell you what your bird is feeling and how to respond to it. Yep, yep, all true.

The charming and hilarious video below? Oh, if we could only go back and undo what has been done. He's nesting now, trying to build a home for a mate that will never come. He's mercurial and irritable and wants everything his way because we've set no boundaries. Christian can no longer pick him up from the ground or play with him in the same manner as he could even a week ago.

Birds bite because that's the only way they know how to communicate certain messages. This morning, Christian tried to step Sasha up onto a t-perch. Sasha didn't want to go, but Christian persisted, as he had always been able to do in the past. Sasha latched onto his thumb and wouldn't let go. I had to intervene with another hand-held perch and put Sasha back in his cage to allow Christian to tend to his very badly battered hand. It was torn in two places and bitten in several others. It's gotten very hard to tell which bites are new and which are old as Sasha will preen the scabs off the old bites if given half a chance.

It's a hard thing, wanting an animal to love you because you love it. We know Sasha is very attached to Christian, but fear of being bitten has changed a relationship that they both had grown to enjoy and rely upon. We now have to totally restructure how we interact with Sasha, try to establish a wholly different relationship, and that will be hard. We had gotten so complacent about being able to pick him up off of his cage and play with him that it will be a wrench to have to be more disciplined about using hand-held perches. I'm actually quite heartbroken that this poor bird that has had such an inconsistent life up until now has to endure more change because we were too lazy to pattern our interactions with him properly from the first day we brought him home.

Kakapo

Thanks to Rich (and, via him, Douglas Adams) and my obvious and compensatory (yes, I know about 50 people lately have said I need a kid) love for and obsession with parrots, I've become a little fixated on the Kakapo (fluffy bunny), the extremely endangered, flightless and utterly weird New Zealand parrot (pooper head).  Now, my favorite living artist, Eleanor Grosch, has a print of the Kakapo (chicken butt), and all proceeds from purchases of the print go to Kakapo (squidgy doo) rescue.  

She's my hero.

American Arrogance

There is a fine line between observing a problem and creating one. This is a perfect example of the latter. Considering that the folks unwillingly sucked into this controversy are actually involved with animal welfare and conservation at home (and here, as one of the ambassadors went to EVERGREEN and lives here half the year) and chose to come to our beloved zoo as an opportunity to share their work, the argument that they are "part of the exhibit" is offensive and ludicrous, especially as it implies that the very people who are working the hardest to protect their own environment and who have traveled around the world to help us greedy bastard consumers understand that our wastefulness has far-reaching consequences are naive enough to be hoodwinked into a being part of a Victorian sideshow.

Mad as Pants

In the British sense of the word, I mean:

Knitting my Shroud

You all know about my fixation with alpacas. During the first visit to the farm of long-lashed will-destroyers, I purchased from the farm store a beautiful hank of dark turquoise fingering weight alpaca yarn spun from the animals at the farm with a shimmery metallic thread plied in. I debated long about what to knit with it, as it was very expensive, $36 a hank, and I wanted to make something particularly lovely and worthy of the cost and effort. I couldn't decide and couldn't decide and kept buying more and more of the yarn every time we'd drive to Bellingham to visit the IL's and would stop at the farm (well, I'd take the exit without any say from Christian as I usually drive and he is at my mercy). No one else was buying it, and it was all one dye lot, so I kept accumulating it at $36 a pop until I had four of the five hanks available, which equalled 1,460 yards of yarn. That's a lot. I just couldn't bear to knit anything boring with it, so I kept swatching and frogging and setting it aside to think on it.

Late last year, while reading one of the many knitting magazines that litter our bedroom floor and make me twitch either with disgust from the hideous waste of perfectly good wool or with lust over yarn I could NEVER afford, I came across an article on knitted lace. There were pictures of the most incredible shawls I'd ever seen, straight out of Queen Victoria's dress wardrobe. Catherine the Great would have gone to war over some of these pieces (she apparently was given a gift of a spectacular wedding-ring shawl from the Hebrides and had the eyes of the knitter put out, ugh, so she couldn't knit any more, but the knitter's daughter had learned the craft and passed down her skills to following generations, bless her). Anyway, I really wanted a good project to be portable and beautiful, so I found a pattern I liked from KnitPicks.com (as they had really jumped on the lace train (snork)), the candle-flame shawl pattern, and brought it on the plane with me to England last January. I only finished about a few inches on that trip as we were so busy, but I had lots of time this last Spring in which to knit and finished the body in about three months. It wouldn't normally have taken nearly so long, but I had to periodically set it aside to work on other projects, like hedgehogs and sweater sets.

Once it was done, though, it seemed a little drab. I had purchased second hand a book on traditional knitted shawl patterns and the author had charted out some beautiful edges. She also included instructions on how to actually knit the edging onto the body of the completed work by picking up edge stitches every other row. As I really wanted to make this damn thing spectacular (I had visions of walking into a performance and hearing everyone gasp with awe and admiration of the sheer gorgeousity of the thing), I picked a wide border that I thought would compliment the overall pattern of the body. I had also, unfortunately, read an article about beading your knitting, and HAD to buy Czech glass beads in the same color as the yarn to add to the yarn overs in the edging. Yeah. Just a little mad.

So, I threaded on all the beads and started to knit, and it took a really, really long time. I fortunately realized fairly early in the trim knitting that I'd run out of yarn and had to ask the farm to send me the final hank of yarn that had, fortunately, not been purchased. I was getting so close to the end by the last week of July that I spent six hours knitting last Monday while Shelly and I watched the Thin Man movies I had received from Christian for our anniversary (thanks, honey!). Well, after seven and a half months, 5,470 feet of yarn and 1,500 pre-strung beads, I finished the damn thing. And boy, did it look terrible. However, it's supposed to. Lace knitting looks like a pile of twisted ass when finished, as it has to be aggressively blocked to lie flat and look proper. I read all the lace blocking instructions on reputable sites and decided to make my own blocking frame out of PVC and eye hooks. It took about five hours last Friday night to cut the pipe, drill the holes and screw in the hooks. This is what it looked like (and it's modular so I can take it apart to store and make any size to allow for varied garment blocking):

I had to soak the shawl in warm water and mild detergent, and then gently press out the excess water with a towel. Bask in the lumpy shrivellness:

To get all the little edge points to stick out and get the body to lay flat, I strung each point with twine and ran the twine through the hooks:

Christian helped me, and once all the twine was in place, I pulled it tight and began to see the incredible definition of the lace pattern in the body and on the edge:

I cannot tell you how this sight made me feel. It was so lovely and graceful-looking that I could barely believe that gallumphing me had knitted it.

When I took it off the frame after it had completely dried, it only sprang back the tiniest bit. All of the edging peaks stayed peaky and the pattern definition stayed defined. The pretty beads make a wonderful clacking sound when they hit together and give the piece a lovely drape, so my efforts were rewarded.

The final measurements of the thing top 9 feet long by 3.5 feet wide. Should provide me with plenty of coverage, if I can only think of something worthy with which to wear it. Maybe I'll have to make a dress. Hmmmm...

On the radio, sounding REALLY annoying...

The topic for the second hour of KUOW's Weekday was birds in the home, so I HAD to call in and put in a plug for parrot adoption. You can listen to it here. I'm about 35 minutes in. Do I always sound that over-eager and knowitallish? Ugh. Still, good topic.

And what a lovely day it is, too.

Today is a momentous day for two notable reasons:

#1, my mother in law, the lovely and charming Lynn, who not only gave me her son but many knitting tips and tools, was born. May she remember this day for all the glorious things sure to come to her, deserving woman that she is. Lynn, may you ride all day in perfect weather and only come home because there's an excellent bottle of wine and a cake waiting for you with a new puzzle to complete afterwards. Sal, do you hear me?

#2, the muffin head was born, fluffy pooper bunny that he is.

There is much to celebrate.

Six years ago, on this very day (tomorrow)...

Hi honey. Tomorrow is our anniversary, but since we'll be in Bellingham celebrating your mom's birthday, I thought I'd write this today.

Six years of marriage. Apparently, the sixth anniversary gift should be candy, at least traditionally. The modern gift is iron, but you already have several shot puts and I bought you a hammer (against my will) a couple of Christmases ago. Oddly enough, recommended sixth anniversary vacations are Hershey, PA and Walt Disney World, so I guess our upcoming vacation in WDW was meant to be, although I think the best evidence for that is the $60 hotel room price we all got.

I was thinking about our marriage the other day, and I got kind of giggly. That's seems to be my usual response when thinking of us. I giggle like I'm twelve and the boy I like just looked at me, except I'm 34 and the boy I like lives with me and I get to wake up with him every day. The comment I always hear about the two of us as a couple is that we seem made for each other, and I think that's because we're always laughing. It's kind of a miracle that, considering how easy it is for me to lose perspective on, well, everything and become so anxious and clamped down, laughter is such the predominant theme in our marriage that I can't think of us without chuckling, but in a happy, non-Mr. Burns, non-demoniacal kind of way. I don't know how you've managed to turn me into this person who not only laughs all the time but who can laugh about things I used to cry over. That's practically a miracle.

We've both grown a lot in the last year. We each took new jobs, causing our income to plummet. However, you never let the money be a factor in your insistence that I work only half time so I can sing and not want to fling myself off the roof of our house in sheer dramatic exhaustion. You've become so handy, even more so than you were before, and good Lord, am I grateful. I love that you're so competent around the house that all I have to do is ask you to auger the bathtub and it's done. You seem to take great pleasure in being "the man of the house," and I'm shocked that I don't mind. Well, not really. I like the fact that, despite what I say to the contrary at 1 am when we've been hanging shelves all day, you simply MUST screw everything into a stud. When that inevitable earthquake comes, that picture of our house on the bird room wall won't budge. Of course, I also like that I can put together furniture and such and you let me do it without standing to one side with a beer in your hand criticizing how I used your drill.

One thing that happened this last year, though, really defines for me what our marriage is, and what makes it my lifeline. I had slowly been becoming resistant to my anxiety medication, and I was putting off going to the doctor. We were getting ready for bed one night and I was particularly ornery and unwilling to put away laundry, and, while most other people would get upset or argue in the same situation, you looked at me and said, very calmly, that you could tell that I was much more anxious and upset than when my medication was working, and that you were going to harass me until I went to the doctor because you hated to see me so unhappy. You were right, and I knew you were right, and I finally went to the doctor because you wanted me to. It's funny how sometimes that's what it takes for me to do things I know I have to do. I won't do them for myself, but I'll do them for you. I'd do anything for you.

I love you, sweetie. Happy anniversary.

So many kinds of pretty.

Shelly and I went raspberry picking (my favorite, favorite thing) on Tuesday, and, while the recent rainy weather caused about half of the berries on the bush to mold (is this summer? IS IT, I ASK YOU??), we did get about 10 pounds, which is a third of what I usually pick.  I did manage to put up 15 containers of freezer jam, but I only had enough to bake one pie, with a lone bowl of fruit left over which, even after having been refrigerated, molded completely in one day.  Still, we had lovely weather and talked about musical theater and sex.  No bad can come from that.

Pretty, pretty jam.  Too bad peanut butter never, ever enters our house.  And that hazelnut/chocolate spread in the closet, Christian?  That's where it stays.

I also finished the tunic dress for my friend Laura's birthday.  She does burlesque and I wanted something that could be saucy and easily removable, if necessary:

Note the ribbon and pearly buttons. Those were my addition. I'm so creative.

The whole dress is quite lovely and I want to knit one for myself.  It would be much easier this time, as the unconscionable number of mistakes in the bottom trim pattern I found after knitting and frogging it three times got corrected when I charted out the pattern MYSELF (which took as long as knitting the dress in the first place:

But so, so pretty.  I hope she gets to rip it right off.

Domestic Goddess

Teenage girls usually rail against becoming like their mothers.  The idea of being the kind of person who wears pantyhose every day is terrifying to the "likelikelike" mentality of the 15-year-old.  Then you move out on your own and get a job that requires you to look nice every day and thusly need to iron your clothes at 7 am and then you realize that nylon and lycra are the only things keeping you from being lumpy and you understand why your mother owned 25 pairs of Hanes, the kind that you get in an egg from the drugstore.  Why were they always suntan?

Anyway, when I was 20, I didn't want a house, I didn't want to cook, I hated the idea of a yard and I never hemmed a thing.  Now, I have a house that I love a little too much to be healthy, I still don't like weeding, but I do it because I don't want to look like a hillbilly, I could cook all day long and I made a skirt on Friday night because I wanted one to wear shopping with Tina on Saturday (and I now have commissions by two fellow choristers to make the same skirt for them).  My motivation in making the skirt was that I didn't want to go shopping downtown and look slobby.  Mom always dressed up to go shopping.  She said she wanted to look nice so she could wouldn't feel embarrassed, aaaaaand that's why I did it, too.  That and I didn't want to be sneered at by the salesclerks.  I even went shopping for the shopping.  I had to buy a pair of pink and white shoes and a lightweight cardigan that would match my new skirt.  I even wore makeup and fixed my hair.  When I met Tina for breakfast before the shopping, she was also wearing a skirt and a necklace and said she didn't want to look slovenly for shopping, either.  Well done, Mom, the subliminal messaging worked.  I refuse to wear hosiery from the drugstore, however.  

In Print

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this in the last post.

Odds

For someone who doesn't enjoy gambling, I am a glutton for chance. Singing at my level is all about odds. You do as many auditions as possible and hope that, if you're singing well enough, the odds will be in your favor. If you're of a common voice type, you have lower odds. If you're a tenor, the odds are much higher. I'm somewhere in the middle. However, the odds have been oddly (hee) with me this summer and I've gotten roles from my last two auditions. Both auditions were pretty good and I feel lately that I can keep it together long enough to sing well, at least for the ten minutes in front of the panel. The performing part is great, it's just the auditioning that sucks my ass.

Christian has to keep forcing me to go to auditions. I schedule them, and then, the day of, I whinge and complain and whine that no one will ever cast me and I'm too fat and why do I bother (as I've stated in NUMEROUS earlier posts) and then Christian withers me with a glance (all while squeezing his Hard Woody (sorry, IRON Woody is the proper name according to Christian, which is MUCH better) grip strengthener so he can throw further as he never backs out of anything) and I go and then, afterwards, painfully and minutely dissect everything I've done and drive myself into the ground with my convincing description of my own ineptitude. Usually what follows is a letter or email saying that there wasn't a part for me and I swear it all off all over again. But , recently, I decided that I wanted to be a sidekick. I don't want to be the lead. Too much pressure. I want to quip from the background and be in it with the butler. My auditions got much better after that. Fewer unrealistic expectations. Seems to be working. Sweet.

Loquacious Lolly

We're trying to capture all of the words and expressions that were obviously taught to Sasha by an owner that could only have been an old man with lots of dogs and cats.

Insufficiently Saucy

I can tell you that, when I first saw a photo of a knitted bikini, I was aghast. Not only would any yarn one could use to knit such a tawdry waste of fiber lose, when wet, whatever stitch structure kitting gave it, but my God, would a knit bikini be ITCHY. While I still think knitted swimwear is utterly retarded and obviously the product of some silly little skinny dilettante knitter who wanted to give the needles a go because Vogue said it was in but didn't want to invest the time to knit anything larger than your average pocket square, I now find myself adoring the idea of knitted lingerie. Same shapes, more understandable function and less water-induced droop.

There are a couple of recently published books on lingerie and related scandalous underthings, but when I looked at them, I noticed a real lack of any delicacy and, well, cleverness in the stitches used and in the weights and textures. Everything seemed to be in stockinette stitch, which is the average stitch used in a sweater, and were made with mid-weight yarn and large needles. Now, pardon me, but, while I adore my concealing yet fashionable warm outerwear, I don't wear it to feel particularly slutty or exhibitionistic. When thinking about knitted lingerie, I imagined mysterious and complicated lace patterns that allow one to catch forbidden glimpses of skin underneath before the fabric shifts, making one wonder if one saw anything at all, all knit on tiny needles using thin, seemingly fragile yarn that is deceptively strong engough to withstand some good use. It would have to drape and have enough structure to stay put without having too much heft. In one particular book, the items depicted all looked as though they were made for Soviet brides before the Cold War ended and all the yarn anyone could get was wool from the Steppes and so the bra sets and peignoirs look as though they could be used as body armor in case the wearer got got in a stray gun fight with NATO forces. I know the authors were going for garments in the STYLE of lingerie, but the camisoles that "could be worn under a suit or nothing at all!" look as though they'd keep you warm through the cold, New England winter, with their ribbed edges and obvious lack of any kind of lingerie-like elements. Where's the lace? Where's the sense that the garment could be ripped off at any second? Sheesh, folks, I understand that we all like to think that we own pieces of clothing we can wear with everything, but a nightie that looks like the sweater I'm knitting for Christian isn't lingerie, no matter how low you make the back.

I only found one piece in a magazine aimed at the young, hip knitting audience that will work for the intended purpose. It's a knitted lace sheath that looks like a flapper dress and will be given to my friend who recently completed her Burlesque course. I did have this glorious notion of knitting delicious and inspiring underthings for all my friends' birthdays and such, but to do so, I'll now have to turn my hand to designing, as well. The stuff I've seen wouldn't inspire anything but a cross-country snowshoeing jaunt.

Vocab.

Things Sasha says:

Sasha
Pretty bird
Come here
Go away (mainly said to me)
Goodnight
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty
Step up
Arrrrrr
A variety of other, unintelligible words we can't quite discern

Things he does:

Barks like a dog
Shakes his head and growls, as though playing with a rawhide toy
Meows
Clucks

All shall hopefully be taped soon.

Wrong again.

Sasha is a boy. Break out the Stogies.

Repercussions

We got one of those calls last night that I live in terror of, the bad news phone call informing me of some problem that will cost an assload of money and my peaceful slumber. Our insurance company, with whom I've had my car insurance for 18 years, has been bought out by another company and that company will not cover me because of my driving history. I now have to go with a "high-risk" insurance company that will cost double per month and makes me feel like a serial drunken driver. Last year was a very bad year, indeed.

Approved!

Our adoption of Sasha was approved by the Exotic Bird Rescue, so now she's ours, all ours!! Mwah ha ha ha! Hee. So happy.

The Crazy

While Christian and I are developing a certain reputation for, um, insanity from the ever increasing fauna in our home, the last thing I want is to actually be considered bat-shit crazy. I have a whole passel of nuts in my brain, due to the panic-ishness of my genes, but I started taking medication four years ago to keep the crazy in check, and to keep Christian from coming after me with a kitchen knife after I had finally pushed him to crack with my constant paranoia and hysteria (although, without the uterus, could what I have actually be called hysteria?). However, the crazy started seeping back in about six months ago. At first, I tried to take it in stride and thought that, despite all evidence pointing to the notion that I was becoming resistant to my med dose, I could handle the symptoms. There were, after all, perks to this new state, namely that the bedroom once again became more than a room in which to sleep. Sorry, family who doesn't want to hear that, but it's true. However, the resistance has gotten more pronounced in the past two months or so, and when the meaningless crying and crushing headaches began, I thought it might be time to up the dose. It was only the other night when, at rehearsal, I had a vision of Christian walking in the door holding handfuls of dead birds because I had let something happen to them and throwing them down at my feet in front of all my opera colleagues and screaming at me that he was leaving me, that I fully understood the importance of the appointment I had made with my doctor to discuss treatment options. We're all glad now that the dosages have been upped.

Little losses.

We lost one of our frogs, Buxtehude, today. He was the smaller of the two White's treefrogs, and never really thrived as he should have. He lived for the last three years in the vivarium in the kitchen with Squinky, who, I think, may be a food hog. I wonder if maybe Buxtehude simply couldn't compete with el Chubbo for the bugs we give them every night. It's next to impossible to tell with frogs, unless blood work or an xray are performed, what ails them, and the numbers of vets who will perform diagnostics are few and far between. We have no idea how old the frogs were when we got them, but I assume at least a few years, as they were fully grown. Buxtehude didn't show any over signs of illness, no red legs, no hard abdomen, nothing to indicate encroaching demise. As soon as I saw him in his cage this morning, struggling to move, I removed him and soaked him in purified water over a heating pad, but it was too late. He lasted until about a half hour ago, when he finally passed to the great eucalyptus tree in the sky.

It's awfully hard to truly get attached to pets that are so fragile. We keep them and observe them and wonder over them, and hope that they do well with the meagre resources we can provide. We read everything we can on their keeping and we obsess over research published in the herp journals. It works sometimes, and doesn't others. Amphibian keepers are an optimistic bunch, though, so we keep trying. I know the zoo raises their own bugs for their herps, as that's the only way a large enough variety can be provided to keep them as they would be in the wild, but we're lacking a few of the resources (and space) they have, so we buy our little tubs of worms and pots of crickets and powder them with vitamins. Our vet is extremely against keeping any animal in the home that eats insects as there is no way to give them a wide enough spectrum to keep them hale, and I'm beginning to agree with him. We are lucky with Gus, the turtle, as his species is indigenous to North America, and it's easy enough, from all the observational research, to feed him a complete diet. That, and box turtles are stubborn and tough. I wish the frogs were, too.

Toasty Toes

Squee. And I hate my voice. Ugh. So whiny.

The long, long journey home.

Our home was inspected by the Exotic Bird Rescue volunteer on Friday, and the volunteer said she was embarrassed to be inspecting us as our house was so clean and that approval was a given. We decided to take immediate action and drive down that night to Eugene, so we could fetch Sasha the next morning and be back by afternoon. I had already purchased her travel/quarantine cage, so we'd be ready to go as soon as we were given the good word.

The drive to Eugene was hellacious as we got shunted off the freeway in Portland due to poor signage and couldn't get back on due to a wretched festival that had clogged the streets with drunken idiots and blocked the freeway on ramps. We drove around downtown for almost forty minutes until we just gave up, got on northbound I-5 again and got off and on in a less congested area.

We made it to Springfield, where we were staying, at around 11:30 and checked into the Motel 6 in which I had reserved a room the second the inspector told us we had passed. It was cheap, and never, ever again will I let that be the deciding factor for a lodging choice. The pillows were tiny and flat and stank of cigarette smoke, the mattress was wretchedly uncomfortable and poky with aggressive springs and the towels had been soaked in bleach flogged against stones long enough to give them just the right texture to flay the flesh from our bones.

We got up with the wake up call and were more exhausted than when we had gone to sleep. We raced through breakfast and got to the coordinator's house at around 10:40. Sasha was out and waiting for us, and we wrote our check and ran. Christian held Sasha as he sat in the back seat until we reached the freeway, and he then put her in her cage to keep her safe.



She was so quiet and content sitting with him that it seemed a shame to put her in the cage, but it's simply not safe to have a loose pet in the car on the freeway. She took to her cage with a equanimity that was utterly unexpected and allowed us to feed and scratch her through the doors. For a bird purported to have cage aggression issues, she was remarkably placid. She hardly uttered a peep the entire ride back, and had no trouble stepping right up onto her beloved's finger to carry her in the house when we arrived home at around 4:30. We took the snakes upstairs to bask in the heat and set Sasha's cage up on the desk at the foot of the bed.



It's far too small for a bird her size to live in permanently, but it's just her quarantine cage for a month, and then she'll be moved to the large cage in the living room, next to the muffinhead.

She has been so silent as to almost be eerie. We've taken her in and out of her cage and outside and into the shower and all over and we're waiting for that damn shoe to fall from the sky. She's been too good. It just can't last. Our hearts are lost, though, so it won't matter if she decides that our fingers are all she wants to eat.

Take another little piece of my heart.

Dusty Springfield said it best. What tiny part of my heart that wasn't owned by a cute boy residing in my house or in Mark's is now in Oregon with Sasha.



We drove to Oregon on Saturday, hitting Powell's and Torrid in Portland for some tax free shopping before spending the rest of the day with aunt Marianne and uncle Gene at their place in Molalla (and watched Little Children, which is not a movie one would normally watch with ones father's sister. We have an unusual family). At Powell's, we found a used copy of the seminal macaw book with an author annotation and signature. I really do wonder who would sell a book that was a gift from a famous author with her signature and personal note inside. I think I'd carry it around with me and work it into conversation. We're good at doing that with bird topics. I'm sure none of you have noticed, we're so subtle. It's like a Jedi mind trick.

We drove to Eugene on Sunday, checked into our $50 Priceline hotel (woot!) and contacted the intake coordinator at the Eugene Exotic Bird Rescue, at whose house Sasha is living. Being whiny city folk, it seemed like we drove forever to get to her country house. Oh my God, why can't people live in the city?? We pulled into the drive and saw why they can't live in the city, namely the rows upon rows of donated cages waiting to be needed for surrendered birds. The sound was unmistakable, the cockatoo scream that you can hear three counties over coupled with the stream of Amazon chatter and giddy macaw chuckling. We could see one of the loudest perps through the window of the bird room as we walked up as he ran back and forth on his perch and shouted at us, like a white, fluffy guard dog. And she had those too, five of them, from the tiniest, squishiest little Chiahuaha EVER (squee) to an enormous, elderly shepherd who had the saddest face ever put on a mammal. And 22 birds. Say that with me. 22 birds, seven of which were the coordinator's own pets. She fosters some of the birds that are surrendered or rescued and socializes them to the best of human ability before they are adopted or given to rescue aviaries. 22 birds. And y'all think we're nuts.

The coordinator got Sasha out of her cage with a handheld perch as she, like many birds who have passed from hand to hand (most parrots will have an average of eight owners in their lifetime), is cage aggressive. However, once out of the cage, she was the sweetest, prettiest little muffin head I've ever seen. She was fairly tolerant of us on that first day, and we spent about two hours holding her and talking to her and bribing her with treats.



Mmmm...carrots, lucky girl.

The coordinator graciously offered to give us the class required to adopt when we returned the next day so we wouldn't have to drive down for it later in June. We had a take home test and an application to fill out together. We did quite well, I might add, and better than most, apparently. Thank God the hours of reading all the contradictory literature in aviculture has served some purpose, because my vet doesn't agree with most of it.

We returned to the coordinator's house the next morning after checking out and eating breakfast at the Original Pancake House (mmmm, coconut pancakes), next to a famous UofO athlete who had little boys clamoring for his autograph as we left and after a visit from the Oregon Duck and his girl, who are supposed to look like Donald and Daisy but actually looked like the Mexican knockoffs we saw on our Mazatlan shore excursion from the cruise.

Anyway, we returned, took the test and spent more time with Sasha, where I found that I am only a mere incidental compared to Christian. I'm quite jealous, actually. She showed such an obvious preference to his broad shoulders and manly scent that she would leap off my hand and onto his if he got within feet of me. Well, Cyril likes me better. Nyah.



After the test and visit, the coordinator told us that we were just the kind of people who should have Sasha in their home. We were thrilled, and only have the home inspection hurdle to overcome before we can get her and bring her home. As it turns out, one of the board members/home inspectors was in Seattle over the weekend and could have seen our home and allowed us to take Sasha with us when we left. Sigh. Regardless, the inspector from Olympia should be calling us soon to arrange a time to run over our house with a white cotton glove. Thank God we're mostly tidy. I can't bear to think of what would happen if they decided we just seemed too sketchy to have the little fluffy bunny head. However, I think we're keen. We can provide written testimonials.

One of several men with whom I share a shower.

I read a hilarious article a while back about the realities of bird ownership, and, until two weeks ago, thought that the answer to the question on bathing would forever describe how our birds felt about our attempts to get them wet. When we would try to approach any of them with the spray bottle or bring them to the shower, they would shiver in terror and fling themselves to the floor. Once we got them into the shower, they would clamp down their feathers so tightly that the water would merely bead up and roll off, like off of a freshly waxed car. But, as one of the most important things that a bird owner can do to help keep their birds' feathers in good condition is bathe them, we kept trying.

On a recent morning when Cyril seemed particularly dry and dusty, was losing a large number of feathers and was bristly with new ones, I thought I'd help ease his suffering a bit by drenching him to the nostrils. Apparently, molting is a pretty crappy, itchy process and the water helps to soothe the skin. I brought him into the bathroom with me on his portable stand and set him on the edge of the tub. Now, ever since I taught him to wave for a treat, he picks up his left foot and touches his beak whenever he sees something he wants. He also turns around in a circle, just like we taught him, thinking logically that a treat will follow, that smart chicken. So, I'm in the shower, and he's waving and spinning and leaning towards the water, which I'd never seen him do, so I picked up the perch and brought him close to the spray. He spread his wings, fluffed up all his feathers, opened his mouth and stuck his head underneath the showerhead. He delightedly shook and fluffed and flapped and squacked and drank and was so happy that, when I tried to move him so I could take a shower myself, he kept yelling and leeeeeeeaning and flying back to me and tangling himself in my hair. I must have held him in the spray for ten minutes. Of course, Christian was in Whistler for a work trip, so he missed the little show. I kept hoping that Cyril would want to shower again, but in the times that I had brought him to the bathroom since, he hadn't shown much interest, until yesterday. I always say good morning to the birds as soon as I get up, and I noticed that Cyril seemed twitchier than usual, so I got the perch and took him to the bathroom, hoping that he'd want to shower. As soon as I set him down on the tub, he started to lean and wave and turn. When I turned on the shower, he fluffed up and started to pace, so impatient. I picked him up on his perch, got in and stuck him under the showerhead. Thankfully, Christian was home this time and caught the bliss on film:

He refused to leave the shower until he was so wet that his tail feathers were dripping. You've never seen anything so scraggly as a wet parrot's ear hole. I then, of course, had to give him a little blow dry, which he also loves, and, like a dog, tries to eat the air as it's blowing in his face. I only use the low setting, of course. He was still slightly damp when I got home. I'm hoping that I can get him to run through the sprinklers this summer.

I know.

I know! Geez, I've been working on a painfully horrifying enormous grant that is due next week but will most likely kill me beforehand due to the stress of it and not being able to sleep because I dream about trainee tables taunting me because no one ever wants to give me their information and I have to beg and promise cookies and ask my bosses to go after people to find out from where Bob Smith recieved his bachelor's degree thirty years ago and I've had La Boheme which will seemingly never end either because this is the longest opera run in creation and I really hate this show anyway so it's just torture to hear the same shite over and over again five nights a week (at least the money is good) and we have birthday parties and baptisms this weekend and a cheese festival that I'm probably going to have to miss although that makes me cry because I love cheese more than life itself and we have to go to Eugene next weekend to meet Sasha and I'm taking the following week off to recover but I have a travel class I don't know if I should reschedule because they only happen every few months but I want to stay in Eugene to take Sasha to the vet to get her checked out (we can't have her if she'd make the poopers sick) and I haven't had the time/energy to vacuum and Mom and Dad are staying with us this weekend and oh shit, I forgot to change the bedsheets in the guest room and I haven't planted the tomatoes, pumpkins and cucumbers we bought last weekend and they're going to die and WHEN THE HELL will I get a chance to do that? Oh yeah, NEVER.

Project Object

I could spend the rest of my life just knitting for the boys.



With models this cute, I could make a killing selling baby knitwear. I love this little sweater. Love. It. I wanted to carry it around with me in my pocket and take it out occasionally when in a bad mood. Of course, the hat was too small for the giant head. I think I should start taking orders now.

A birdly update.

I've been emailing back and forth with the coordinator of the Eugene Exotic Bird Rescue about Sasha, the second mini-macaw they have at their rescue. She is tame, but somewhat cage territorial, as many birds are. That's an easy fix, though, with patience and persistence. Samantha, it seems, will need special care for the rest of her life as she has never been handled or trained. She would, unfortunately, be beyond our capabilities as bird owners. We have made plans to travel to Eugene over Memorial Day weekend to meet Sasha and be interviewed for taking her home. Adopting a rescued parrot is not for the timid or easily intimidated. We have to sit through a rigorous cross-examination, have a home inspection and attend a pet care/behavior class in Oregon before we can bring her home.

I'm always nervous when contemplating getting a new pet. I don't want to neglect Cyril or the little poopers, and I don't want to keep adding to the zoo to satisfy some inner need to be loved. I also don't want to be those people who don't have a square inch of home not occupied by an animal of some sort. I think that ship has sailed, however. The new cage for the little ones is, of course, massively humongously oversized, and removes any sense that we had decor in our house before we started decorating with feathers and poop. I simply cannot wait to remodel. We're going to build a sun room onto the back of the house, behind the kitchen, where the bird cages will go, surrounded by plants and chairs and near a dedicated sink. This plan is all that's keeping me going right now. I can't live in a pet shop forever, despite all evidence to the contrary. I just hope everyone will still want to come over. I'm getting a little embarrassed.

Over.

It's all over. The other driver in my birthday accident has signed a release of claim. It's done. No more threat of legal action. It's appropriately sunny out right now.

Let the betting commence.

Meet Samantha. She has gimpy feet. The parrotlets will be getting separate cages, which means the other half of the large cage will be free. One of you stands to make a tidy sum of money betting against how long it will take me to wear down Christian. I'd give it a month.

Sucking it up.

I really do hate auditioning. Every time I have an audition, I think of a million reasons why I should cancel, i.e., I don't know my music well enough, they won't ever cast me, I'm too chubby for any role, I'll get nervous and forget my words, blah blah blah. A few days before auditions, I get so nervous that I have trouble sleeping and am a wretched cow to Christian. I get convinced that I don't know what I'm doing and that the auditors are going to roll their eyes and tap their pens and say "thank you!" pointedly in the middle of my first phrase. Then, I show up at the audition (well, today's audition) and the auditors are SO NICE and friendly and amazingly cool and chatty and hilarious that I'm not nervous and I actually sing OK, and it doesn't matter if I don't get cast because I feel good about how I did. Mostly. If I don't think too much about how I sang. Shit. How did I sing?

A fox in every fable.

A few years ago, we went to Flatstock at Bumbershoot, where I fell in love with the prints of Eleanor Grosch, a rock poster artist who was not only adorable but incredibly talented. She has done many series of posters of varying artisty subjects, but her posters of Aesop's fables had me drooling. There were only two in the series of four left by the time I got to her booth, so I bought "The Tortoise and the Hare" and "The Fox and the Crane". Christian recently bought the 2006 Print Annual, and lo and behold, there were two of the prints, which I can now say are award winning when people ask about them. I couldn't remember Eleanor's name, and so I never got to see the series until now. I cannot stand that "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" and "The Fox and the Crow" are sold out and I cannot add them to my sad little art collection. It took me two years to get the prints I do own framed, but now that they are and they look so gorgeous, I want all of them. All. And she has prints of birds. Be afraid, Chris. Be afraid.

Not so crumbly, anymore.

My hair is blonde, my house is clean, we booked our December trip to Disney World (and the Travel Channel is having a Disney World program marathon tomorrow), I bought pretty fabric to make my first dress, I finished my first solo grant budget and Shelly brought me a cookie. Improvment is noted.

My world, she is crumbling.

The Steel Pig on 89th and Aurora is closing. I dyed my hair a catastrophic color. The weather continues cold and soul-crushing. Christian gets to go bowling during work while I try to figure out why my NEA never got processed and why I'm being told only five days in advance that a budget is closing. The sweater I've been knitting Christian for six months is coming out too small. I have no solo gigs lined up for the indeterminate future. I need a cookie.

Chicken on the Brain

We took Cyril for his teeny tiny head x-ray last Saturday. We were told to leave before the procedure and go to breakfast and they would call us when it was over. I think they didn't want me standing in the waiting room wringing my hands, muttering and asking if that horrible shriek I just heard was my sweet baby without whom I'd be nothing and could I please go into the back and hold him while they did the x-ray? I'd wear a lead vest and hold him very still. No? Fine.

We did go to breakfast, but came back before they called as I couldn't stand it any longer. They had to file his beak after the x-ray and, before we left to eat, had luridly described the procedure as if it had been devised in the mind of Pinochet (they made it out to involve a vice and an industrial metal file) just to set me at ease. I love being mocked by medical professionals. It makes me place such confidence in their skills. Anyway, he came through the anesthetic for the x-ray fine, but they had to resedate him during the filing (with no vice, thankfully) as he was too worked up to be held still (the office manager, David-with-the-lovely-accent, told me later that he went to the back to comfort Cyril because he was hollering so much), and they had to remove quite a bit of beak to correct his bite problem. I have never seen an animal look so betrayed and confused as when they brought him back out after it was all done. His slightly drugged expression made him look exactly like the big-eyed children in 60's velvet art. His beak looked beautiful, all even and pretty, but the vet told us that it looked as though he had a problem with the joint that made his jaw too loose, which would explain the overgrowth and his constant yawning and scratching of his jaw. The radiologist who read the x-ray would later confirm that the filing could correct the problem and it wouldn't become permanent, which was a relief.

We found out on the trip to the vet the first time that Cyril gets carsick in the back seat (the similarities between him and me are now getting slightly disturbing), so he rode on Christian's shoulder on the drive home, swaying slightly but letting us scratch him in what I assume was a comforting way. He recovered completely, though, with the unexpected bonus (in his mind) of now having a much sharper beak with which he can chew through his hateful flight suit. Pictures of that hilarity will be forthcoming.

My boobs, stage left.

A fellow singer posted on the Forum that a photo from the Tacoma Opera production of Beatrice et Benedict in which I played Ursula is on the homepage of Opera America, the industry's main organization. That is my gleaming white chest next to the head of the ingenue. Hey, I'll take fame any way I can get it.

Why do the Ides have to be in March?

Would the Ides of June just not sound as threatening?

Lest you think we are neglecting the birds...

I give you chicken helper:

He's very useful to have around the house. He's a far more effective paper shredder than, well, the paper shredder. And this is his reward:

Well, my reward, anyway. He's not overly fond of the snorgle.

We recently made a purchase that we're hoping will contribute to Cyril's portability and cleanliness:

Yes, that little hole goes over the waste disposal unit, and the discs of cotton are, well, diapers. Do you want to see a tutorial of how to use this suit? Go here. Prepare to laugh hysterically thinking about how it will not be remotely that easy to get that thing on Cyril.

Oh, and by the way, he has to have a head x-ray on Saturday. Yes, a head x-ray. A little, tiny head x-ray. Apparently, the crooked beak could be a bone abnormality. Say it with me. A bird. head. x. ray. Imagine the little lead vest.

It's a special gift.

Not everyone could lock themselves IN their car, necessitating crawling over the emergency brake into the passenger seat while in a dress and heels to be able to get out.

Why, oh why did I get out of bed this morning?

Nope, not possible.

It's simply not possible for a child to be this adorable.



Three for three, I'd say.

February Lows

I've been feeling very low as of late, with the unresolved accident and the dismal weather, so I haven't been able to muster much energy to post a brilliant and ripping description of my England trip, but I was recently given two bits of post-worthy hilarity to keep me going:

1. Every time Sandra Lee flashes her cleavage, the portal separating our world and Hell cracks open a little wider. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.

2. We banned the Electric Slide from our wedding reception. I'm glad, as it could have engendered a lawsuit if we posted the video online.

Ah, American culture. You never fail to give me succor in times of woe.

I'll give you irony, Alanis.

I just found an amazing and apparently quite fabulous retailer of women's boots that lists and carries sizes by foot and calf size. Good God. It's like my these designers have been shopping with me and wanted to ease my pain. I wish I had known about it before I went to England as their original shop is in BATH. I was eating buns when I could have been buying boots. There is no justice.

Why I hate professional sports.

There will be more about England when I have time to post with pictures. However, I learned a very valuable lesson on my flights home yesterday. When flying with a stopover, don't ever fly through a city whose football team is playing in the superbowl, especially if you have to collect your baggage, clear customs and reenter the airport through baggage check, take the train to another terminal and THEN pass through security, because no one will be there to perform any of the jobs that make the above mentioned things possible.

Apparently, all vital staff either called in sick to work or would only do their proscribed duties between plays or during commercials. Only four immigration officers were working, though a weekend, our bags were unloaded only a few at a time and over an hour was spent waiting at the carousel while passengers escalated in anger and frustration, as most of us had short windows of time in which to catch our connecting flights, only six people were working the bag re-check once through customs, only one horrible woman was working information and no one was directing passengers to their proper terminals once through customs, as the terminal we flew in to was only international flights and all other domestic flights were in one of three other terminals accessible only by train. With only moments to spare, I made it to my flight, only to wait for an hour on the plane as bags were being loaded by most likely only one person, who must have used merely one arm as the other one was, to all probability, occupied by vigorous fist-pumping and high fiving. Then, the airport was apparently unable to find anyone to push the plane back from the gate to allow us to get underway. We made it to Seattle a half hour late, exhausted, dirty and frustrated.

I will now become precisely that type of person with whom I could never sympathisize: one who purchases a direct ticket despite the savings of many dollars on a flight with a stop over.

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006: Day 5

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The day dawned bright and warm. And muggy, which felt really good on my poor lungs. Seriously, this stupid infection needs to die. Perfect for exposing ourselves to the elements. After a short bus ride to Typhoon Lagoon, and emergency purchases of shades and waterproof sunscreen, it was time to face the lines of other exposed bodies.

C: I likened it to the popular notion of nudist colonies: fantasy vs. reality. You quickly realize that you’re seeing way too much of EVERY kind of body, young and old, thin and thick.

There were some unfortunate bathing suit choices as well. Muffin tops are not a product of pants alone. Every bathing suit bottom on both men and women needed to be about two inches higher. People, your natural waist is not your enemy. I also realized that there is no such thing as a perfect body. How people look in clothes is wildly different than how they look in no clothes. Even the thinnest women looked gaunt and crepey. The only people who look truly good in bathing suits are the young. Women try their entire lives to look just as they did as a 16-year-old, but it really is impossible. And smoking REALLY doesn’t help. Man, a lot of people smoke.

But, the slides and attractions themselves were very fun. C:

We chose not to go on only the “Humunga Cowabunga” which is one of those “get in a tube and drop straight down 3 stories into a tub of water” rides that we tried in Edmonton and were not amused. It’s more of a “Dude, I am so going to impress you” rides. It’s a wedgie factory. Not comfortable. The highlight for me was the wave machine area, where a giant wave gushes at you every few minutes. I can sort of understand the “despite it all, our kids had the best time at the hotel pool” stories. It was a relatively relaxing trip. Then back to the hotel for a nap. Felt good.

I have to admit that I wasn’t in the best mood all day. It was the fourth day crash after having hit the parks for twelve hours a day the previous three days in a row. Also, being in a bathing suit makes me anxious and makes me feel too exposed. However, the park was very pretty and the new “roller coaster” waterslide was a hoot.

After showering and napping, thank God, we wanted to get all of our shopping for ourselves and everyone else done, so we hopped the bus to Downtown Disney for dinner and a huge amount of spending. We ate at the Earl of Sandwich, which was surprisingly good, despite the plethora of cranky hillbilly ladies. Man, in the past two days, we’ve seen more hillbillies than you can shake a stick at.

Now, if you’ve never been to the World of Disney, you’ve missed the biggest tantrum-inducing, consumer temple the brilliant merchandising minds at Disney have ever produced. The good thing about that store, though, is that you can get everything in one place. So, shopping accomplished, we wanted to see a movie as we haven’t seen one in, well, more months than I can remember, so we decided on Borat, and sweet holy God, it was so hilarious and excruciating. I won’t get the image of two grappling naked men out of my head. Gack.

We were so bloody exhausted by the end of the movie that we took the bus back to the resort and fell dead asleep almost immediately. There’s nothing like fresh sheets when you’re really tired.

Walt Disney World, November 11-18, 2006 Day 4

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

We again experienced that strange sensation of unexpected fatigue this morning after only being up until 1 last night. I mean, geez, what happened to us? We just couldn’t get out of bed. We scheduled Epcot for today, and left the hotel at around 10:30 AGAIN, getting to the park at 11. We left the resort without eating breakfast, but I at least remembered to get coffee, and man, what a difference. Now, Epcot is divided into two sections; Future World and the World Showcase. Future World is basically that, with rides on the furthest edge of realistic technology (differing from Tomorrowland in that TL is all fantastical inventions with little basis in current science; Future World uses existing technology in a fancier way than most people would see every day). (C: Or in other words it’s a place where science fiction becomes…science fact!) There are many rides and shows in Future World, the most important, in Christian’s mind, being Mission: Space. I don’t know if you’ve all heard about Mission: Space, but it’s quite the thing. It’s only two years old and is a bit of a leap in Disney ride planning. The ride building houses two enormous centrifuges, with four seater “cockpits” fixed onto the outside of each, containing seats, video screens and buttons and gadgets to seem like a shuttle command module. The storyline is that guests are new trainees for the flight to Mars, and have to help pilot the ship. Now, the ride is a motion simulator, but with one added feature. When the ride film shows the ship taking off, the centrifuge begins to spin, and creates the same G forces as a liftoff. The ride proved to be very intense, much more intense than Disney and most of the early riders anticipated, and much vomiting ensued, not to mention a few heart attacks and one very sad death due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition. Consequently, another version of the ride was added, so one of the several centrifuges doesn’t spin, merely runs the film and moves in a motion simulator manner. We had two very adorable and befuddled elderly people in our cockpit. However, I now realize that taking even the weenie side was a stupid, stupid decision. I hate motion simulators. Hate, hate hate. I used to be able to ride my beloved Star Tours over and over, but one ill-fated ride on Back to the Future at Universal ruined my ability to enjoy a simulator ever again. Thank God I hadn’t had breakfast yet as it would have been money wasted. Still, the graphics and set are pretty well done. At least, I think they are. I was a little too queasy to pay too much attention.

As we hadn’t eaten breakfast (see above), and had eaten nothing resembling breakfast in the preceding two days, we skipped the remainder of Future World and made out for the World Showcase, which is basically a thinly-veiled means of putting all the Americanized versions of exotic fare in one place in the guise of a permanent World’s Fair. It’s beautiful and charming and completely sanitized. Canada, the UK, France (with much joking about the proximity of the two, separated only by a mock English Channel), Morocco, America, Italy, Germany, Japan, Norway, Mexico and China, all boiled down to maple syrup and mounties, fish and chips, pastries and perfume, fezes and belly dancing, funnel cakes and presidents, fettucini alfredo and Carnival, beer and crystal, anime and sushi, trolls and Vikings, Acapulco and guacamole and, finally, acrobats and a pagoda. This isn’t quite the order of the pavilions, but we made it to them all, and loved every one of them. There was a particularly hilarious show in the UK about King Arthur, sort of, held in the street between the tea shop (Hobnobs!) and the heraldic shop, involving reluctant audience members dressed up and asked to ride imaginary horses, which the absurdly macho guy playing Galahad wouldn’t do. He only wanted to saunter. His poor wife.

But back to breakfast. Now, I’m a pastry whore. I’d give my virtue for a Napoleon. So, it was only logical that we had to eat in France, where nothing has ever tasted so good as the Napoleon (virtue intact, though), amandine, ham and cheese croissant and cheese plate we snarfed. I don’t know what it is about French pastry cream, but it’s sweet without being insulin-shock inducing, creamy without being greasy and filling without being gut-busting. The poor French boy CM that had to watch us eat must have had every evil, gluttonous American stereotype reinforced, and I totally don’t care. At the end of my life, I’ll remember those pastries.

Each pavilion has some real beauty, and offers a non-threatening way for xenophobic Americans to get a tiny taste of other cultures. I hope that some of the show makes other guests want to go to China, as I now want to do. We need our minds broadened. If only they served real Chinese food and not sweet n’ sour chicken, but one thing at a time.

There were some surprisingly authentic things about the pavilions, such as the astonishing mosaics in Morocco, commissioned by Disney and done by Moroccan artists sent by the Moroccan government as emissaries, a sod roof in Norway, sans goat, and some almost disturbingly young acrobats in China. Hello, bordering on exploitation, anyone? However, the almost appallingly awful El Rio del Tiempo in the Mexico pyramid sort of set the realistic meter back a few. Fortunately, the kitch factor made the ride quite enjoyable.

I actually could have done with a few more hours to linger more, but we had reservations at Le Cellier, the steakhouse in Canada. Thank God I listened to the other obsessive compulsives at the Disboards. Reservations were a must on this trip, even in the off-season. We wanted to hit one or two more rides before dinner, and the second of the three new rides at Epcot was open late, the new Finding Nemo attraction at the Living Seas. Both Christian and I were just so tickled by this ride. You hop into a clam-mobile, much like a Doombuggy, and ride past sets and rear-projected screens detailing the newest adventures of Mr. Lucky Fin, and it was just lovely, and sweet without being toothachey. And why do they have manatees? Oh yeah, because THEY’RE THE CUTEST CREATURES IN THE SEA. I love them so and want to jump in and hug and kiss them and make all of their problems go away. They make me want to cry with their sweet, innocent faces and auto-valve nostrils. Giant pooperheads.

Sniff. Anyway, we were so tired by dinner that we honestly didn’t know if we’d make it, but Godalmightlyinheavenabove, am I glad we did. I want to die by drowning in their cheese soup. The filet mignon was the best I’ve had, and yes, that includes Daniel’s Broiler, and the crème brulee sampler was, well, burnt sugar bliss. The restaurant is housed in a faux cellar, go fig, and was cozy and romantic and not at all designed to keep us awake. Lovely, but not lively. Still, wonderful and I’m glad we went.

However, shopping when exhausted already and ready to lapse into a meat coma is a really, really terrible idea. We did find some gifts, but had forgotten how to speak by the time we left. We were reduced to grunts and hysterical giggles.

But, a charming and happy, happy day all ‘round. I have decided that Epcot is groovy and neat in all things, even in, well, especially in the glossiness. We had some lovely conversations with CM in environments sort of vaguely like their home countries, and the day was gorgeous. A wonderful fourth day of vacation and third day in the parks. And we were only witness first hand to six tantrums. Still, until today I had never actually seen a child flail and thrash quite that dramatically. That kid should have a career on stage.

Tomorrow: Me in a bathingsuit at the water park. Gack. Be prepared for hysterical sobbing. The watusi cattle outside say good night.

DisneyWorld Diary Day 3

Continuing on from last month (sorry, got distracted with December Drama), here's more of our Disney vacation diary:

Day 3
Monday, Nov. 13, 2006

It seems that staying up late the previously night has the unexpected result of making us tired the next morning. Go figure! As Magic Kingdom is really THE park, the original, the most magical and ride-packed, we wanted to spend a good chunk of time there, so that was our first park in the morning. Well, sort of morning. We made it there around 11. Of course, I had to get IN to the park, which was much more difficult than usual. I’m utterly cursed. My card didn’t work the previous night, and so I replaced it back at the hotel, and the NEW card didn’t work either. Growl. Thankfully, the CM just ran and got me a temporary card. All the rides were walk-ons AGAIN; Space Mountain, 10 minutes. Splash Mountain, 20 minutes, Winnie the Pooh, 50 minutes (although we didn’t bother to wait in line for that one. 50 minutes?? Forget about it). Yeah, what the heck is with that? We ate, and can I tell you, every place that sells burgers should have sauté pans of onions and mushrooms next to the ketchup. It took us a while to get going, but we also wanted to actually SEE the parks rather than merely run through screaming KEEP GOING!! WE NEED TO MAKE MEMORIES, DAMN IT! This time, we just watched other people do that. Can I just mention, though, that Christian apparently has a tantrum filter that I don’t possess? He also has a muffin top filter. Why do I notice these things? We did decide to keep track of all of the hilarious/terrible/memorable things other guests said while touring. The first one that we actually noted was yesterday on the Jungle Cruise when a woman said to her mother that her husband and daughter were currently on Pirates of Penzance. Of course, they were also the ones who held up the ENTIRE line so said husband and daughter could catch up.

I find Tomorrowland a little depressing if I’m in it too long, as the fine detailing and beautiful architecture of the other lands is so spoiling, so I made Christian leave after we saw Buzz (again with the crappy scores) and Stitch’s Great Escape, which was much more amusing than advertised, and made scornful comments about the “High School Musical” pep rally. We made the enormous mistake of using the bathrooms in Fantasyland (at 3 pm, prime tantrum hour) but REALLY wanted to go on Splash Mountain, my perpetual favorite ride, but we forgot our ponchos we bought for $.89 at Target before leaving home, so we had to beg for Mickey Mouse ponchos, and had to also swear that we weren’t just using them for exactly the purpose for which we WERE going to use them. I wanted to shake my finger at the little clerk and tell him that, if he had spent the first day of his honeymoon in wet underwear, and not for any good reason, that he would buy a poncho, too. The ride broke down, but we spent the half hour waiting (yes, whoopee do as the first time I rode Splash we waited two and a half hours) talking to an adorable and extremely well-spoken young girl and her younger sister, who kept us amused by stories of their hillbilly hometown. Other people were jumping ship, not wanting to wait for the ride to be back up again, but we knew that the line would be all the shorter because of it, and we should just wait. You know, I really am so cynical about some things, but that damn ride kills me every time. I’m usually grinning like an idiot and giggling at the bees and swinging, singing possums. Worth the wait. We had to leave the park at around 6, as we had a 7:50 pm dinner at the 50’s Prime Time Café at MGM, and then stay for the Extra Magic Hours.

I have to say that the whole Evening Extra Magic Hours, while wonderful and a really efficient use of time, they would have been much more useful when I was in my 20’s. I’m so old and fat that I have no stamina any more. However, dinner was delightful. The food was fine, but the diner is designed to look like 50’s kitchen interiors, and the waitstaff acts as your mother/sister/cousin and lectures you to eat your vegetables, gets mad if you tell on them (our waitress stole our silverware from another table and we were tricked into telling on her and boy, did we get an earful!) and generally acts like a louder version of a normal family. (Christian: I also accidentally touched a waitress as she was speeding by with one of my grandious, ill-timed arm gestures. For the rest of the evening she would yell “coming through” and “don’t touch me!” anytime she passed by to the kitchen.) Apparently, it used to be much more boisterous, according to our dining room neighbor. Guests would be made to stand in the corner, wouldn’t get dessert until they ate their vegetables, would have to sing a song about elbows on the table if caught, etc. It’s still a pretty hilarious place to eat dinner.

We made it on Tower of Terror, which is just such a brilliant ride, Rockin’ Rollercoaster (0-60 in 2.8 seconds, not 2.3.), Magic of Animation, the Great Movie Ride and browsed through the shops in the two hours we had remaining after dinner. I had a epiphianic moment when I realized that I need caffeine and Tylenol to make it through the evening. As I usually have an IV tea drip on most days of the week, I can’t figure out why it took me two days to figure out why I was cranky in the morning.

When the park closed, we made one of those idiotic mistakes that make your feet seem to decide that they simply no longer want to be associated with your body and suddenly hurt so much that you know for certain that they’re just torturing you because they can. We ended up having to make a huge and ill-advised loop around all of the bus stops because we went the wrong way out of the park gates. God, we were tired. We made it back to the resort and crashed like the sugar-crazed children we are.

We cannot let the lorises down.

There is nothing on earth more calculated to pierce you through the heart than a tiny, big-eared mammal, neglected by the scientific and ecological community, brushing the edges of extinction and so rare that only one or two have ever even been photographed. Now, add 99 more of his or her strange and wonderful bedfellows, and you get this.

Now, it's not only the painfully adorable and absurdly fluffy that are in real danger of being lost to development, toxicity and deforestation. Take a long look at little Mr. Marsupial Mole. Furry, but odd and slightly disturbing. And yet, I still want to fly to Australia, find him in the desert, put him in my pocket and bring him home with me. I'll build him a habitat just like the one we built for Gwendolyn, except sandier. I'll pet his little leathery face and give him bugs on which to chew.

And Mr. Slender Loris? This guy is related to the peanut in my avatar, my favorite animal at the zoo, little bowling ball butt, Senor Stinky, Mr. Mouthful of Stuff that Makes You Itch. I cannot forget him, upon whom Golum is OBVIOUSLY modeled, right down to the opposable thumbs and long spindly middle finger. Him, I'll let sleep in my bed. He can use my blankie I've had since I was two. Those knobby arms need something cozy. I'll knit him a sweater, maybe. It's cold here in the winter.

We'll be visible from space.

This is the first of two hats I'm knitting for my England trip with the Jujinator.



Julie will wear this one, whereas my hat will be purple with a red pattern. This way, if one of us gets lost in a peat bog, we'll be really obvious to rescuers.

I am the beastmaster.

We rock the clicker training. I've already taught Fritz and Cyril to turn around in a little circle on command. Cyril picked it up almost immediately, which was surprising, not because he's not smart, but because he has the attention span of a long bean. The video is done in the style of crappy/blurry as we took it using the regular camera instead of the video camera, as the VC is no longer compatible with modern computers. It WAS cutting edge when we bought it seven years ago. This shall be a good excuse to buy a new one.

I shall wear a top hat and satin pants to lead my circus.

I'm a winner!

It depresses me how excited I am that I won Zuma on Sunday night. Is this the greatest accomplishment of my life? No, but still, I WON ZUMA! Take that, sun god.

In other news, I've started training the birds using a clicker, which, if you've watched The Dog Whisperer, you know what I'm talking about. But then, you've watched TDW and should be ashamed.

The theory is that you use the clicker as a "bridge stimulus" to let your animal know that what he's done is correct and a treat will follow shortly. Now, clicker training is heavily dependent upon the reward system, which only works if your animal likes rewards. Cyril will work with me and take his rewards for about five minutes and then he gets fed up and wants to go back to his cage. Pierre hardly eats anything and will only take a seed an hour from my hand, but Fritz, he surprised me. He let me work with him for a half hour and was such a little champ that, by the time we were done with our session, he'd let me touch his back without biting me and he would turn halfway around to get a seed.

I want to teach them all to play dead, pull a bucket up for a treat, pick up their toys and fly to me on command. I shall then open a circus and charge admission to earn back the money we've spent on bird treats.

Three hours I'll never get back.

In an effort to stave off escalating panic regarding the accident on my birthday and our insufficient insurance coverage, I tried to win Zuma last night by starting at the beginning to stockpile lives and try to get to the end with lives to spare. It's my life in a nutshell right now that I lost on my last life, on the last level, with four balls left. I hope this isn't an omen.