But who's counting

In preparation for our upcoming vacation Roland and I worked the puppy over last night. It was about time for an expression (this link leads to Too Much Information for a lot of people, think twice before clicking) and a bath. All went well and we ended up with the usual drowned rat:




Somehow I managed to catch him mid-lick. Who could resist such piteousness? Now in a couple of days I can anoint him with Frontline. That way he will be all ready to face the kennel, clean and protected. I had a dream the other night that he had a tick on his right front leg. It was a crazy real dream. In the dream I woke up in bed and remembered that I had seen a tick on him the previous evening and for some unknown reason didn't do anything about it. Sometime during this dream I woke up and was convinced that he really did have a tick on this right front leg. Luckily (for once) my semi-conscious self decided that there wasn't anything I could do about it at 3 in the morning anyway so I decided to fix it in the morning. I fell back asleep planning how to remove the tick. Very weird.

I also finished my latest craft project. I can't post pictures of it at this time as it is a Christmas present, but it turned out pretty killer and I took some pictures to maybe post at a later date. It took me a while to work it out and I'm proud of the finished product.

Only 3 days 'til Disney!

That hardly seems fair.

Roland and I ended up getting a fake tree this year. It was a hard decision for me, but the benefits of not having to get it to stand up and watering it and the needles everywhere outweighed the no fresh pine scent and it's-a-real-tree-itude. We ended up also having to buy some new lights as the old ones seemed to have some internal damage from the move (there isn't much sadder than a string of lights that doesn't light). Then we set up the tree in our living room. This was also a little weird for me as I am usually a proponent of waiting until a little closer to Christmas. However, this year I was hoping that having the tree up early would help me to feel the season a bit. The weather being so warm is still totally messing with my time sense. Here are a couple of pictures of what our tree looks like all gussied up:





I also took this one, which turned out pretty trippy:



But the universe wasn't ready to let me just be happy with that, oh no! Revenge of the it-apparently-doesn't-matter-if-it's-a-fake-tree!



Wait a minute. One of the reasons explicitly stated during the convince Susan to get a fake tree speech was that fake trees do not shed needles everywhere. That hardly seems fair.

To brine...

Divine!

This year Roland and I were alone for Thanksgiving and worked together to create a fabulous feast. He decided to follow AB's advice and brine the turkey. The results, juicerific! This is definitely the way to go. This brine was stock based and Roland could tell you more about it, but it made the turkey very moist and tasty. I made the stuffing and did all the touching-of-the-gibblets. Apparently gibblets give Roland the jibblies, he doesn't want his food to look that organ like, but they are an important part of my mom's stuffing. We also had squash, mashed potatoes, rolls, and cranberry-orange relish. This was the first time I've made cranberry-orange relish in a food processor, rather than a meat grinder, but it seemed to go just fine. Oh yeah, we also had some pumpkin pie for dessert. It was a mighty fine meal and we still have a lot left. Since we are leaving to meet Roland's parents soon we froze one of the breasts, the wings, and one of the legs and thighs. We put the rest in the refrigerator and have been eating it on sandwiches...mmmm....cold turkey sandwiches.

Jibblies

I was walking the dog this afternoon and it was like The Birds. There were a huge number of birds on the ground looking for food, and in the trees, and on the garbage bins, everywhere. What made it creepy-like was that they stayed where they were until we were very close and then all took off together in a sort of moving carpet of feathers. Then they only went into the trees above and around us making us walk through a tunnel of cawing beady-eyed-ness. Turns out Bleys isn't feeling very well today either. While out on our walk this morning he yakked up some bile on the sidewalk and after dinner this evening we hurled that back up on the kitchen floor. I hope he is feeling better soon.

Bad news: Jason isn't coming to visit in December. Bummer, but understandable. His family is having some holiday festivities when he was planning on visiting. Maybe he will be able to come in early January or soon thereafter. I hope so, I miss seeing people that I know. If not maybe I can weasel another trip to Breckenridge or Vegas out it. I might even let Roland come along too (gotcha there didn't I honey). IPublish've been thinking I would like to visit Vegas again. I would like to go to a Cirque du Soleil show and get some really good food. I would like to go to the Star Trek Experience before it goes away and maybe get a crazy smoking drink. Turns out if I had hit up V she probably would have gone with me, who knew? I had such a great time with the girls. I might also want to see some show that is quintessentially Vegas too, with giant hats that look like they might make the dancers fall over. Then I think it would be awesome to go back to Colorado for some skiing. I just want to go on a permanent vacation all over the place.

Latest crazy, wish-I-was-rich idea: Open a dive shop with Jason here.

Great news: it is supposed to get "cool" here - it might even get below 70 degrees!

The sound of compromise

I think we are going to break down and buy a fake Christmas tree. I'm usually pretty opposed to the fake tree route, partly because it's fake and partly because you have to store it the rest of the year. However, I'm not sure of buying a real tree down here and whatever they have down here probably won't compare to what is available back in Michigan (especially for freshness). Being a huge grower of trees Michigan has some nice choices. We went to Target to look at trees and a lot of them look really really fake. There was one tree they called cashmere or something on which they had frayed the ends of each 'needle.' It was totally hideous. The other one I hated looked nice except they had glued on glittery goop to the ends of certain branches' needles, the effect was... trashy. I'm trying to look on the bright side, no getting it to stand up in the stupid tree stand (plus we got rid of our tree-stand rather than move it), no needles to vacuum up, possibly pre-lit (possibly not - how the tree looks is more important to me than whether it has lights). I'm thinking we should decide soon before the stores don't have a good selection.

Cruncha-cruncha

Once again, my sistrah is the best, ever! I came home today to another package. All excited like a little kid I ran inside to open it. It was very light and I did shake it. It sounded like it had some packing peanuts in it, but not enough fill the box, because they did shake around in there. I tore off the brown paper (did I mention how much fun that is) and it was a shoe box. Now last time she sent me a package it was also in a shoe box, but then it was one of Karl's shoe boxes so it was ba-giant. This one was an Anne sized shoe box. I popped it open and...



it was full of colorful leaves with a cute little note in which she even uses nerdly terms like deciduous. It was a great little present and was totally made me want to strew them around the apartment. I'm sure Anne and Karl have more than enough to go around. It did make me a little homesick, but overall made me quite happy.

Look at the plummage!

Any opinions about this...





It is not usually the sort of thing I like but I think I do. The skirt is a peacock feather-esque pattern with a gold sparkle in it. I even like the gold shoes (I know bizarre). If I was to make the skirt I would have to buy a top somewhere, as it wasn't a pattern like the skirt, and plead with my sister to see if she would make the shrug if I bought the yarn. I kind of wish the top was a pattern as well because I like the whole outfit and usually have little to no luck in finding something that is like something I saw in a magazine. But I'm just not totally convinced I like it, it seems more stylish in the whats-hot-this-season way than I usually manage. I might not be able to pull like something like that off. What do you ya'll think?

Robots

The mystery of it all. If you scrolly-scrolly down to the bottom of my page you may notice that I have a counter. Normal, expected even. But I also have a site meter (insert canned applause, or perhaps applesauce as that suddenly sounds really good - sorry haven't had lunch yet). Anyway, I love this little thing. If you don't have any idea what I'm on about, site meter is a free website sign-up thing where they track how many people come to your site and a little bit about them. Like how they got to your site (what page they were on that linked to my page - usually LoveFeast, or Librarianne as their blogs generate a lot more traffic than mine), how long they stayed (usually 2 minutes or so), and a general location.

It's that last on that is some fun, partly because they have a feature that will plot those locations as a little dot on a world map and partly because it's just interesting to see where traffic on my site it coming from. Sometimes I can guess who is behind the visit, like when it is Pompano Beach - that is gonna be Roland, or Mt. Pleasant - that is likely to be Anne or Karl, or Kalamazoo - probably Jason or maybe Shannon. But sometimes it is a mystery, like Rutledge, Tennessee. I don't think I know anyone in Tennessee, so who are they and what do they think of my blathering. I'll never know. And Muskegon, sometimes people from Muskegon stop by, could that be someone I know? I do know few people over yonder, but they don't leave comments so again, I'll never know. And sometimes I figure out the mystery like Goshen, NY - oh wait, Henry is visiting near there for work.

That got me thinking about people I know from Muskegon, how are they doing, what are they doing. Like is Lisa as bubbly as ever and going to see Harry Potter as soon as possible? Is Kate as goofy and fun to be around? Does Kelli still have her finger on the pulse of student gossip? Is Susan doing all right? That last one stings a bit, I miss her.

I also wonder about some of the students I had. What they are planning, what college they are going to, what jobs they have gotten. It would be interesting to know what they are up to. I think a lot about the last year when I had an honors class. They were a blast to teach, I just hope I did them justice. Anyway, time for the afternoon constitutional...and maybe some applesauce.

What's up with that?

I woke up with a crazy feeling arm. I must of slept on it in a very bizarre fashion. All day I've been moving it in various ways trying to get it get back into feeling right. Here is where you imagine me running around Target gently windmilling my arm around, pushing and pulling it all while grimacing and generally looking like a complete weirdo. But it was all to no avail. It still feels manky. Maybe another night and I will sleep on it wrong in a new and different way.

Roland has been working a super lot (which is nothing like Big Lots) this week due to conferences with students. The idea was to have class Monday and then they don't have class for the rest of the week to make room for conferences. But, for some reason I haven't quite figured out he scheduled all of them for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I think he actually had one scheduled for Thursday, but some other dude changed a class time and he had to change that one to super late today. Seems like making life really hard for yourself, but maybe he really doesn't want to go in tomorrow. Anyway, that means he's not coming home until like 8:00 or 8:30, possibly even 9:00.

So the point is, we are eating late (understatement, I'm hungry already) and I'm going to make steak. This is an experiment for me as Roland is usually the steak maker of the house. I'm more of a baker anyway. But I'm going out on a limb for some filet. I found a recipe that I hope will work, but I'm a little apprehensive and hope it will turn out. I hate to ruin a perfectly good piece of steak...mmmmm steak. I like mine medium rare, while Roland is more of a medium well guy. To me, if it's not bloody it's burned. Anyway, I will have to wait for a few more hours to find out if I can turn out the chefery.

In happy news, Harry Potter is out in two days!!! I think they are starting to show it at midnight tomorrow. How exciting, except that we still haven't found a plush movie theater like Celebration. I'm particularly interested to see how they do the underwater stuff. I heard that because they are minors they could only shoot in teeny tiny segments while telling the actors to try to look like they can breathe underwater. Also exciting, The Lion the Witch, and the Wardrobe. That should be sweet as well. Anyway, I'm getting antsy so I will check back in later.

8 to 5

If you read (Lovefeast you read about our dance class and step size. I learned a long time ago about adjusting my step size, forward or backward. I was a band geek and like any self respecting band geek, participated in marching band. If you have ever marched you quickly discover that when going backward a person naturally takes small steps. In order to get the correct distance going backward one has to stretch a bit. So, having a tall partner and knowing that while he was taking his ba-giant steps forward I was going backward, I naturally adjusted my step size toward the long size. When I'm going forward I also automatically adjust my step size smaller because a lot of people don't realize that they are taking teeny tiny steps backward.

Apparently Pointy-Toe-Shoe-Lady was not aware of step size. She was taking steps backward of about 3". Luckily we were right next to her and heard the instructor tell her partner, with pretty much a straight face, that if she doesn't take large steps backward to just step on her. It was awesome, and so practical.

I also discovered one problem that I have. Naturally I have a slight out-turn of my feet. So when dancing the tango and waltz where the gentleman's foot is supposed to step between the ladies it increases the chances of me getting stepped on through no fault of the alleged gentleman. I wonder if I can adjust that?

Anyway, does anyone else out there do this dancing thing or want to? Do you actually go out and dance? How does that work? Do you go to lessons? What's the scoop?

and so it goes

The pile of branches, trees, and shrubs keeps growing. I think that even if they stopped adding more to it it would take weeks just to mulch what they have there now. However, they haven't stopped. Every day, all day more trucks come in and out. I just wonder what they are doing with it all. They should charge people and sell the stuff. I don't know how they would sterilize it to prevent spreading pests though. A lot of houses had roof damage from Wilma and I heard that most of the roofing businesses in the area have waiting lists of at least a year. Thats crazy. I suppose if you buy a house, you should also buy some of those blue tarps that can be a temperary fix to your roof.

All up ons

Dance class resumed this morning. I had a good time, but it was definitely harder than the first class. We went over the stuff we learned in the first class (tango basics) and also added some of the waltz. It was a little taxing both on body and brain. I don't know about Roland but I got a wee bit confused about some of the steps. I think we need to practice some before next week. Simon also handed out a card for where he does his other/main teaching. It actually looks reasonable in price (unlike the Arthur Murray Studios). I was considering after we finished this class and possibly some of the others that Simon teaches through Broward Community Education Roland and I could maybe take some of lessons there. I don't know what Roland thinks about that though. He might decide he has had enough and want to take some cooking classes or something. Then again I could take some more dog obedience with Bleys. I keep thinking I want to do therapy work with him, but I never seem to remember to call the humane society. I'm not sure he would pass the tests yet. He is great at home, but gets very distracted in busy situations. I suppose I need to take him out to busy places more often. On a happy note for some reason class is not held on the 3rd so we are going to be able to drop off P.W. and go straight onto to Disney! Woot.

After class we stopped by Roland's office, which is a little depressing because it is in the basement of the library and he hasn't really made much effort to move in due to the scheduled move to a new office soon-ish. After we got home I took Bleys for a long walk (he had been in his crate all day) which was nice. I sort of got off track with the walking thing. I was doing very well until Wilma (stupid Wilma). I was walking with Bleys in the morning and on the treadmill at the Mirage fitness center in the afternoon. But post Wilma it was hard to walk on the sidewalks due to debris (trees/glass/street lights) and there was no power to walk on the treadmill. Now that the power is back on and the sidewalks are mostly clear I only sometimes go on a walk with Bleys and haven't been back to the treadmill. Alas! For the last couple of nights I have been wondering what I can do to motivate myself again, but I haven't come up with much.

I am getting excited about some of the movies coming out soon. Both Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are must sees. Slight bummer, there is going to be an exhibit at Disney MGM on the Chronicles of Narnia (ok so that's a good thing) but it opens right as we leave. Oh well, I guess.

The puppy is being very cute right now. If he wasn't being cute on my lap I would find a camera and take his picture. He jumped up on the chair with me and has been scooting closer and closer to me for a while. Now he is sort of creeping onto my lap little by little and has his paw up on the computer like he is helping me blog. He is the cooterest-wooterest!

Sniffle

I saw this on Wil Wheaton in Exile. I really want one, it fits my feelings about the upcoming holiday season perfectly. I'm hoping that after the first Christmas not in Michigan with my families it will get easier. But right now it seems a little overwhelming. In addition this is the first holiday season since the last of my grand parents passed away. Makes me feel a little...alone-y. Last night something on the television (I can't remember what now) got me thinking about the little things I do and will miss about being home.

Fall colors/Deciduous trees (and no, trees that are bare because of Wilma DO NOT count)
That sound that leaves on the sidewalk make when you walk through them
Mackinac Island fudge
Mom's stuffing
Mom's pumpkin pie
All my in-laws seated around tables in Mom C's basement (boy-howdy are there a lot of them ;)
Snow (or at least temperatures cooler than 75 degrees)
Getting and decorating an actual evergreen tree
The Education of Hyman Kaplan
The candle light service on Christmas Eve
Hearing my Dad play the awesome pipe organ
Mom's Cinnamon Raisin Rolls
Stockings at Mom C's

Luckily my parents are awesome and have planned a visit just after Christmas. I hope that will help. In the mean time I am just trying to concentrate on our trip to Disney 'cause that's all happy.

I said S and more different S!

Dude...the funny. If you like Homestar Runner, you should check this out.

Sucker!

Another friend fell for it. Sweet. Another bonus; more funny! He is very funny so I'm sure there will be some good stories to come. It is awesome that people are blogging, because it gives me a way to keep up with them from across the county. I hope he blogs often, even about everyday things, because I'm eating it up!

Bite their heads off

I wonder what the Michigan peeps are up to. It has gotten to be long enough that were we still in Michigan we would have seen/visited/gone out to dinner with many of our friends. But now they are way up there in the frozen north and we are down here in swelterville. Kinda strange. I also miss the quasi-regular poker game at Jason's. It was always funny and a good time. But that Brian Greene fella started this trend of moving and Roland and I caught it. I haven't heard what he is up to lately, but I'm sure its full of programming at odd hours and in odder locations. Perhaps if we went back to Breckenridge he wouldn't wuss out this time.

Speaking of Jason, he is going diving this weekend in Ohio. He is going to try out his new gear. I hope he likes everything he got and that he doesn't become a Jason-cicle. You wouldn't catch me in an Ohio quarry in November!

Ooh, ooh, good news. My parents are coming for a visit at the end of December. It will be really nice to seem them. I'm trying to think of things that it might be fun to do while they are here. I'm thinking about going to see Butterfly World and a trip to the beach might be nice. I would like to think of some nice place to go out to dinner, but Roland and I haven't really found any local joint that is awesome. I would love to take a trip to Disney with them sometime, but that time of year is the busiest. I'm not entirely certain that they will like the whole Disney experience but I like it so much I want to share it with them. However, I'm pretty sure even I wouldn't like it there much at Christmas time, so I don't think they would either. Unfortunately, they are both in the education business so there are limited times they can vacation and the summer is soooooo hot. Oh well, I guess the real decision of whether they go to Disney is really up to them. Dad does love the roller coasters and all.


Susan=Hungry, so....bye

Spoon!

Watch out for that whine! I'm feelin' whiney and guess what, you've got a front row seat. On a personal level I still feel slightly under the weather (there are some very strange things coming out of my nose when I blow it), and my back/neck isn't feeling really great. But mostly I'm whiney about housework. I spent quite a bit of time cleaning today which is totally fine. However, I'm on about the kitchen. Why does it always seem to need cleaning? Stupid Roland and I, always needing to eat and dirtying up dishes. Grumble Grumble. And (I love you a million but,) Roland your version of clean and mine differ at a fundamental level. I guess that's what 409 is for.

On to better and happier things.

Only 25 more days until we get to see Roland's 'rents and go back to Disney. I called the vet today to obtain boarding for the P.W. for the duration. It will be nice not to have to an hour drive past Disney to get to the boarding place and then drive back south. Orlando driving sucks about as much as Fort Lauderdale driving. If you are planning to visit Florida prepare for an ongoing stunt spectacular a la Grand Theft Auto and if you are renting a car I highly recommend getting the extra insurance the rental place offers. Trust me.

We are going to drop the DoomBringer off in the morning, probably (but not certainly) go to dance class, and then take off right from there. Speaking of dance class, I wonder what they are going to do about the 3 sessions we have missed now. I was thinking that they might just add on the classes to the end, but I don't know if they can because other things might be in the space and it will be very close to the holidays at that point. I would be satisfied with a discount on more classes or something. That would be cool and it seems like giving a refund would be a huge headache. I am excited to get back to the class, it was fun. I wonder if Simon has other classes and whatnot.

Well, the Key Lime Pie in the refrigerator is calling my name...Suuuuusssaaannn, I'm so creamy and limey.....come and enjoy a refreshing slice of meeeeeeee.....

Limey

We lost power again last night. It was about midnight and there was a fairly large ka-bang and a flash of light and everything went dead. From what one of our neighbors said it was a transformer blowing up or something. It was fine for the first 8 hours, but then it got really warm in the apartment and I couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and took the pooch for his morning walk. I spent most of it hoping that when I got back the air would be back on. No such luck though. It didn't make a comeback until about 1:00 in the afternoon. I'm just glad we didn't have to ditch all the food in our refrigerator again. That would have sucked as we just went shopping for lots of yummy foods.

Last night we had some fantabulous tilapia. Usually the fish at the Pulix isn't terribly appealing (sort of old and off-color), but when we were shopping it actually looked very good. Roland whipped up a breading and pan seared it. MMmmmm....tasterific.

Back to the morning walk:
While Bleys and I were out this morning we walked past the hurricane debris disposal site that they set up in the sports complex. It is crazy busy non-stop. There is a tent/camper village where people are apparently living during the cleanup. There is two vast piles of brush/trees/branches on either side of a gargantuan mound of mulch. They now have two, count them two, ba-giant industrial sized chipper-mulcher things (the kind you can stick like 5 full sized trees into at once. They are incredible. Originally they were just making one pile of mulch in the middle until it started smoking on its way to smoldering so they started trucking in out and spreading it around a bit so they wouldn't have a city block sized fire on their hands. Good call. I also saw a guy cutting a piece of plywood with a chainsaw. Fascinating, yet incredibly dangerous. I wonder how long it will take to not only get all the debris to the cleanup sites, but to actually get it all mulched and taken care of.

To infinity...

Yay, the posty bits are posting again. I wasn't able to publish for a while there. Kind of strange, but hey it seems to have worked itself out over night. Alas, not the same for me. I feel like I might be coming down with something, something like a head cold. I don't feel yucky, but my head is sort of swimmy and I ache quite a bit in the neck and shoulders region. I feel like my eyes and brain are not chatting with each other at the same speed. Oh well, hopefully it will go away soon.

Jason's last post was quite humorous and pointed me to this. I apparently am nerdier than 85% of the population. I'm pretty sure my knowledge of the periodic table of the elements was helpful and the fact that I do, indeed, have a favorite brand of calculator. I also own quite a bit of nerdy paraphernalia. Maybe someday I will own a telescope and my collection with be complete...oh but I really want a binocular microscope someday too. My real problem with the test was they didn't tell you what you got wrong! Yes, I am that much of a nerd to want to learn from my mistakes. Looks like it's a good thing I found Roland, because I'm not sure there are too many people who could stand to live with my level of nerditude. Plus he humors me with puns. I think they are hilarious (thanks Dad), but most people just don't know how to put together a really clever pun.

Tick-Tock

That Jason kid called yesterday and we chatted for a while. It was very nice to hear from him, I definitely miss him and Ryan, Laura, Henry, Katie, and all the Michigan peeps. I'm not sure what Roland and he talked about as I wasn't really paying any attention at the time, but we talked about him possibly visiting and going diving. And maybe taking AOW at the same time. We also reminisced about our hone....I mean completely innocent vacation to Breckenridge. It was so much fun to go skiing on real hills, not just Michigan speed bumps. Plus the condo we were able to share was awesome. Jason's work person that owns it must have paid a fortune! It was uber-close to the runs, very nicely appointed, and very comfortable. The fireplace was a huge bonus. The only problem was the third floor location, and that was only a problem because I am a total wuss and was winded just standing in the Breckenridge altitude. Maybe if we went back I could manage a visit with Janice. I was able to call her from Colorado this past year, but she was very busy at the time so getting together was right out. Plus Kate Leggett is over there in Wyoming so maybe she would want to go skiing too? Pipe dreams I'm sure, but nice to think about.

Splorch

I feel like I got run over by a bus or something. I woke up not feeling like I slept at all. Roland actually got up before me. Then I woke up and he told me that I had a rough night, so that's probably why I feel so flattened. Apparently there wasn't any talking, but quite a bit of whimpering. Part of me wishes I could remember what it was that I was dreaming about, but part of me thinks maybe I don't want to know.

I got Bleys a backpack to carry on our daily walks. That way he can bring along some water for himself and he can carry my phone and keys. Its pretty sweet. He doesn't seem to mind it and likes the water when I give it to him. We are also learning a new trick, it is the cutest thing on the planet. When he is lying down I can give him the command "sad" and he will put his head down on his paws and look up and me. It is incredibly pitiful and super cute. He isn't totally reliable yet, but we are working on it.

Anne got a doggy doorbell for her birthday, but she says she isn't having much luck training Brogan to use it. Brodie will sometimes jump on it accidentally, but nothing consistent and Logan, well, she's just Logan. I want to get one of those for Bleys because with all the moving sometimes it is hard for him to know where to go to ask to go out. He's never really been one to bark to let us know, he uses a more silent approach with a lot of walking back and forth near the door. Its pretty subtle unless you know what you are looking for. Luckily we have him on a fairly consistent schedule so we know when its about time for him to need to go out.

While we were at Disney he stayed in Orlando because none of the boarding places down here had power. The place we found to kennel him was called Miss Emily's Bed and Biscuit (cute huh?). They were very nice and he got to spend a lot of time running about with other dogs and getting loved on by the staff. As usual they all thought he was adorable. I'm telling you, if you are a single guy and want to meet girls get a Cavalier and go to the park or something. Ask Roland, he'll tell you.

It's my pot-pie

Anyway, we stayed at Disney's All Star Music in the Broadway area. It was no Grand Floridian, but it was still very nice, and we didn't spend that much time in the room anyway. I think the biggest difference for me was there were exponentially more children. Speaking of which we saw a LOT of people with very small children (like infants). I decided that if I ever had children I wouldn't take them to Disney until they were like 40" tall, so they could go on the rides. Also they would have to walk on their own, no strollers. When they were tired enough to need to be carried or strollered we would go back to the room and take a nap.

Perhaps this is why I'm not parent material.

We did go diving at the Living Seas, however it wasn't as cool as usual because the Living Seas was closed for refurbishment. It was still mega-cool though, I just like to play with the people in the viewing area. It is supposed to be open again by the time we are going back to meet Roland's parents. They have some new sharks in the tank which was awesome. All the animals were fairly active because of the low barometric pressures left by Wilma and that they were just fed about an hour before we jumped in.

We also were lucky enough to stumble into the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. What a genius idea! Each of the countries represented in the showcase, plus a bunch more, each had a little booth where you could buy small samples of different dishes at a very reasonable price. One of the highlights of my stay was the lunch that we had at the festival. We started lunch at 12:30 at one end of the World Showcase, walked around and shared a little of this and a little of that all the way around to the other end. Then we turned around and walked back and got little bits of dessert on the way back. By the time we were done it was 3:30! It was awesome, I had a really good time sharing food with Roland and trying all sorts of cool food items. We had some really good pot stickers, a very interesting spring roll that I absolutely loved. It was cold and in a clear-ish wrapper (sorry I don't know what it is called) and had mint in it. I could have eaten quite a few of them. At Germany we had some excellent sausage and sauerkraut, some great curry chicken (I think in Turkey), and for dessert we tried a kiwi custard roll (from New Zealand of course). It was fantastic. I definitely think we should go back (minus the hurricane extras - we were clearly not the only ones who fled to Orlando). Anyway, all this talk of food has gotten me quite hungry, so I'm off to raid the kitchen.

Eureka

I'm baaaaack! We have the internet again. Woohoo and whatnot. As you might have read on Roland's blog it has been an eventful week. We started out last Monday with Wilma. It was frightening and yet interesting at the same time. I ended up sleeping through a large portion of the second portion of the hurricane. We were sort of keyed up Sunday night and ended up staying up late (2:00 am or so) and then waking up as the weather deteriorated (about 7:30 am). We watched and waited until the eye and then took the opportunity to take Bleys outside for a bathroom break. Then as the winds picked up again I dozed off again. When I woke up it was mostly over.

Thus began our odyssey into no power living. We made out fine, cooking soup, eggs, and yes, even steak on our alcohol burner fondue pot. As my sister said, we were using our
fond-genuity. So we actually ate pretty well for the duration. Then, with all indications that we weren't going to have power for quite some time, we decided that we were going to flee the area. It want at all necessary, but very nice. We drove to Orlando, an adventure in itself and people were freaking out about gas, mostly for their generators. So they were totally willing to use up all the gas in their car driving around trying to find gas for their generators. Why not just syphon gas from your car to use with your generator? Or maybe prepare ahead of time and fill up your gas can(s) before the hurricane you KNEW was coming for like a week.