WHEN MEEMAWS ATTACK

I can't believe I've forgotten to tell you guys about this!

When Steve and I were in Disney World this past January, we spent almost an entire day at Epcot. We hadn't been able to go into Space Ship Earth earlier, even though it is literally the first ride you come to in the park, because the line was WAY out the door.

This is Space Ship Earth. This is not the Epcot Center. So help me, if you call this thing the Epcot Center I
will hunt you down and beat you to death with a DVD copy of Aladdin.

Well, we spent our day doing Epcot-y stuff, and it was evening when we decided to leave the park and go back to our resort. As we passed by the ride, there wasn't a line, so we went in to do this one last thing before we left. The ride went by as usual, and also as usual, you get dumped out into an arcade/hands on science area at the bottom of the ride. We had just found an exit, when an older woman walked out in front of us. We paused to let her go first, when we heard a kid (a boy probably about 10 or 11) scream. A literal scream with no words in it. It wasn't a scared scream, or a hurt scream, he sounded MAD. I thought he was just playing around, so I didn't get alarmed until I saw that child run after the older woman and PUNCH her right in the center of the back.

Now, imagine yourself to be part of a couple quite clueless about the inner workings of children. To see someone's MeeMaw get assaulted by their (assumed) grandchild in a section of the "Happiest Place on Earth!" is both alarming and confusing. MeeMaws are to be hugged and cherished, not beaten up in the lobby of Space Ship Earth. I wish I could tell you that we immediately ran and saved the lady from the devil's spawn, but actually, we didn't. We stood there with our mouths open. We would suck at being super heroes.

Luckily for this MeeMaw, heretofore called SUPER NAN, didn't need our help. Super Nan somehow reached behind her, grabbed the little bastard by the arm, and snatched him around in front of her.

Steve and I just stood there, staring.

Super Nan, yanked that kid around and got right in his face and yelled "GOD D*MMIT!" and shook him like a rag.

Steve and I just stood there, staring.

In a moment of what I believe was the pre-hulking out of Super Nan, she looked up and into our eyes as if to say "You might want to leave unless you want every illusion you hold about grandmothers to be shattered beyond repair." I think I literally saw her change color and split a seam in her stylish wind suit trousers.

Steve and I ran.

Actually, we sort of scrambled to find a way out, tripping over each other and running into things as we tried to leave that women to administer what I can only assume was the K-Mart Whoopin' of her life. It was so awful. Not the fact that she was obviously spanking her grandchild, because that little rat deserved it and more for punching the woman, but the fact that Steve and I were trying so hard to get away from her that we looked like the KeyStone Cops. We finally managed to find another exit, but before we could escape, we noticed that it wasn't just us that had witnessed the event. Everyone in the arcade was staring at the doorway we had just run away from, and also staring at us because we had been right in front of it when the kid's uppance had come. Right before we made it out the door, a women looked at us and into the now quiet room said "smart move."

I can only hope that Super Nan taught that kid a little about respecting his elders. I only wish she hadn't had to do it in front of us.

Well, I'm back!

As some of you may already know, Steve and I went on a week long vacation to Florida. Orlando, Florida to be specific. You probably don't even have to guess what we did while we were there, do you? Probably not. However, for the three international visitors who will somehow find this blog by accident and go to the trouble to read it in hopes that it will help them practice their English skills, I'll clarify: we went to Disney World.

Whee.

Usually, when I go on vacation, I blog about my experiences along the way! That's so I don't forget anything that happened. However, I couldn't do that this time because we didn't take a computer along with us. We had the iPad, but since the resort didn't offer a wireless network, we couldn't use it to get online. The closest we had to an Internet connection we could use was Steve's iPhone, and I'm fairly certain I would have gone blind trying to type long entries into a device only slightly larger than a pack of playing cards. So I will just have to give you what I remember!

HOLIDAY ROAD

The flight down to Orlando was nice because a) AirTran has a direct flight from Huntsville to Orlando! Woot! I was so glad, because I hate the Atlanta airport with the heat of a thousand suns. Also, b) we were able to upgrade our seats to business class*, which held the untold comfort of actual leg room. *Yes, I know first class may be better than business class, but dammit, it was as close as we could get!

Since we had done a very similar trip recently, in 2009, we already knew where to go and what to do. We got checked into the Contemporary Resort fairly quickly and easily, which was way better than last time. The hotel was lovely, really! I mean, it looked a little bit dated as far as decor, but it was still really nice. It was also nice to have a monorail station right outside of our room. You could just walk downstairs and jump on the train! It was much better than having to ride the bus!

SUNSHINE DAY

The weather was gorgeous. I was so glad to have missed the snow up here, and the temperature the day we arrived was about 78 degrees. Even so...I saw people walking out of the building wearing parkas. PARKAS! Seriously, how hot does your home country have to be for you to need a parka in 78 degree weather? Geez-Louise. It really only got cold one day, and even that was not so bad. I mean, it got uncomfortable if the wind blew on you too much, but it was probably in the low forties or something. I, at least, had the wherewithal to wear long pants, so I was better off than a lot of other people who only had summer clothes. How hard is it to look at a 10 day forecast online, people? Even Florida has cold weather occasionally. Also, just FYI, Disney will price gouge their gloves if an unexpected cold snap happens. $9.99 for a pair of 50 cent gloves? Fughettaboutit.

WELL-A BIRD BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD

If there was one continuing theme to the week, it was that we spent an unusual amount of time dodging birds and bird poop. I'm not kidding even in the least about that. It all started on Monday while we were in Animal Kingdom. There were these white birds with LONG curved beaks that kinds of hang out everywhere down there. I don't think they were even part of any kind of exhibit or anything, they were just there. Everything was fine until one of them tried to kill me. OK, maybe that is an exaggeration, but you know what? I didn't see anyone else getting buzz-bombed by these birds. It was like they waited for me to walk by and they'd take off straight towards my head. Then they'd follow me with their eyes...black eyes...like doll's eyes... Ugh. We also had birds getting into the hotel through the monorail openings. By the last day we were there, so many sparrows were begging for food in the food court area that Steve literally had to dodge a bird while he was eating breakfast. I thought I'd choke, I was laughing so hard. I was sitting with my back to the majority of the restaurant, and he got this panicked look on his face, and then *SWOOP* a sparrow flew right at him. He looked terrified. It was so, so funny! The worst, the very worst thing, though, was the morning we heard this WHUMP on the balcony door. I was in the dressing room when Steve heard it and told me to come and look. Somehow, a rock hard bread roll landed on our balcony. We have no idea how it got there, because we were on the 7th floor and didn't think anyone could have thrown it up, so it probably slipped from an upper story. Anyways, with that hunk of bread, birds arrived. It was a sea gull and a couple of smaller birds at first. I thought they were cute, so I threw out a couple of pretzels so that they could all have some food. Unfortunately, that triggered some kind of "SUCKER" signal and our balcony was attacked from all sides by birds. Not only did they attack, they... and honestly, there is no delicate, southern-lady way to say this... but they shat all over our balcony. It was like some kind of poop war was going on and there was only a thin panel of glass between Steve and I, and a literal shit-storm. I've never seen anything like it. They were like some feathered version of the Luftwaffe and our balcony was Poland. Disgusting. I managed to go out and pick up the roll and throw it as far as I could away from the hotel, which got rid of the birds. I was trying to throw it to the roof of the convention center down below us, but I don't know where it landed because I ran back inside and hid out of fear that we'd get thrown out of the hotel because I was throwing stuff off of the balcony. After that, the lovely balcony where we had spent so many evenings watching the fireworks was completely unusable. Bleh.

***MORE TO COME***