Tuesday, August 18, 2009
In celebration of our lovely Victoria's 15 years on the earth, we went to Disney for the weekend.
I now know Disney in August is a preview of what the party's like down in Hell.
The heat was unbearable and this is coming from a Tropical Girl. Usually, I don't mind our heat. In fact, I'll take the tropical weather over "it's a dry heat" any day.
A few years back we were in Arizona at an insurance convention. I can't remember which one, but since camels and Hall and Oates were nowhere to be found, I'm pretty sure it wasn't AIG. In fact, I know it wasn't AIG because I remember their convention that year.
See, My Hubby's in corporate benefits. He provides various insurance plans to different corporations depending on the company's circumstances. At least, for the time being, that's his line of work. If Mr. President and his congress have their way.... Well, let's just keep these town hall meetings a rock and roll protest, is all I have to say about that.
So, we go on a few conventions every once and awhile and usually on the last day of the convention there is a dinner and at the end of the dinner, they announce where next year's convention will be.
Every year, we looked forward to AIG's announcement, because it was always destined to be somewhere really fabulous where you had to bring your English speaking dictionary and you were sure to have an 80's rocker cross your path.
This year the secret had been let out of the bag prematurely.
We were headed to Monaco.
I know very little about Monaco. I know only rich people are allowed to live there and the main occupation is gambling and Grace Kelley was their princess until her circus daughter drove the car over the cliff and killed her mother and the whole gang of rich people in Monaco covered it up by saying Grace was driving and had a stroke at the wheel.
I was really excited to go gape at the rich people and I was hoping there was some sort of Grace Kelley museum because I really don't gamble and I just think Grace was incredibly beautiful.
This story will come full circle. I promise you.
So, we are sitting at the Land of the Tropics table as they're announcing next year's destination and the drum roll begins and the insurance honchos say, "We have taken into consideration your voiced concerns over traveling internationally, (This was the year of 9/11), and we have decided to change our convention location. Hang onto your travel hats, friends, because we are all headed to . . . WALT DISNEY WORLD!"
We Tropical folks all looked at each other with a "What the f*&#k?"
I mean, seriously, terrorists have no grand schemes for Monaco! There is no impact to be had there! The world doesn't care about insufferable, gambling rich people. In fact, everybody would probably be like, "Good! One less rich asshole in the world." I mean, seriously. It's Monaco! People hate that Princess Stephanie and her circus freak life and her ugly brother, fathering children all over the world. The only one of those royalty folk, people are lukewarm about is that Caroline because they feel sorry for her with all her husbands dying on her and her hair falling out, but so far, life hasn't been very good to her anyway. And since the world doesn't care about Monaco, terrorists aren't going to care.
I'm getting back around, I promise you.
So, since AIG sent us to Disney instead of the hot seat of terrorism, Monaco, we were in Arizona on somebody's else's dime. And we were there in Arizona just in time for some record breaking heat. If I remember correctly it was 210 degrees.
OK, so maybe it wasn't that high, but I'm telling you, it had to be at least 200. We'd had all these grand plans, canyon hiking, boating, sightseeing, but the only thing we could manage was to drag our limp, broiling bodies from the hotel room to the pool, complaining the whole time about the oppressive heat. And the Arizona natives would say, "Well, yeah, but the great thing is, it's a dry heat."
And I'd be all polite and nod my head, trying not to dis their state and their heat, but what I wanted to say is, "Are you f*#@ing kidding me? What, like being roasted in an oven is a better kind of heat? Seriously!" I could feel my face crackling into dried leather by the second in that baking, airless heat.
I don't get it. I just don't get it.
And NOW, I'm back to my original story which is, we were at Disney World this weekend. And usually I don't mind our rain forest heat, but we had two tropical storms brewing out in the Gulf and when that happens, the heat becomes so heavy you feel like you can't lift your head up in it's muggy wall of swelter.
Add to that sweaty cocktail, a huge influx of foreign folks in obscenely tight clothing who should NOT have been in obscenely tight clothing.
I know we're all puritanical about our bodies here in America and I know the rest of the world except for the Middle East considers the body a beautiful thing, to be celebrated, but trust me, these foreigners did not need to be celebrating their bodies in super tight clothing. I think Snuggies would have been a better option for these folks, but anyway...Gosh, I'm a rambler today!
Add the foreigners in their cut off the circulation clothing accompanied by their lack of manners when it comes to personal body space and queuing up for lines and I was ready to pack up the family and head home.
But it was our girl's birthday, so we did our best in the heat.
We stayed at this lovely Disney hotel with pools that stretched the whole perimeter of the place. The Hubby took the girls down the slides and through the maze of pools until they ended up at the Party Pool where the lifeguards danced and sang to the music blasting over the speakers and everyone played games in the pool.
My Hubby and the girls jumped into a game of volleyball and as my Victoria told me, "Daddy, livened up that dead game pretty quick." and soon a whole pack of kids, American and foreign were joining in.
Now, I'm going to stop this story right here to inform you, Internet, that my Hubby is not known for his game playing credibility. In fact, he is known for just the opposite.
Here's an example. True Story: When we were newlyweds, we used to play board games with some married friends of ours. These people were serious game players.
Unlike me.
I don't have a lot of competitive blood running through my body. I just cheer for whatever team's winning. My kids hate that, especially when it's their soccer games.
One night, we were playing Monopoly with our serious game playing friends. And the Hubby and the two of them were cutthroat serious and by the end of the night the three of them were neck in neck, snarling and snapping at each other, no longer having fun as they tried to win this game like they really were going to win real estate on Park Place.
I, by this time, had lost just about everything and was more interested in petting the gamer couple's cat.
At one point, when I was almost broke, I landed on someone's maxed out property and had to pay rent. I was all, "No worries." as I petted the cat, "I've still got one of my $500.00 bills left." I looked down at the board where I had wedged my wealth and there was no five hundred dollar bill. I looked under the table, under my seat and under the cat. No bill.
The serious gamers were all, "You spent it already. You're out! You're out!"
And My Hubby is going, "Yeah, hon. You spent it already, sooo that's it for you."
And, even though I didn't remember spending five hundred dollars, something I usually can recall quite easily, I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and went off to pet the cat leaving the three of them to kill each other.
On the way home, I said to My Hubby, "Man, they are just way too serious about their game playing."
And my Hubby said, "Uh yeah and you know that $500.00 bill you thought you spent?" He was snickering."I smuggled it off your board. You didn't even notice!"
And, that's how he plays. He takes great pride in not getting caught. I will say, when it comes to real sports like golfing and shooting competitions, he finds cheating vile and the measure of a person's character, but for board games and playing with kids, all good sportsmanship is off the playing field.
So during this volleyball game, which was other countries against America, he took advantage of being the only adult in the group and started "enhancing" his team's score. A few points here and there, announcing his team's creative lead with great gusto, causing the American kids to start cheering wildly every time he announced another jump in the point spread.
An English boy on the other team had the courage and bad judgement to question him. After another serve from my Hubby's side was not returned, the Hubby proclaimed, "All right! That's 9 to 4!"
The score had just been 5 to 4.
The American team cheered wildly. The boy splashed at my Hubby from the other side of the net. (he'd been splashing My Hubby throughout the whole game) and said, "Excuse me sir, I do believe you're making up that score."
My Hubby splashed that kid back and said, "No. That's just how we do things in America!"
His lead got larger and larger, the American kids cheered louder and louder and my Hubby made a point of splashing the little English kid every time his point spread jumped, letting him know that is exactly how we do things in America.
A good time was had by all . . . the Americans.
Between that and setting restaurants on fire, the man is probably not the best representative for Americans.
Then, of course there is the Coca-Cola experience.
Epcot and Coke have a really cool exhibit where you can duck out of the Florida heat into this chilly room, filled with dispensers of the different types of Coke found round the world. There are little cups at every station and you can go hog wild trying all the different types.
I prefer the watermelon coke, the ginger Coke and the vegimatic Coke from Japan. It really is good.
My Hubby likes to hang out there, not so much for the Coke sampling but for the Coke joke playing.
You see Italy has this coke that is described as tasting like bitters.
I describe it as tasting like ass.
And my Hubby is quite content to lean against the wall and say in a very loud voice to all the Coke tasting tourists, "That Italian Coke is really great! That Italian Coke is the best I've ever had!"
And sure enough, he suckers them in by the handfuls. They guzzle it up, shuddering and retching the second that Ass Coke hits their taste buds. And My Hubby and the kids laugh and laugh, most of the time getting the tourist to laugh in the process.
Yesterday, it was a German man and not only did he laugh, he brought the Ass Coke over to his companion and convinced him to taste it. As soon as his friend started gagging, we all laughed even harder, the German included.
Cause that's how we do it in America.
Today's Dooo Itttt Download: Coldplay's "Life in Technicolor II." I have sorely neglected this great band. This is such a great, joyous song. I do love this whole album even though it got panned a bit by the serious reviewers.
I saw them on Saturday Nite Live the other night, a rerun, but I'm behind the times when it comes to late night TV. They were great-playing 4 songs. But, boy is that Chris Martin a spaz on the stage!
It reminded me of a cute story I heard Gwyneth Paltrow relate in a recent interview. She said their two children are too little to really understand what their father does. She said they just know he sings on the radio and every time a song comes on the kids say, "There's Daddy!" She said the other day it was Lil Wayne singing and the kids were all, "There's Daddy!"
Pretty amusing, especially since I didn't realize Gwyneth had a sense of humor. I thought she just constantly walked around with that snit on her face like something smelled bad.
Enjoy some Coldplay and spazzy Lil' Wayne. Cause, that's how we do it in America.
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1 comment:
Thanks for pushing little foreign kids around. That will definitely improve the rest of the world's opinion of Americans. Also, please tell me the birthday girl DID NOT wear those boots all day! I know they love their fashion, but c'mon.
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