In Like A Lion

I have many, many back posts either half or three-quarters drafted, or spooling around in my head, and yet, only 5 posts in 2015 to speak of.  Time is a bit precious around here, as you can imagine, and March has been a bit of a doozy.

I started a new job.  The process of getting this job was a bit fraught (I'll explain later).  I'm on loan from my regular job for a 9 month secondment with the Ministry of Magic, doing policy work, for which I had to take a pay cut (which smarts).  On the plus side, I've already stretched myself and learned how to do new things (hello, finessing a cost-sharing model in Excel, when you don't have access to Youtube tutorials or the data sets on which the model was based? All the fun!).  I've also felt stupid almost every day that I've been there and there has been more than one occasion where I've been left squirming under the steely gaze of my director, giving me feedback on a briefing note I produced that's been marked up beyond all recognition, as she waits for me to explain why something is "germane" to the paper.  All the fun!  Starting a new job, it's not nothing.  New work environment, new colleagues, new administrative and operational processes (where's the lunch room?  What time do people eat?  Is it okay to leave at 5 when I got there at 8:30?) ALL THE FUN!

It's probably a contributing factor to the eczema flare ups on my face?  Just guessing?  After 8 years at one job, it was easy to be a rock star.  My days were predictable, as were expectations, and I was in a comfortable position.  Having to "fight" (in a sense) again - to figure out my position and how to be good at something requiring a whole new skill set is good for me in the long run, which is why I took this job, even with an inopportunely timed pay cut (did I mention that 3 months into 2015, we are on track to spend FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare? All the fun!)

So there's that.  Then, Captain Save-A-Ho finally kicked the bucket.  After saving many hoes, true, but also AFTER we spent $500 putting a new muffler on him.  So now we have to buy a new (used) car.  On the same day we made that fateful decision, I was replacing the windshield wipers on Eddie Van Halen, and cracked the windshield and we had to replace that (did I mention I took a pay cut?  And FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare?)

On that same day (yes, this series of unfortunate events is still going), I took Boddington into the veterinarian because he had been looking unwell, and it turns out we had to put him down. He had lost 7 lbs since his last visit (almost 2 years ago), and the doctor said she would run up a quote for diagnostics (almost $2000), but that there was a likelihood that what she found wasn't going to be treatable.

Imagine how I felt.  Imagine what it feels like that this member of your family (for 12 years!) had gotten so sick and you didn't notice until it was too late.  The vet did her best to make me feel better (cats try to hide illness, it's common for the pet owner not to notice gradual weight loss, etc), but when you're holding that little furry body and they're listless and you're trying to comfort this creature in its last moments, you feel like total hell.

RIP, Boddington.  You were the cat that the Dotytron and I got when we first moved in together.  We called you "Big Nose."  You had already been adopted out and then someone brought you back and for some reason, we decided to take you even knowing that.  You were super affectionate and had a poor sense of boundaries (the Roomie called your signature move "face rape").  You were possibly on the spectrum and you did gross things like obsessively like the back of the toilet, lick the tub scum after a shower, and lick the corner of a window repeatedly until we could hear the squeak of your dry tongue on the dry glass.  You were also endlessly forgiving of the torment of three children over the last years of your life, and you gave Smudge (who loves being a father figure) something to dote over.  You were a greedy goomba who was very particular about how full your food bowl was, and you were riddled with anxiety.  You are missed.

After my second week on the job, we went to Disney World.  With two toddlers.  And a four year old (that's three under 4, if you're keeping track).  Our flight over was direct (from Buffalo).  What I didn't know about flying Southwest is that it's "open seating."  You can't reserve seats and you pay an extra $20/ticket/direction in order to get on in the first grouping to get the best pick of seats.  Families and people who require special assistance are seated between the A group and the B group.  We managed to get all five of us in a 3-seat row (babies were going to be on our laps), but then we found out that we're not allowed to have 5 in a 3 seat row as there's only 4 masks.  Gah!  Our flight attendant was kind enough to occupy the extra seat in the 3 seat row while the Dotytron moved across the aisle with the Quincess.  We ended up having that seat extra so the flight there was pretty smooth, all things considered:

We arrived in the afternoon.  We stayed on-resort (the only way to do it, IMO), and got picked up by the Disney shuttle.  We rented a stroller and picked it up at our hotel and then headed off to our first park, the Animal Kingdom, where we had planned a 1/2 day.  The good thing about staying on-resort is that Disney has special buses to transport you from the hotel, and they'll drop off your luggage at your hotel for you.  All we had to do was pick up our "magic bands" (which is linked to my credit card and has all our itinerary/dining information linked to it) and head off.

The Animal Kingdom is one of the weaker of the various parks within Disney World.  It's pretty much a big zoo.  There's some thrill rides (a roller coaster, a Jurassic-park-type dinosaur experience) that were too intense for our crew, so we went on their wilderness safari, had a Dole whip, and called it a day.  The safari was super fun - The animals are pretty much free to wander around (the docile ones at any point) and we saw cheetahs, wildebeast, giant bull type things (which had Lindsey shouting "PIIIIIIIIIG!" in ecstasy) and lions, zebras, etc.  It's pretty cool and was a nice way to ease into the experience.  

Here's the thing with people who don't stay on resort to save a few bucks - you're honestly better off saving money for a longer period of time, until you can afford to stay on resort.  And get the meal plan!  Paying for food on the park is so expensive!  $12 for a tuna sandwich?!  There are many, many ways to maximize your meal plan credits (and so many blogs from Disney psychos to guide you through the process), that it's well worth it in the end.  Travel from the resorts to the parks, on the Disney buses, can often take 30-45 minutes.  If you had to park your car?!?  And walk to it?  And then had to stay at the park ALL DAY (without a hotel break) to maximize your dollars?!?  Why would you do that to yourself?  YOLO.  

Day 2 was a day at the Magic Kingdom.  Going into this trip, the Dotytron and I made a solemn pact that we WEREN'T GOING TO BE CRAZY.  That meant that we would be chill - whatever happened, happened.  The money was spent - there was no going back, so there was no point stressing about the trip.  Knowing the Big Yam and knowing that he's a bit of a scaredy cat, and also is not into meeting characters, allowed us to book our "fast passes" (which allow you to jump the queue at particular attractions during hour-long blocks of time) in advance, knowing what would give us the best ROI.  We would eat a snack at our hotel, go to the parks as close to opening time as possible, then either go on rides we already had later fast passes for (but that we knew would have a big pay-off for the Big Yam, so he would want to ride it twice, and would be able to with the fast pass) or would have epic line-ups later.  Then we would do our fast pass schedule and hit some things that were more low key, then eat lunch at the park.  We would return back to the hotel for a mid-day swim (when Orlando is at it's most blistering), a nap, and then back out for dinner and a walk before a late bedtime.  It was the best possible way we could have managed things.

We discovered a place that had LOBSTER ROLLS as a counter service meal on our meal plan, and we hit that up (twice).  Other people were using their meal credits for the aforementioned tuna sandwich (why?!).  We obviously had Dole pineapple whips (twice!)

Despite making the best of the trip, it was challenging travelling with this many kids and in this age range.  It is an incredibly overstimulating environment - for them and us.  Then you add the heat, and the disruption of the routine, and the fact that the Dotytron and I hadn't been full-time parents to all three for this duration in months, and it was exhausting.  You don't go to Disney for a break, that's for sure.  I saw parents who seemed to be having a wonderful time and I'd ask how old their kids were and they'd say "12 and 9" - which makes sense.  Two toddlers and a 4 year old?  It's insanity.  We were getting side-eye from like, Mormon families with 12 kids, because all their kids were older.  

Orlando department of transportation says you have to fold up strollers on the buses, which meant every time we went to a park, we would stroll over to the bus stop, then I'd wear a baby, hold another baby while the Dotytron folded up the stroller and grabbed all the crap we had stowed underneath, and I would hustle the Big Yam onto the bus while the Dotytron tried to find a place to put the stroller.  I'd say that 60% of the time, people were kind enough to give up a seat for us or the Big Yam.  The overwhelming obesity problem in the US means that very often, people weren't giving up their seats because they actually needed it more than us (sorta).  I met another woman who was saying that they'd been to Disney about 5 or 6 times and they loved it.  It had apparently gotten to the point where her kids were old enough so that she and her husband went out and had a "nice dinner and a glass of wine" and she was saying how wonderful it was.  I just thought to myself, if you're idea of living it up is a nice dinner and glass of wine at Disney, then lady, you need to expand your definition of travel.

The food is good, FOR DISNEY.  As far as theme parks go, I can say unequivocally that it's the best.  It's so family friendly, and they set up all these smart things to make your trip as nice as possible.  The people they hire are very nice and have the patience of saints, even when they're treated abysmally by the guests.  But would I go there if I didn't have kids?  Hells, no.  We've been there, done that.  It is ONLY worth it for the kids.  Even at that, when the Dotytron and I were tallying things up at the end of the trip, it was only reasonably affordable because we didn't have to pay for the babies' flights/park tickets/most meals.  If we factored that in, we would have spend almost 10K, at which point, I would rather go someplace that's more stimulating for ME.  Picturing Disney as an adult escape is very, very odd to me, even if I did get to eat a cronut!  

Big Yam had no interest in meeting characters, but for some reason, the Dotytron was so enthralled at the fact that we were positioned so close to Belle from Beauty and the Beast that I came back to a camera with more than a few Belle back-side shots.

Look at how haggard having kids has made the Dotytron! 

Sunglasses hide everything!

Quincess turning it on at 10pm for the money shot.

 

Our flight home was a nightmare.  We flew out of Orlando at 6pm to Baltimore.  We'd already had a full day of the Magic Kingdom and the flight straddled baby bed time.  The Quincess dropped a deuce around 7pm and then we hit turbulence so the fasten seatbelt light was on and I couldn't go anywhere and he wailed for a solid hour.  I got some nasty looks from this lady in front of us.  Listen - if you're on a flight with someone with a crying baby, THEY ALREADY FEEL BAD ENOUGH.  Glaring doesn't help!  Also, WE PAID THE EXACT SAME FOR OUR SEATS, YOUR HIGHNESS, so can it.  Then, our connecting flight from Baltimore to Buffalo was delayed by 2+ hours.  We didn't end up arriving in Buffalo until close to 2 in the morning, and we didn't get home to Toronto until around 4am.  It was brutal and made the Dotytron swear off flying anywhere for the next 10 years.

That was my March in a nutshell.  I'm waiting for some out like a lamb action any time soon.

Fin.

so...what's been doing 'round these parts?

hi! remember me? i'm back! we got back yesterday around dinner time and then i made us unpack and hyperventilated and had 60 thousand anxiety attacks about how busy our lives are and how much shiz we have to do and then we ate pizza and i organized my life some and fell asleep.

toronto feels like a BIG city after hawaii. but first things first - the disney vacation with the family, which was renamed the "pineapple whip tour 2009". there's a link to some photos 'pon the facebook for those who like such things.

the resort we stayed at was called the "port orleans - riverside" formerly known as "dixieland" (replete with confederate flags until someone realized how INCREDIBLY OFFENSIVE that is.) the resort consists of a bunch of low lying, antebellum mansion type lodgings grouped around a man-made (everything in disney is man-made) river. it was STINKING hot. unbearably hot. instant crankers hot. step outside to be enveloped in the smothering embrace of a hot, wet, woolen blanket hot. it was so humid that every part of you chafed. it is a testament to what a hardcore amazing packer i am that we went down with 1 carry on roly luggage and 1 knapsack each. and that's it! eff you united and your $15/checked bag ways! not on my watch! the key to surviving is 100% cotton aka all american apparel, all the time. it saved my butt.

the pineapple whip is this AMAZING thing that they ONLY have in ONE location in all the park (the whole compound consists of: the magic kingdom, EPCOT, animal kingdom, hollywood studios, and downtown disney). outside of the tiki room in adventureland, dole has a stand that sells "pineapple whip" which is *wait for it* PINEAPPLE FLAVOURED SOFT SERVE. I DON'T EVEN LIKE SOFT SERVE! it's THE BEST! they serve it swirled with plain, vanilla soft serve in a cup, OR you can get a PINEAPPLE WHIP FLOAT which is pineapple whip in a cup of pineapple juice. it's SO refreshing! when we wore our t-shirts people would pass us and either give us the thumbs up or say, "i've heard about this pineapple whip" or just puzzle over what it meant. i also made up a song and a dance for it. it has to be seen to be believed.

here are our photos from hawai'i - what we did and what we ate. i'm going to be honest, i wasn't expecting much because everything i had read was like, "oh there's no fancy hawaiian food, it's all diner-y" etc. then i came to and realized that I LOVE DINER FOOD MORE THAN ANYTHING. most of the hawaiian restaurants worth going to are in shady looking strip malls spattered in industrial areas...but the food is SO GOOD! we chowed down like kings and the portions were HUMONGOUS. now we know how brother iz got to be so ginormous. there's so much ahi tuna you think you're going to drown in it. platters and platters of cool, thick slices of carnelian red tuna. it's insane. spam and portugese sausage everywhere. sweet bread (from the filipino/portugese influence), taro/guava/passionfruit bread. so much pork! loco moco (hamburger patty topped with egg on white rice and canned gravy), poke (cubes of ahi tuna or salmon in a marinade), puupuu platters (appetizers/hors d'oeuvres), and lunch plate style meals (protein, rice, a scoop of macaroni salad). we feasted and our costs were pretty low.

as per usual, we avoided tours. you really don't have to do them. before we left we considered getting a tour to go up mauna kea (the mountain with the observatories up top) which would have cost us $180/person and included dinner. but we just trucked up there on our own. the stars atop the mountain were like nothing you've ever seen before. you can see the swirls of galaxies and jupiter!

what we did

what we ate

the big island is breathtakingly, achingly beautiful. within two seconds of driving you'll go from arid lava desert to misty rain forest. it's the biggest of the chain of 8 hawaiian islands and thanks to the most continually active volcano in the world spewing lava into the ocean (kilauea, going since 1982), it's still growing. there's only 177,000 people on the whole island, so it's not very densely populated. the major towns feel small and poky. everything shuts down by like, 9pm...we'd be driving around looking for things to do - which is why we saw a billion movies while we were gone. we got a little paranoid that everyone at the b&bs were avoiding us because we never saw anyone - we thought there might be a secret party room somewhere that we didn't know about.

it was really hard to leave. i fell in love with the place. it's not just the beaches or the marine life or the nature - the pace of life is so easy going. if you go to hilo, the county seat, you're away from the tourist hubbub and you can really picture yourself making a life there. i've been on other vacations where i've been DONE with the place once it's been over - like, feeling worn out and looking forward to resuming the "regular" pace of my life back in toronto, feeling bored and restless. that wasn't the case with hawai'i - i feel like we have unfinished business. it was enjoyable being still for once (me! still!) - sitting quietly, soaking in the elemental sublime of your surroundings, feeling it reverberate and thrum in concert with some primordial, evolutionary timbre. i will definitely go back.


for dinner tonight i made us a chopped salad of blanched green beans, just-cooked corn off the cob, grape tomatoes, cucumber, and orange pepper in a creamy dill dressing, with grilled sea bream stuffed with lemon and thyme, finished with a slug of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and sea salt. it was delicious!

i gotta get a good night's sleep. our second purchaser's visit tomorrow morning. today at work was crazy, made even crazier by the fact that I'M NOW A PERMANENT EMPLOYEE! yay benefits! yay personal leave! yay sick days! yay glasses! yay varicose vein compression stockings! yay to staying in a job i love with people i like! yay!

so many movie and book reviews!

fin.

whirlwind

it's been a whirlwind 4 days at home, lemme tells ya.

tuesday after work was all about laundering, cleaning, putting things away, and getting things together for our 20 day vacation coming up. it's crazy! because the plan is NOT to come home-home between disney and hawaii and impose on the good graces of A & C and use their spare bedroom as home base, we had to pack for both trips simultaneously, with the idea of leaving some stuff that's earmarked ONLY for hawaii at A & C's so we can do a swap when we come back from disneyworld. hectic!

the problem is that hawaii has SO MANY climates represented that depending on our activities for the day and where on the island we'll be, it's going to be a crap shoot what we'll be wearing/requiring.

there are worse issues to be dealt, i know.

tuesday dinner was lovely. i took some thin slices of pancetta, crisped them in a pan and removed them to drain. then i took some portobello mushrooms, skinned them, sliced them thick and sautéed them in the rendered pancetta fat with a few fat cloves of roasted garlic, seasoning them liberally with pepper and stringently with salt. i took two ace bakery rosemary focaccia rolls (my new favorite all-purpose sandwich bun - adjudicated solely on the basis of the scattering of sea salt flakes that graces their cherubic tops), split them in half, and layered on the pancetta and then the garlicky portobello mushrooms. i fried two eggs over-medium and put those on top and served this glorious sandwich with a rustic greek salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, and kalamata olives with chunks of greek feta. sooo good and a welcome vegetal-laden respite after my geneseo excesses (i think there was lettuce on my aunt cookie's sub and after that point, i draw a blank on verdant items i consumed).

wednesday we worked and then had dinner with the ex roomie at king park, which is fast becoming my new favorite restaurant. they had the rotisserie going in full force so we had lamb AND the spit roasted pork - both of which were succulent with crunchy flakes of salt and redolent of oregano and melting lamb/pork fat. divine. their onion rings are also the stuff of legends and i absolutely ADORE their "village salad" (think your standard greek salad without the lettuce and with the addition of green peppers) that comes topped with a thick slab of feta for your to break off into creamy shards as your desire.

after that, we headed down to the rex to see our buddy A's band, the AG:6 play for the last time (A's heading to NYU to study under the likes of john scofield. you know, that hackjob. it's not like he's one of the lions of jazz guitar or anything. no biggie). A is spectacularly talented and while i will miss our couch-driven ruminations on life and love and culture, i'm unselfishly willing to loan him to nyc for the purposes of furthering his compositional ambitions and my own new york/brooklyn couch-surfing ones.

that was a late night! it was a nice reunion of the dotytron's jazzamatazz crew.

last night i booked it home from work, we met with our NEW lawyer (points in her favour: 1) she seems to know what she's doing; 2) no visible evidence of wonderland excursions; 3) she has an actual office space with different rooms. emphasis on the plural). after a reassuring visit we headed out to dodgeball and then met up with our friend S after dodgeball for some post-dodgeball dinner at the golden turtle and ice cream at the big chill. i like her...she's super nice and funny and talking to her is easy.

see? it's been a social whirlwind! and i've been filling every spare moment with tying up loose ends, sending a million copies of documents/identification/itinerary iterations to far flung corners of the world, and otherwise preparing for the closing day/contractor maelstrom that will greet us upon our return. yikes! taxing! we've vowed not to let this ruin our vacation though. we're going to relax and rejoice in every minute (not that we're the types to let outside stuff really affect our downtime anyway).

tonight we're meeting up with our friend P and the roomie and l'army who are all going on a temagami camping trip together. P has generously offered to give us a ride to A & C's house tonight. i had planned on depriving myself of sleep so that i can show up at A & C's at like, 9pm and then conk out because our airport taxi is picking us up at 4:30am. the forethought wasn't necessary. we've been so busy with all of the above that i'm lucky if i've gotten 5 hours of sleep a night all week.

there'll be mega-posts aplenty upon my return, stuffed to the gills with photos of me and my beloveds cavorting with animatronics (my favorite), characters, rides, and whatever else the disney "imagineers" can conjure. followed by even MORE photos of the dotytron and i in search of exotic fruits, loco moco, white sand beaches, sea turtles, "point break" surfing prowess, mountaintop sunsets, and volcanic activity. what i'm hoping to avoid: poi (i hate taro).

fin.