Disneyland Version 2.0

Okay, so last week I told you all about my trip to Disneyland with little Wednesday back in 2001. Cute stuff, huh? Aaaaaaaaaaand now it only seems fitting to tell you about our second trip there. Ready? Let’s go!


Little Wednesday and I saved up all our nickels and dimes once again for a second Disneyland vacation, which we were hoping to take in 2004…. Unfortunately, destiny had other plans for us—like Wednesday’s emergency hospitalization and surgery in 2003, my losing my job because I missed too many days of work because of Wednesday’s surgery, and then my emergency hospitalization and surgery not too long afterwards (Oy!)—all of which meant that the money we had worked so hard to save up for Disneyland Version 2.0 had to be used for other things. I mean, HAD TO. We simply had no other choice.


*sad sigh*


After a couple of years of climbing hills of bills and wading through the ponds of pennilessness, we picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off, and started saving our money once again. Little by little, we added to the pile and, in October 2008, we were FINALLY able to make our way back to Disneyland. 


Disneyland Version 2.0 was a bit different than the original trip. First of all, little Wednesday wasn’t so little anymore; she was almost 13. Second, this time we travelled there with a huge group of eight other people, including three grandmas, two thirty-somethings, two preschool boys, and a one year old (*cough—in a pear tree—cough*). And third?…. Ugh. This is embarrassing. I hate to even admit it. I…. I…. I had emo glasses. There. (Shut up.)


The gargantuan group of us all met up at the airport before sunrise one morning and hopped a plane to California. Here’s what it all looked like:


DAY 1:


When the huge herd of us arrived at Disneyland, we were all giggly and squeal-y to discover that the front gate had been Halloween-ified like this….




(I mean, really, how awesome in THAT?!?! The gates didn’t look like that the last time we were there!)


Once inside the park, it quickly became apparent that navigating around the place as one big, mammoth group was just NOT going to work out. At. All. With so many different people with different tastes and ages and whatnot, there just didn’t seem to be one single attraction that appealed to everybody. In fact, we were those idiots—you know THOSE idiots!—who wasted a full thirty minutes of our precious first vacation day standing on Main Street USA arguing about where to go.


Basically, it looked kinda like this….




So pitiful.


The we-all-like-different-things realization meant that we often split up into smaller groups during our vacation and would meet up every couple of hours to trade group members, depending on who wanted to do what. Most of the time though, Wednesday and I were in a group by ourselves, which was totally fine by us! Any guesses where Wednesday and I ran to first?….


The Haunted Mansion Holiday ride!!!! Duh.




Unfortunately, the line for the Haunted Mansion was just ridiculous and the wait time was nearly two hours or something like that—*sniffle*—so, Wednesday and I decided to skip it for now and come back to it later when the crowd had thinned out a bit. The wait time at Pirates of the Caribbean next door was only 15 minutes though, so we decided to hit that ride first.


Some of our group members happened to show up at Pirates at the same time we did, so about half our herd went in the boat together. One of them shot this picture of me and Wednesday as the ride started. (Sadly though, my scanner just won’t scan any of the uber-glossy pictures she gave me well and they all keep coming out ripple-y. Gah!)




Here are some shots I took on the ride.







Wednesday and I were THRILLED to find that the Pirates ride had been updated to include Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbossa, and Davy Jones, etc. Disney did a kick*ss job of it too, because the four Jack Sparrow robots I saw on the ride were the spitting image of Johnny Depp. So cool!




After Pirates, I needed to find a bathroom (must have been all that sloshing water!) and, hey, looky who I found lurking outside the bathroom! Mary Poppins and Bert!




(Either she’s a giant or I’m a midget. I’m not quite sure which.)


Wednesday and I were on our own again, and we had fun climbing around on Tarzan’s Treehouse.




We passed by Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.







We went on a million more rides, including Pirates of the Caribbean again, and then met up with the herd at the Parade of Dreams that night, where we ate hot dogs for dinner while standing on benches in the dark, watching the parade floats crawl by while that Family Time song from Brother Bear played over and over and over.


*shudder*


When Wednesday and I started thinking we would lose our hot dogs if we heard one more minute of that song, we bailed on the group and went running for the Haunted Mansion, where there was virtually no line.


*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!*


That is hands down the BEST thing about the Disneyland parades, isn’t it? Everyone flocks to Main Street, leaving the rest of the park deserted. If you can live without watching the parades, I definitely suggest skipping them in favor of going on all the typically busy rides without even having to wait in line!


The outside of the Haunted Mansion looked like this.







And here is what it looked like inside, just as you climb into the “Doom Buggies.”




As we looked down on the ballroom party scene, the incredible scent of gingerbread filled the whole room. That was a real gingerbread “house” on the table down there. They make a new one every year for this ride. It smelled AMAZING!




We saw Jack Skellington and Zero at the entrance to the graveyard.




We rode under these icy jack-o-lantern angel dudes on our way out of the graveyard.




BEST. RIDE. EVER. !!!!


After the Mansion, we met back up with our group and caught a few more rides, including Star Tours, which was fantastic too.


Eventually, I was forced (FORCED!!!!) to spend $50 against my will on a Mickey Mouse hoodie that night because the zipper broke on one and only jacket I had brought with me and I was freezing.


$50.


Seriously.


That was the cheapest thing they had there. $50. And guess what it did the first time I washed it? Shrunk to Tinkerbell proportions like George Costanza in the pool, that’s what! Grrrrrrrrr. (Memo to self: Maybe travelling light isn’t a good plan if you’re going somewhere where the cheapest replacement hoodie costs five times as much as it’s worth. Just a thought.)


Well, anyway, I have much more to share with you from our 2008 trip—including (literally) chasing Jack Sparrow around New Orleans Square, Santa Ana winds, and a tale of some…. umm…. sketchy free pain meds a Disneyland “nurse” gave me—but unfortunately, I’m all out of time today. I’ll have to finish this next week. Have a great weekend, Blogaritaville!


[….to be continued….]






© Coracabana

Why Windex smells like VICTORY.

In loving memory of my favorite photo editing playground, Picnik, where I draw all my cartoons, I’m serving up one last Picnik-ified story here, just for YOU. You see, Picnik was hijacked by Google awhile ago and, most sadly and inexplicably, the Google overlords decided to pull the plug on Picnik yesterday. *sniff* So, while I figure out where oh where I will do my cartoons from now on, please enjoy the following tale of Windex, a drunk, and one satanic zebra.



Back in the early 1990’s I worked one summer in a snack hut with several other girls, selling hot dogs, chili, and Slushies to camera-toting, clad-in-plaid tourists.


Oh! And we made ice cream cones……





….for bears.





(Yes, bears.)


(Really.)


(I swear.)


This snack hut sat amid the rock-strewn parking lot of a famous sort of drive-through zoo in Washington State. Since I don’t want to get sued right now (one legal rodeo is more than enough, thankyouverymuch!) let’s not mention the real name of the place and, instead, just call it The Drive Thru Zoo, ‘kay?


People could drive their cars through The Drive Thru Zoo and get all up close with bison, llamas, deer, rabbits, peacocks, and one perpetually pissed off zebra.





(Watch out! He bites!)





There were also bears who lived in pens in The Drive Thru Zoo. These bears would do tricks for their trainers during show times in return for ice cream cones.


(Bears prefer Sherbet.)


(Just saying.)


Anyway, I would show up to The Drive Thru Zoo’s snack hut five days a week in my Depeche Mode t-shirts and Doc Marten boots, munching on Mentos, quoting Seinfeld, and singing Nirvana songs.





(It was the 1990’s. Shut up.)


The job didn’t pay very well ($6.00 an hour, I think it was), but I got all the free food I wanted during my shift which kind of made up for it.


(And which also meant I made sure I ate three meals a day there.)





(Ahem).


Besides the lack of money, I really liked my job. My co-workers were hilarious. The food was delicious. The hours were great. And the animals were fluffy and sooooooooooo cute!





(Well, maybe not the zebra.)





In fact, there was really only one thing I hated there: My manager. Let’s call her, ohhhhh, I dunno…. how ‘bout…. Ann. Ann Ebriated.





Ann’s in-law’s owned The Drive Thru Zoo and she actually lived on the zoo’s property in a house which was sitting smack dab in the middle of the parking lot, right within view of the snack hut. Ann was loud, picky, irritable, and had nothing to do all day but stare out her living room window at us slaving away in the snack hut, just waiting and waiting for someone to do something she didn’t like so she could march on over and yell at us.


Yelling at people was her second favorite thing in the whole wide world. Her first favorite thing? Getting drunk. And if she could find a way to combine the two—well, hello!—then her whole week was flipping made!


It became a regular sight to see Ann stumbling in a drunken rage across the parking lot towards us, shouting to herself about idiotic things. Then she’d burst through the door, yelling and throwing things at us in front of all the customers.





When Ann was drinking, no-one could do ANYTHING right. It was so humiliating. One of the girls once got yelled at for writing a smiley face on the dry erase board with all of the day’s Specials.





I once got yelled at for putting lids on the relish and onion jars on the condiment stand to try to keep the wasps from crawling around inside them.





What truly evil, inept employees we were.


One day, there were three of us working in the snack hut when we saw Ann staggering her way over to us, flailing her arms angrily and hollering to herself. Again. We didn’t know what she was mad about this time, but I noticed that the glass counter top had some coffee drips on it and, not wanting to get screamed at over it, I quickly grabbed the Windex and started frantically cleaning the counter as she bumbled her angry drunk self our way.


I was still scrubbing the counter with the Windex bottle in my hand when Ann came tripping furiously through the door in mid-tantrum.


“You little b*tches!“, she drunkenly boomed and started slurring off today’s list of irrational grievances. But she only got about three complaints into it when suddenly she gasped and stared at me in horror as if I had just sprouted a unicorn horn….





….and then farted a rainbow.





”Is that W-w-windex?”, she said in a raspy voice, pointing at the bottle in my hand. Thinking I was about to get a Mounds bar chucked at me, I nervously nodded. Ann’s bleary eyes flew wide open and then she immediately scampered back out the door and stumbled her way back home across the rocky parking lot without even finishing her tirade.





Bizarre.


The next morning, Ann was there and surprisingly sober this time. She sat us all down to have a serious discussion during which she told us she was “very allergic” to Windex and that we should never, never, ever spray the foul stuff if she was in the room.


Interesting.


Now, Ann mysteriously failed to mention what form her awful Windex allergy took. Perhaps she broke out in hives. Or had trouble breathing. Or maybe her boobs would shrivel like raisins as she involuntarily moonwalked through the bison poo piles and then she’d spontaneously combust while screaming “ayiyiyiyiyiyi” like Xena. (One can hope!) But it didn’t matter, because at that moment we were armed with almighty knowledge, and Windex became our valiant savior.





Whenever Ann came charging towards us like a drunken bull, we knew exactly what to do: hose the place down STAT! We would spray Windex all over the counter top, the door, the fridge, the sink, and even out dang the window while giggling to ourselves maniacally.





It worked like magic every time. Ann would thunder in through the door, take one whiff and then leave again without being able to properly degrade us.





And the beauty of it was that we could always claim innocence later on and say we were just keeping the snack hut sparkling clean, and—please—even someone like Ann didn’t have the gall to berate us for that. Windex was the perfect sauced a**hole repellant!


It’s been nearly 20 years since then, and I still LOVE the scent of Windex. Windex smells like power, victory, and craftiness frosted with a heaping helping of utter jubilation!





*le sigh*


I would totally wear it as a perfume. I’m not kidding…. Y’know, if I didn’t think I would end up in a padded room, listening to Zamfir, and braiding yarn baskets for doing so. Just sayin’.


Anyway….


What became of Ann, you might be wondering? Well, last I saw of her, she was on the local news. Some patrons of The Drive Thru Zoo had their skivvies in a bunch because the evil zebra was biting people, and they had the videos—and scars!—to prove it. Despite the fact that one of the first things Ann ever said to me when I was hired was, “don’t go anywhere near that damn zebra; he’ll bite your arm off,” she was rolling her eyes on my TV and telling the reporters that the satanic zebra was safe and tame and that the zebra's victims were making a big deal out of nothing.





Unbelievable. Did I mention that one of the zebra's victims was a three year old who was yanked right out of a car window and dragged along the ground and had to get stitches? Yep!





I wonder if Windex repels demonic zebras too?....






© Coracabana

The one where I take you through the carwash

My Project 365 is still going splendiferously. (Yay!) Everyday I take a picture and, most days, I try to attempt something I haven’t really dabbled in before (like levitation!) (And bokeh!), so I’m learning a lot about my camera, its lenses and editing through all of this. Here is the latest update….


Day 31 (2012-01-31) ~ Valentine’s Day is coming and, Hubba Hubba Hubby, this one's for YOU!




Day 32 (2012-02-01) ~ I was in a cartoon-y mood this day, I guess. :-)




Day 33 (2012-02-02) ~ Ohhhhhh, the danger of living next door to a bakery! I have concluded that this is a bad, bad, BAD thing!!!!




Day 34 (2012-02-03) ~ I didn’t have a lot of time to play around with picture taking this day, so I just shot a quickie of my old Kodak Hawkeye folding camera.




Day 35 (2012-02-04) ~ Scope and I took our car to a DIY car wash. As I climbed out of the car to help Hubba Hubba Hubby wash it, he insisted I stay inside so I wouldn't get wet and cold. (Awwww.) So, I sat in the car watching him washing the windshield. The sun was bright, so the soapy streaks across the glass became dark silhouettes against the blue sky. I started snapping pictures of them. This one is my favorite and was taken right as the water came shooting across the window to wash all the soap away.

The project is about 8% complete now. Still many more to come!


© Coracabana

On second thought, I’m pretty sure Jesus has WAY too much class for that

Monday morning I went for a walk along a big, busy city street. It was just me; four lanes of pissed off, backed up, honking traffic; and—ohhh—roughly 2 million Hispanic used car dealerships. No big whoop, I typically walk along this particular street daily. By now I know the road well and feel perfectly comfortable on it, and—excluding the day a man came running up to me, crying his face off, and asked me for money because he got in a fight with his “girlfriend’s boyfriend” (????)—it rarely flings surprises in my path.

But Monday? Yeeeaaahhhh, not so much.

It started out normally. I had my iPod on and I was zipping down the street, lost in my daydreams as usual.



I was really getting into it.



I started walking faster.



And faster.



And faster.



And faster.



And then suddenly….



Something HUGE and inexplicably papery (?) fell out of the sky and landed with a SMACK right in my path, just a mere yard or two in front of me.



It looked like a spit wad; THE WORLD’S BIGGEST SPIT WAD!



A mammoth ball of wadded up, shiny paper the size of small car and had come falling from the sky and nearly hit me. I swear I’m not making this up. Had I been shaking my groove thing just a second or two faster…. well…. I shudder to think what would have happened.



Naturally, there was only one conclusion to be made: Jesus must be REALLY peeved with me.



I looked up into the sky expecting to see Jesus riding on a cloud and taking another aim at me with his big straw, but instead I saw this….



There were two idiots up on a big billboard, getting ready to put up a new ad. They had removed the old ad, wadded it up into a ball the size of a buffalo and then just—wheee!—tossed it down to the sidewalk below.

Without.

Even.

Bothering.

To.

Check.

If.

The.

Sidewalk.

Was.

Clear.

First.

!!!!

(Like I said, IDIOTS.)

What kind of wanna-be-sued halfwits just ball up a big ol’ billboard advertisement and throw it down to the sidewalk below without looking for pedestrians first?! Huh? Someone could have been seriously hurt! I mean, what if that had hit somebody—like a pregnant woman?!




Or a 90 year old man?!




Or a preschooler?




Or, heaven forbid, a puppy?!?!




I just can’t comprehend something so negligent. I live on a third floor condo and I TRIPLE CHECK that the sidewalk is clear below before even daring to shake off my feather duster over our balcony. So, how someone can throw a damn BILLBOARD to the ground without so much as a “heads up!” first just makes no sense to me.




I don’t know how long I stood there staring up at Idiot 1 and Idiot 2, wanting to yell something scaldingly scolding to them about their blatant carelessness and craptitude.



It was awhile.

But in the end, I walked away without saying anything at all. Not even a measly, “hey, watch it.” I dunno, I guess I just figured it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Anyone stupid enough to throw something the size of a baby elephant down onto a sidewalk without looking below first isn’t going to have any sort of epiphany brought on by anything I had to say, I’m quite sure.

And as I turned and walked away, “Bohemian Rhapsody” ended and my iPod shuffled its songs and decided to play this next….



Touche, iPod. Touche indeed.

© Coracabana