Because Sometimes The Google Gods Do Evil Voodoo Magic On Your Blog And Cell Phone

The Rainbow Connection

No.  Sorry.  This isn’t going to be a post about Kermit the Frog, but after typing that title, I just couldn’t resist slipping the song in.  So, anyway….


Remember that stop-motion/claymation video Wednesday made about bullying and self-esteem which won her the top prize and $2000 in the Expressions Contest?  (If not, click HERE.)  Well, we attended the award ceremony a couple of weeks ago; Wednesday was presented with her prize money (cha-ching!); and then we went home and it was over and done with.


Or so we thought.


Then we got a phone call from Expressions last week that the Rainbow PUSH Coalition was all excited about the contest and the kids involved in it, and that they wanted to honor Wednesday and the other winners at their headquarters in Chicago.  (Rumor even had it that Rev. Jesse Jackson might be there!  *mind spinning*)  So, of course, we agreed to go.


Saturday morning, we got up early and dolled ourselves up and headed out to the car.  We were given the address of their headquarters in two different emails the Expressions people had sent us, so we plugged that address into our GPS and off we went.  But….  Unfortunately, the address was wrong!  We ended up outside someone’s home, not the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.  D’oh!  Thankfully though, we had given ourselves plenty of extra time just in case and Scope had noticed a building we had passed a few streets back had the word PUSH on it, so we backtracked to that location, hoping that it was either the correct place or that they would at least be able to tell us where we should go if it wasn’t.


*fingers crossed*


When we got there, they buzzed us into the building and, after a little confusion at the receptionist’s desk, it was determined that, yep, we were in the right building, but we were too early, so we were asked to wait a few minutes before heading back.  As we sat in the waiting area, watching people quickly filling up the lobby, I was suddenly struck by two sharp revelations: 


1.  Everybody was SUPER dressed up.  Like, Sunday best kind of dressed up, with snazzy hats, jewelry, dress shoes, the works.


2.  Scope, Wednesday, and I were the only white people there.


I was suddenly EXTREMELY thankful that I had chosen to throw on my little black dress that morning!  I mean, I almost didn’t.  I almost went casual, thinking that only Wednesday needed to look spiffy since she was the one being honored and all.  But then Scope had put on a tie and, well, frankly, I’d rather eat spiders than be out-classed like that.  So, on a whim, I grabbed the LBD just to balance out the fanciness.


(Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, thank you, thank you, thank you, vanity!!!!  You day-saving, sexy beast, you!!!!)


As I sat there, boiling over in thankfulness that my chosen outfit was a nice dress and not a Harry Potter t-shirt—(hey, if I’m going to be the one representing my heritage, I wanna do it right!….  Or at least not disgrace myself)—it started to dawn on me that this event we had been invited to was a much bigger deal than we had realized.  There were a lot of people there; a lot of really excited people who had gone to much trouble to look their very best.  This couldn’t all be for the four Expressions contest winners, right?….


Just as worry started to whisper in my ear (seriously, what the hell was going on and where were all the other Expressions winners?!), the three of us were called back into a maze of corridors and offices, where, standing near a doorway, beckoning us into a conference room, was none other than the Reverend Jesse Jackson himself! 


Yes.


Really.


THE Jesse Jackson.


I could hardly believe it.  He shook our hands and greeted us warmly, and I told him it was wonderful to meet him, while a very star-struck Wednesday’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.  Yeah, we had been told that Jesse Jackson MIGHT be there, but as poor Hadiya Pendelton’s funeral was taking place that same day, I had assumed he would not be, because he, very clearly, had more pressing matters to attend to.


We entered the conference room and were directed to sit down at a big, oblong table, where another Reverend of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, who was practically pulsating with purpose and activity (let’s call her Busy Reverend), came in to meet us and kept talking to us about “the program”. 


Umm….  Program?….  What program?….


She looked at us in disbelief and then told us that Wednesday was supposed to be giving a speech ON LIVE WORLD-WIDE TV in just a few minutes from now.


Huh?!?!


A speech?  On TV?  WHAT?!  When Expressions had told us we were invited, no-one said anything about any of that.  In fact, I had specifically asked them on the phone if Wednesday needed to bring or prepare anything, and they told me no, that they would supply a poster for Wednesday to hold on a stage while she was congratulated, and that would be that.  But now they wanted a speech?….  ON LIVE TV???? 


Holy crap.


Busy Reverend didn’t seem at all amused by our confusion, our unpreparedness, and our ignorance of the weekly TV show Wednesday was about to be a part of.  She wanted to know where all the other Expressions winners and coordinators were and why Wednesday was the only Expressions representative there.  I stammered something to her about how the address they’d given out was incorrect, so, perhaps, everyone was lost and would be delayed because of it.  That didn’t sit well and I was, again, reminded that this was a LIVE WORLD-WIDE TELEVISION BROADCAST that would wait for no-one. 


Poor Wednesday must have felt like bolting for the door!  I know I would have.  But she held it all together and quietly whispered to me out of the side of her mouth, “Mom!  What should I do?”  And the two of us put our heads together at that table to quickly cook up a two-second thank-you speech for her to give, should no-one else show up before the broadcast began. 


A few other people were ushered into the room with us for a quick briefing before the show started, but they weren’t the Expressions people; they were with other organizations who were also slated to be part of the show as well, and they all seemed to know exactly why they were there and what they were supposed to be doing and they were practically doing cartwheels of excitement over the whole thing.  I felt a pang of annoyance that we hadn’t been adequately informed about what we were walking into like everyone else seemed to be, and a double pang of annoyance that my baby would be on Live TV but I hadn’t set up the DVR to record it or been able to tell anyone about it because this was the first we had heard of it!


Jesse Jackson came in and out of the room a couple of times while Wednesday and I were quietly hatching an impromptu speech plan on the sly.  Then he told us he wouldn’t be staying for the television broadcast because he would be attending Hadiya’s funeral, as I’d expected.  He asked us if we would like a picture with him before he left, so we ran out to the lobby with him for a quick photo session. 





(You can’t tell in the picture because she’s behind me, but Jesse Jackson had his arm wrapped around Wednesday’s shoulder in a really sweet half-bear hug!  She was all star-struck after he had left.  “Mom!  Did you see it?  He had his arm around me!  Squeeeeeeeee!”)


But anyway….


The Expressions coordinators and other winners (including the real girl who was picked to give the speech) ended up making it to the right building just in time for the broadcast after all, saving Wednesday a heaping helping of humiliation and stress!  (She practically melted into a puddle of relief when the speech girl showed up, I swear!) and then we were all led into the auditorium for the televised ceremony.


Oh.


My.


Goodness.


I don’t really know what I had expected.  I’d had so little time to concoct any sort of well-formed expectation of what a live TV show stage at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Headquarters might look like, I guess.  I just know I wasn’t expecting what we stepped into.  It was like a church and a telethon had had a baby!  There was a gospel choir, blinding lights, a stage, massive TV cameras swiveling in all directions, and a very (VERY) excited audience.


We were ushered into the front row, right in front of the stage.  They made us switch seats up and down our row a few times in an attempt to make the audience look just right—and only then did I realize that Wednesday wouldn’t be the only one of the three of us on TV that day, and that the cameras would be on Scope and me too.  *gulp*  An energetic fellow got on the microphone at the front of the stage and told us all to put our “best TV faces” on, and then the show started and we were on live TV.


What happened over the next hour is a complete blur to me.  I don’t know, maybe my brain had just reached its limit of surprise-tolerance for the day and shut down or something, I’m not sure.  All I have left are fragments of it, including bright lights in my face; a preacher making me burst into tears (On!  Live!  T!  V!) when he started talking about Hadiya Pendleton’s murder; and that every now and then the gospel choir would erupt in song and everyone would leap out of their chairs and dance and clap along in that awesome, enthusiastic way that African American’s possess…. and which made me horrifically aware that I have all the rhythm of freaking Fozzie Bear.




(Yeah.  Muppets again.  I don’t know where this keeps coming from.  Sorry.  Oy.)


And, of course, I remember my baby being honored on stage.  She stood there, smiling and looking so brave, so composed, so alarmingly grown up.  *sniffle*





Despite all the confusion beforehand, the show went off without a single hitch.  And, looky, you can even see Scope and me armed with our cameras in the TV monitor over the kids’ heads as they left the stage.





And then suddenly it was finished and we were released back out into the world, dazed, blinking, and bewildered.





If I didn’t have pictures of it in my camera, I swear I would think it had all been just a very strange dream. 


Really.





© Coracabana

I’m going to be just like Elaine with the sponges, I just know it! (Are you Twinkie-worthy?!)

I hit four stores to stock up on all things Hostess-y (and mourn my childhood) since I heard they went out of business this morning.  Did you?!


*sniffle*






© Coracabana

The Mr. Wrong Diaries

I’m getting serious now.


I have this friend that I’ve known practically forever.  She married Mr Wrong when she was too young and, in a nutshell, he was an abusive jackass from day one.  There.  Even after they split up, he was constantly pounding on her front door and showing up at her workplace, hounding, assaulting, and tormenting her.  He was an angry, scowling, belittling, cruel, and violent kind of creep, and she was terrified of him. 


Let’s call her Lily.


Lily was too afraid to call the police or even tell anyone what was happening because she knew that would just make Mr Wrong even MORE angry, so instead she tried whatever she could to keep him calm.  For years she tried to handle it all by herself and for years she suffered alone with it. 


Sometimes people would notice things weren’t right.  They’d see Mr Wrong storming around.  They’d hear Lily crying.  They would ask Lily about it when Mr Wrong wasn’t nearby, but Lily would always say things were fine when things were definitely NOT fine.  She was ashamed of the way things were and felt like maybe there was something wrong with HER because of the way Mr Wrong treated her.  She didn’t want anyone else to see her the way Mr Wrong did, so she tried to act like everything was normal…. because when she pretended things were okay, everyone else thought things were okay, and then things kind of felt okay, okay?


Yeah.  It was complicated. 


But, even more complicated….


They had a child together before they split up.  Let’s call the baby Daisy.  Daisy was adorable, chubby, and such a happy little thing!  Mr Wrong—who didn’t pay child support or daycare or contribute a single penny towards the child for a long, long time (until the child support officers caught up to him, of course)—used that child as an excuse to stalk and berate Lily.  She could never, NEVER get away from him. 


Somewhere along the line early on, Lily got some secret legal advise behind Mr Wrong’s back.  She was told to write down everything Mr Wrong did to her and the baby, to keep a record of it all to use against him some day.  So, she did.  She amassed a huge box full of journals detailing all her interactions with Mr Wrong.  However, years later, she found out that her journals were useless and couldn’t be helpful in court against Mr Wrong because the only kind of proof that the court wants to see is police or medical reports, and Lily had none.


Disgusted, Lily boxed up her diaries and gave them all to me.  She said she couldn’t stand to ever see the damn things again because she felt like they had kind of betrayed her.  She had poured all her misery out in those little books all those years, thinking she was doing the right thing and that those books would swoop in and save her one day…. but they didn’t.  Instead, they left her alone in battle with Mr Wrong all over again, just like she had always been, and she hated them for it.


She said I could read them if I wanted to, she didn’t care anymore.  I didn’t want to for a long time, but eventually curiosity got the best of me and I broke into the box of books.  And I have never been the same since.  My heart physically hurts, you guys.  I can hardly stand thinking of my friend and her bubbly baby going through shit like that!  Domestic violence and emotional abuse is never pretty, everyone knows that, but here in my hands I have a blow-by-blow account of it, spanning over a decade.  I can’t believe no judge would accept this as evidence for Lily against Mr Wrong!!!!  


I’m going to share snippets of a few of the many, many entries here in Lily’s own written words (with names altered to protect the innocent—and the guilty).  Tell me what you think about the court system ignoring all of this either in the comments below or in email, as I know a lot of you prefer.


Domestic violence is not always like Law & Order, chock full of black eyes and restraining orders.  Here’s what abuse more often looks like….



SNIPPET #1 (written one day in the Summer of 1997 when Mr Wrong flew into one of his many rages in front of Lily and baby Daisy while they were still living in the same house and Daisy was about eight months old): 


“I don’t think I will ever make it out of his grip alive.  He is getting more and more enraged over little, little things.  I don’t know what to do.”….

“I’m not ‘allowed’ to touch his things anymore in case I somehow break them.”…. 

“He started yelling at me and getting in my face, saying, ‘you will treat my things with respect!’ and ‘if I come home and find my things ruined, you will be SO SORRY!’”…. 

“I didn’t break and ruin any of his things.  How many times do I have to defend myself on that?”…. 

“He had his finger pointing in my face.  He was yelling on and on about what a terrible person I am.  He said I am ‘pathetic’.  He said I am ‘hopeless’.  He said I am ‘just a bitch’.  He said I am a ‘fucking idiot’.  He said I am ‘stupid’.  He said I am a ‘moron’.”…. 

“He told me repeatedly to ‘fuck off’ and he told me all our problems are all my fault.”…. 

“He said that I ‘don’t deserve’ his ‘attention’ and I ‘don’t deserve’ his ‘respect’ and that I will never get it from him.”…. 

“He said I have nothing ‘important’ or ‘interesting’ to say.”…. 

“During his rampage I was feeding [Daisy] some cottage cheese, and right there in front of her, he kicked her Donald Duck toy across the apartment and it hit a wall by the front door.  She burst into tears, with cottage cheese falling out of her mouth, tears running down her cheeks, and her arms up by her face, shaking in fear!  I scrambled to get her out and comfort her.  He didn’t feel bad, he didn’t stop to see if she was okay, he continued his yelling and accusations and went past us into the kitchen and kicked Donald Duck around some more until it broke!”….

”He told me that he thinks I don’t love [Daisy], that I was only comforting her to make myself look good and to feed my ego!”



SNIPPET #2 (written in the Spring of 1998, eight months after Lily and Mr Wrong had been separated, and the day baby Daisy had just had surgery in the hospital):

”He followed us home and while [Daisy] was sleeping off the anesthetic in her crib, [Mr Wrong] was pulling me around and trying to talk me into having sex with him!  He offered me money for it!  That makes me so sick.  He leaves us dead broke, then thinks he can get my pants off by waving money in my face.  This is not the first time he has tried this!  That is his opinion of me?”….

”After all that has been happening and his not paying child support, the only way [Daisy] and I will get money is for me to have sex with him?  We don’t need the money if that’s how we have to get it!  I am not a prostitute!”….

”I kept bluntly saying no and he kept asking for it.  He wouldn’t stop!”….

”He said he could ‘rape’ me if he wanted to.”….

”He even offered me $100 to just drop my pants and let him have a look!”….

”Then when I made it clear I didn’t want to be poked, tickled, or otherwise touched by him he started making fun of me.  He brought up all the physical things that are ‘wrong’ with me.  Then he said that he knows that a lot of the things he said and did to me during our marriage were ‘physical and emotional abuse’, but that I ‘had it coming’.  (I could just scream!)  He said that he knew when he was doing it that it was ‘wrong’ and that he ‘should stop’, but he didn’t because I ‘deserved it’.”….


SNIPPET #3 (written one day in the Summer of 1998, a year after Lily and Mr Wrong had separated):


”[Mr Wrong] came over unannounced again today.  He kept grabbing and touching me and trying to talk me into sex.  He pinned me to the floor, got on top of me, and was trying to pry my legs apart, all in front of [Daisy].  I fought and kept yelling no, but he wouldn’t listen or stop.”…. 

“Then he kept trying to kiss me on the lips.  When I guess it finally became clear that I wasn’t going to give in, he said something mean about my weight and then kicked my stuff across the room.  I could just puke!”….


SNIPPET #4 (written one day in the Summer of 1998 when Mr Wrong was in Lily’s house to, supposedly, have a visit with Daisy who was one and a half years old):


”[Mr Wrong] refused to leave me alone.  He kept sneaking up behind me and jabbing me in my sides.”….

”It didn’t matter how many times I told him to stop it, he just kept doing it.  He pulled me to the floor and dug his fingers in my sides—it is very painful, he just digs his fingers in my sides as hard as he can and grinds them in me and ignores my crying, my telling him it hurts, and my telling him to stop it!”….

”I hate myself for not punching him in the face.”….

”[Daisy] kept shouting ‘Stop it! Stop it!’”….

”’It wouldn’t hurt if you didn’t struggle,’ he said.  ‘Don’t fight me!’”….


SNIPPET #5 (written the morning after the previous snippet):

”I woke up today with bruises all up my sides from what [Mr Wrong] did to me yesterday.  I’m still in pain!  He has no business touching me!”….

”I am SO ANGRY!”….



SNIPPET #6 (written one day in the Summer of 1999, two years after Lily and Mr Wrong had separated, and the day after Lily had told Mr Wrong to stop talking about her body in a degrading way because it made her uncomfortable):


”[Mr Wrong] told me he is mad at me for telling him my breasts are none of his business.  He said it was ‘shitty’ of me.  He told me he is a ‘smart’ person and ‘smart people should never be questioned’.”….

”He yelled at me every time I said a word.  He said ‘I can’t have a conversation with you if you talk!’”….

”He told me to never say it is none of his business again, because when I did that, I was being ‘disrespectful’ and ‘discourteous’ to him.”….


SNIPPET #7 (written one day in the Summer of 1999, two years after Lily and Mr Wrong had separated, and when Lily was having trouble with Mr Wrong stalking her):


”Today [Mr Wrong] called my workplace and my chiropractor’s office looking for me.  When the receptionist at the chiropractor’s office told me he had called, I figured something terrible had happened, so I called him back.  But he had called me there just to tell me he wanted me to go out to dinner.”….

”When I got home, my caller ID showed he had called [my home] 5 times this afternoon in addition to calling my workplace and my chiropractor!”….


SNIPPET #8 (written one night in the Fall of 1999, when Mr Wrong was in Lily’s house, supposedly, to visit Daisy who was two years old):

”[Mr Wrong] kept telling me and [Daisy] again and again that he is ‘evil’ and a ‘monster.”  He actually put his face right into [Daisy’s] face and told her he is a ‘monster’.”….

”He was saying he can foresee a day when [Daisy] will understand what he is and will want to kill him for it!”….

”And he said ‘in five years, we will be friends or I will be dead’.  I can only assume he means suicide.”….

”He kept trying to hug me.  He kept talking about my body.  I was trying to hide my body under couch pillows again so he couldn’t see it.”….


SNIPPET #9 (written one night in the Fall of 1999, over two years after Lily and Mr Wrong had separated, and when Mr Wrong kept hiding in the dark to startle Lily outside her house and Daisy’s daycare night after night):


”[Mr Wrong] snuck in the dark and followed me.  I didn’t know he was there until I turned around to find him behind me, glaring at me with a really frightening look on his face.”….

”A chill ran right through me and I felt like running.  He looked furious and I couldn’t think what I might have done to piss him off.  I felt trapped in a spider web.”….

”But it turned out [Mr Wrong] was just following me to ‘scare’ me.  Mission accomplished!”…. 


SNIPPET #10 (written one night in early 2001 when Mr Wrong was at Lily’s house, supposedly, to visit Daisy, who was three years old):


”[Mr Wrong] said he threatened [an acquaintance] with a baseball bat and hid the phone so [the acquaintance] couldn’t call 911 during ‘the beating’ and now [Mr Wrong’s sister] is ‘afraid’ of him and thinks he is ‘a monster.’  That’s what [Mr Wrong] told me while sounding all proud of himself, acting like being seen as ‘a monster’ appeals to him.”….

”He told me not to tell anyone and told me he would come after me too if he ever hears back from anyone that I told them what he said.”….


Wow.  Can you believe the legal system just dismissed all of that because it was written in journals instead of police reports?! 


That was just ten diary entries.  Ten out of hundreds and hundreds of them!  That was just a small sampling of the earlier stuff Lily and Daisy went through.  I haven’t even gotten to the more recent diary entries yet, because I could only stomach reading through the first couple of books on the pile, but I do know that in more recent years, things were really no better for Lily and Daisy at the hands of Mr Wrong…. although Daisy’s school did end up calling the police over red flags they picked up on regarding Mr Wrong’s behavior, and that changed the dynamic somewhat.


Why am I telling you about this?  Well, because it dawned on me that just because Lily’s journals couldn’t help protect her from Mr Wrong within the legal system like she had thought they would, that doesn’t mean they can’t still be helpful.  What’s that saying?…. If you can’t be a good example, at least be a horrible warning.  (Or something like that.)  Maybe by talking about it here, someone in a similar situation will be helped by it and then it won’t have been for nothing.


You guys, if you get the feeling someone you know is in an abusive, controlling, or otherwise twisted relationship, you are probably right.  And, if she is, she likely feels that reaching out for help will only make things worse and that it’s best if she just handles it by herself.  Don’t just ASK her if things are okay, because you probably won’t get an honest answer:  GET HELP.  Just do it.  Do whatever you can to help her get out.  She needs you, even if she can’t say so.


If you, yourself, are in an abusive relationship, please, PLEASE get help.  If he is hurting you, threatening you, degrading you, scaring you, stalking you, or doesn’t understand that no means no, YOU NEED TO GET AWAY FROM HIM.  Tell someone who can help protect you and whose statement will carry weight in court—a therapist, a doctor, or the police—but also tell your friends or family members as well, because the more people you have in your support system, the better. 


One of the things I read in Lily’s journals that really crushed me was how much her friends and family disliked Mr Wrong, so they would just scatter like cockroaches whenever Mr Wrong showed up because they didn’t want to be in his company.  That meant that, over and over again, Lily and Daisy were abandoned and left alone with him, and that’s when the abuse would occur.  Mr Wrong knew Lily didn’t have much of a support system to protect her, and that’s why he kept doing those horrible things.  Because he could. 


Abusers can’t do what they do best in a crowd, they need their victims isolated.  If someone is mistreating you, keep your support system close, tell people what is going on (even if your abuser tells you no-one will believe you—as Mr Wrong kept telling Lily), and always remember that what he does to you does NOT define who you are. 


Abusers are just assholes.  Plain and simple.  It’s not YOU, it’s THEM.  They don’t outgrow it.  They don’t change.  They don’t magically wake up one morning with newfound respect for you and realize what shitbags they have been.  They just keep abusing people and convincing themselves that their victims ‘deserve’ it….  Like Mr Wrong, who just two weeks ago called Lily his “adversary with benefits” (in front of a court-ordered therapist!!!!—can you believe that????) when she attempted to confront him about the times in the past when he sexually assaulted her.


Wow.


Assholes never learn.






© Coracabana

And that is how the A-Team, Marty McFly, Donald Duck, and a passport prove that I am ALWAYS RIGHT!

So, why all the Disney jabber going on around here lately? Hmm? I know there has been some speculating that I’m all Disney-obsessed because we are planning a trip to Disneyland soon, but—*sigh*—that’s not it. (Yes, for those in the know, some relatives of ours are organizing a Disney family reunion trip in the near future, but with our present game of legal limbo still ongoing, we honestly doubt we will be able to afford to go with them when the time comes. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.) No, the real reason behind all my Disney talk is…. well…. a fight.


Yeah, a fight.


A fight about Disneyland.


*punching my fist into my hand*


It all started with pictures. Or a lack thereof. You see, my parents didn’t really take that many photos when my brother, my sister and I were growing up. And while some of the ones they did take managed to migrate their way into the family photo albums like good little photographs, most of them tended to end up drifting around like hobos, dusty, unlabeled, and undated, in drawers and boxes throughout our old house. Over the years, for various reasons, a lot of the hobo-y family photos went astray and just kind of disappeared.


*POOF!* Just like that.


And, it appears, without an organized stash of family photos there to reinforce and feed the memories from long, lonnnnnnnnggggggggg ago (like…. oh…. say, the 1980’s), the memories of an entire family of five people can actually starve and wither away to almost nothing, resulting in four of the five people COMPLETELY FORGETTING ABOUT AN ENTIRE WEEK-LONG FAMILY VACATION TO DISNEYLAND AND UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!!!!!!!!!!

(How scary is that?!)


(I know!)


I’m the one family member out of the five who remembers it, by the way. Duh. Naturally, I assumed everyone else remembered it too and was shocked to find out recently that they didn’t.


I had stumbled upon a few undated scans of some of the old family photos on my computer and was attempting to put the pictures in chronological order when this was all thrust into the light. Some pictures were easy, like the day we got our first puppy.




I definitely remember THAT! That was my first day of 3rd grade! September 1980, no question! Next!


But other photos have required some serious CSI work to try to figure out, like this one of me and my grandpa in England.




I only figured this one out by checking the dates of the stamps in my old passports. Turns out it was June 1975. But the passports only helped me identify the trips out of the country, they couldn't possibly be any help in figuring out which months and years we took the three vacations to Disneyland that I remember us taking: one at some point in the 70’s before my brother was born, one during the summer of 1980, and then the last one, somewhere in the mid-80’s.


Pretty much all I remember from the first Disneyland trip was how much I loved It’s A Small World; flipping through the little ticket books with my dad; the night my sister had a bee caught in her hair; buying a big Mickey Mouse doll in a store on Main Street (I still have that Mickey, by the way!); and the day we met Pinocchio and he incurred my eternal fiery wrath by pulling out my hair ribbons—which I did NOT find amusing—and then further disgraced himself by sitting in my sister’s stroller and getting his butt stuck in it.


(Oh, Pinocchio, how I still loathe thee!)


The only picture that I believe still exists from that vacation is this one.




I’m the little girl in the mini-dress staring up at Mickey. My mom and my sister are on the right. I have no idea who the boys are. (????)


The second trip we took, I was SURE was in 1980 (a girl doesn’t easily forget a summer where she gets both a puppy AND a trip to Disneyland all in one fell swoop!) but I wasn’t sure which month. I definitely remember watching the Main Street Electrical Parade several times; riding on The People Mover, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion; Flying over Fantasyland in a candy apple red Skyway bucket; buying an itty bitty Donald Duck beanie doll in a store on Main Street (I still have that toy too!) (Shut up!); and meeting Snow White and Dopey.


These are the only pictures I have from that trip. Meeting Snow White….




….and my dad and my brother inside the Disneyland gates.




And then there was the final trip, where I remember finally being old enough to ride the Matterhorn; how they gave us free Goofy and Donald Duck pins as we entered Disneyland (yeah, you guessed it, I’ve still got mine); the 106 degree heat wave that gave me heat stroke; and how some obnoxious lady made fun of my non-tanned redheaded Seattle-girl complexion and, after that, I felt like I looked like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and I refused to go swimming in the hotel pool. I also remember that we went to Universal Studios too and saw The Munsters House, the A-Team van, and the courtyard where Marty McFly tries to outrun Biff’s car on a 1955 kid’s skateboard in Back To The Future.


The only picture that I think exists from that entire trip is this one of my brother and my dad lifting up the A-Team van.




In trying to figure out which months and years these three trips took place, I called up my family. I mean, parents always remember that kind of stuff, right?


Yeah, not so much….


In several shouting matches talks with various family members, it was pretty much unanimous amongst them all that the first trip was in June 1976, the second was in July 1980, and that the third trip had never even happened at all. NEVER. In fact, it was insultingly and infuriatingly suggested that I must just be remembering a dream I once had.


(A dream?!)


(Excuse me?!)


“WHAT ABOUT THE A-TEAM VAN PICTURE????” I kept bellowing politely interjecting. But I was told that that it either must have been taken in 1980, because “we never set foot in California after that,” or it must have been taken after 1980 somewhere in Seattle. And that, my friends, was the day I became a relentless detective, determined to figure this mess out.


(And hell bent on proving my parents dead wrong.)


(I mean, really.)


So. Let’s look at the evidence, shall we? First, the A-Team picture. Compare it to the Snow White picture for a minute. Go ahead, scroll back. I’ll wait………………


Done? Good. Does my brother look remotely the same age in those two pictures? Even a little bit? He was three in the Snow White picture, does he look three to you, holding that A-Team van in the air?! I think not. Besides, the A-Team wasn’t even on TV until 1983. I googled it. So there. There’s NO WAY that picture is from 1980.


Now go back and look at that A-Team picture again. That van has a California license plate. But even more interesting.... check out the background in the top right corner. See who’s lurking there? That. Is. Jaws. JAWS, okay?!?! Jaws and the A-Team van hanging out together? There is NO WAY that picture was taken in Seattle or anywhere else but Universal Studios at some point after 1983.


I am soooooooo winning this argument. But wait—there’s more!


I remember seeing the Back To The Future lot in Universal Studios too. Back To The Future wasn’t in theaters until July 1985, people. Again, I googled it…. although, admittedly, that wasn’t necessary since they say “1985” about a craptillion times during that movie. And now we know that there’s NO WAY that Disneyland and Universal Studios trip was before 1985.


And what about those pins they gave us as we entered Disneyland on that trip that I, supposedly, only dreamt up? I still have mine. They’re real. See?




Of course, I googled those pins too and found out that they were only handed out as a promotion at the Disneyland front gate from July 1985 to July 1986 in celebration of Disneyland’s 30th anniversary. So, obviously, we HAD TO have been there in either ‘85 or ‘86.


And then there are the old passports. Remember how I said they were useless in proving when we went to Disneyland? Yeah? Well, forget that! Turns out they’re perfect for it. You see, there are stamps in the old passports which show that we flew to England in July 1985. And I find it really, REALLY unlikely that a family of five would take a two week trip to England AND a week-long trip to California all in one summer, don’t you? Exactly. And, thus, all evidence considered, I conclude that our Disneyland and Universal Studios vacation was in June 1986 and was 100% real and not just a dream I once had.


*taking a bow*


Of course, this would have been a whole lot easier if my parents had just taken lots of pictures and adequately labeled them in photo albums when I was growing up. Jeeeeeez. But at least I know Wednesday won’t ever have to hunt through Google and passports and whatnot, trying to figure her history out, because I take pictures of EVERYTHING.


Which reminds me…. I’ve got some serious catching up to do here on how my Project 365 has been going. It’s coming soon, I promise.





© Coracabana

Identity Crisis

Ever since marrying Scope last month (*squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!*) I have been grappling with the slow, sweaty, hulking task of changing my name, address, and phone number on—well—everything.

And sometimes it just ain’t easy. Grrrrr.

It seems that, while some agencies (my Target credit card, for example) are content to let me change any and all info I want just by placing a two minute phone call (E-Z), other agencies are not quite so accommodating and refuse to allow such shenanigans to transpire without proper documentation and/or the handing over of my first-born child.

Thus, my identity is a chaotic kaleidoscope right now, with all my info changed in some places (yay!), none of it changed in others (boo!), and, most frustrating of all, just part of my info changed in still more places (gah!), and half the time I have a hard time remembering who the heck I am.

For example, in some places I am Cora Newname living in Chicago, but in others I am Cora Oldname living in Seattle; in some places I am Cora Newname living in Seattle, while in others I am Cora Oldname living in Chicago; and, most fun of all, at one of my banks I am Cora Newname living in Seattle with a Chicago phone number and a debit card which says “Cora Newname” but checks on the same account which say “Cora Oldname”, etc, etc, etc.

You get the point. It’s confusing!!!! I can’t keep it all straight, trying to remember who I am and where I live every time I deal with different agencies.

Wednesday I signed into my eBay account and changed my name, address and phone number in a mere handful of seconds simply be clicking the edit button. Sweet. And once I announced myself as Cora Newname on eBay, I figured I’d better hurry on over to eBay’s evil twin sister, Paypal, and change all my info there before the whattheheck alarm sounded. I was trying to be a good girl, see? Ebay owns Paypal, of course, so they share information, thus, changing my info in Paypal would be just as easy as changing in it eBay had been, right?

Umm…. no.

For some reason, even though I’d just changed my name, address and phone number in eBay without an issue, when I attempted the same stunt over in Paypal, Paypal promptly handed me a dunce cap and made me go sit in the corner. I got an error message telling me I wasn’t allowed to change all that information at once (clearly, I’m the first woman to ever get married and move in with my new husband, and, according to Paypal, I’m a freak) and because I’d just raised a big ol’ red fraud flag, I was told that to proceed with any changes I wanted to make I had to first verify my identity by allowing Paypal to call me at home.

My old home.

2000 miles away.

At the phone number I was trying to change.

*crickets*

I wasn’t allowed to submit any other phone number for use in verifying my identity because, according to Paypal, my identity could only be verified at my ex-phone number. Clearly.

Wow.

Just wow.

Of course, there’s no way that plan is ever going to work. Ever. (Unless I send my sister over to my ex-house to fraudulently verify my identity for me.) (Tempting, but wrong.) So, I emailed Paypal a plea for help.

*ticked off sigh*

I’ve had spaztastic problems with Paypal before (don’t ask) and, in my experience, emailing Paypal pleas for help rarely leads to anything resembling anything help-like whatsoever. But rather than calling Paypal and being on hold for 17,983,666 hours, I figured I’d try emailing first.

Why not? I might get lucky and get a response from someone without a God complex and with a little—oh, I dunno—good old fashioned common sense, right?

It could happen.

No, really.

So, I got a reply the next day telling me they are allowing me to change my address (yay!) and phone number (cool!), but…. to change my name, they told me I now have to mail them copies of my Illinois driver’s license (which I don’t have yet because I’m still waiting on bills in my new name to arrive to prove my residence to the State of Illinois) and…. (….wait for it….) ….copies of my bank statements and credit card statements.

*big, burly, carnivorous crickets*

Excuse me?

Copies of my bank statements and credit card statements? Why does Paypal think they need those? I’m NOT sending Paypal THOSE!!!! That’s waaaayyyyyyyy too personal! I’d feel less violated spreading ‘em in the stirrups and letting Paypal give me a pelvic exam, okay?!

Surely there are less insane ways of proving I’m Cora Newname to Paypal than sending Paypal my BANK AND CREDIT CARD STATEMENTS! Are you kidding me?! That’s sooooooooooo not going to happen. C’mon!

Eloquent, sophisticated, and ubermature memo to Paypal: Kiss it, jerks. I’ll keep my old name. Thanks.

© Coracabana