Disney - Part I

If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse. ~Walt Disney

Ah, finally some peace and quiet to reflect on seven days with my three favorite people in the entire world: Cam, Teenie and Dude. I learned so much about all three of them on this trip. What I learned from them was far more valuable. Now that we are home I see how much closer we are which is priceless.

The trip started out sort of rocky as some of you may have seen if you were following me on Twitter. You see, I had set such high expectations that we were going to have a fantastic time, happy time, wonderful time while smiling and laughing if it killed us for seven days. There would be no arguing, no tears, no meltdowns. Everyone would act like perfect little fairy angels and Tinkerbell would sprinkle us with pixie dust if necessary.

This was my dream trip, right?

What usually happens when you set such unrealistic, high expectations for everyone around you? Usually you are let down. Our family learned this the hard way on the Rock N’ Roller Coaster. That’s right, Aerosmith almost took the Clusterfook family down on Day One of Disney with their roller coaster in Hollywood Studios.

Dude insisted that all four of us, Teenie the eight yr. old included, go on the roller coaster that goes from zero to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds. When you mention those statistics to an eight and 11 year old tweens who are safety obsessed, no thanks to their OCD mother, they tend to be gun shy about going zero to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds.

The girls refused to go on the roller coaster and Dude had a nuclear meltdown that made him walk out of Hollywood Studios. I was flabbergasted that my relaxed, chilled-out Dude had a meltdown over a roller coaster. It wasn’t about the roller coaster though. The girls and I sat by the Rock N’ Roller Coaster for about an hour and waited for him. When he finally returned he told us that he was disappointed because he had these expectations that all of us would go on every ride together.

Those unrealistic, high expectations…let him down.

Once we worked it all out it was 3:00 PM and 92 degrees so we called it a day and went back to the resort.

The resort. Oh my God, it was gorgeous, tranquil and serene and yes, we were at a Disney Resort. We stayed at the Coronado Springs. I chose the Coronado Springs for a few reasons. It has a lobby that looks the lobby of the resort Dude and I stayed at when we went to Cancun.

The resort also has a Spanish and Ancient Mexico theme so I wanted to recapture some of that for us and to give the girls a feel for what our resort looked like in Cancun. Although Dude and I needed time together to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary they felt left out…I thought the Coronado Springs would be a nice touch.

Plus the pool has a really cool water slide that they spent two hours at a time on.

At EPCOT I displayed my excellent parenting skills when Cam repeated “I’m hungry” 20 times. “I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry…”

“Cam, I’ve acknowledged your hunger. Please stop repeating it. I get it. I’m not purposely starving you. If you repeat it one more time I will make you eat fish in Norway.”

Now, I’m not exactly sure why fish in Norway would be some kind of punishment but I really thought it would make the “I’m hungry, I’m hungry,” stop. Unfortunately the only way to stop a truly starving child in EPCOT is to stop at a pastry shop in France and feed her chocolate cake for dinner. I am now the epitome of good parenting. Sign me up for Parents Magazine.

Just kidding on the Parents Magazine. I’m over that bullshit piece of fluff. Want to know what real parenting is about, just ask…I’ll tell you all about it.

Anyway, while Cam and Dude had the cake, Teenie had chocolate mousse. I had creme brulee. I believe by the time we entered Japan the sugar coma set in. I remember seeing a lot of Hello Kitty stuff and wanting sushi. We were really tired and hot so we found a spot in Germany to watch Illuminations: Reflections of Earth…Fireworks. The fireworks were cool.

So by the end of Day Two in Disney my body felt like it was going to shut down on me. I was so exhausted that I went to bed thinking that I wouldn’t get out of bed for Day Three and the rest of my family would have to go to Magic Kingdom without me.

And now I need to get to bed and get some rest…so more about the trip in my next post…

Picture: “Hannah Monteenie” - Teenie with Pal Mickey, in her Hannah Montana tank top and hat waiting for the bus.

Flying Toasters

Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. ~Michael Leunig

Dude and I met each other in 1995 when we started working for the same company. He had been working there for 20 years, since the age of 18 and was in the IT department. I was only 27 and in customer service.

I hated him instantly…

Every time we had our quarterly meeting Dude won the top employee award for his outstanding performance. Blech, gag, cough. It infuriated me because he was always giving me a hard time about my computer. If I installed something that I wanted then he’d inevitably come to uninstall it. I also hated how much everyone loved him.

One morning I came into work at 6:30 am to get some extra work done. Dude showed up at my desk and told me he needed to install something new on my computer. When he told me it would take 30 minutes I became indignant and gave him a hard time. You would have thought that would have been a warning signal for him of what the future would hold…

Then there were the Flying Toasters. I decided it would be so much fun to install the Flying Toasters screen saver on my computer. When my co-workers saw my new screen saver they wanted a piece of the “Toaster” action too…so I installed it on everyone’s computer.

About six hours later Dude came to my desk and said, “Your screen saver has to go.”

He tried to tell me that it was bogging down the entire network and we argued about it for 10 minutes before I let him uninstall my coveted Flying Toasters. Everyone else lost their Toasters too. That’s when I knew without any doubt that I hated Dude.

Something changed after I was out of work for a few weeks during the summer of 1996. When I came back I ran into Dude and saw him in a whole different light…

See, one of my managers had asked me where I went to high school. When I told him the name town where the school was located he said, “Dude lives there.”

I instantly had Dude pegged for marriage with three kids and a pickup truck. So, I asked a co-worker if my instincts were correct and watched her laugh hysterically. At the time Dude was extremely single and drove a sports car.

Later I ran into to Dude and struck up a conversation about living in the same town I went to high school in and I think he was shocked I was nice to him. A week later there was a post-it note on my calendar, which had cows on it. The cow had a bubble saying, “Moooo….Hi Lisa, see you in XXXXtown”

My co-workers and I decided to plan a Happy Hour and invite Dude so that it would put us in a social setting without any pressure. Plus, we loved any excuse for Happy Hour. So, every Friday we planned Happy Hour and invited Dude. Dude would accept our invitation and at the last minute back out. We thought it was hopeless.

When our co-worker Paris received a promotion we planned a real Happy Hour and invited Dude once again. I didn’t think he was going to show up so when I got to the bar I was hanging out with the boys and showing off my beer chugging abilities. I can chug a bottle of beer less than 15 seconds.

Dude walked in to find the guys circled around me cheering, “Lisa! Lisa! Lisa!” Great first impression, except it really did impress him. He still tells me today it’s one of the things he was most impressed with.

We finally had the chance to talk and get to know each other at Paris’ Happy Hour. I told Dude that my mom lived in the same town as he did and that I’d be visiting her that weekend so he invited me to his house.

Later that weekend I stopped by Dude’s house, watched an Eagle’s game and he grilled some burgers.

We started dating and about three months later I got pregnant with our first daughter. At the time I found out I was pregnant I was actually thinking about breaking up with Dude. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him but I was actually afraid of how I felt about him. Finding out that I was pregnant complicated every thing.

Dude and I decided to take a leap of faith just four months after we started dating. We were married on December 28, 1996…my 30th birthday. Three months later our first daughter was born four months prematurely. That was the beginning of crisis after crisis to hit our marriage but 11 years later here we are still together. We’ve had our share of problems but we are probably one of the strongest couples I know.

We still joke that “we’ll always have Paris” but that’s the story of how Dude and I came to be…

Thanks for asking Kate!

By the way, After Dark made the screen saver Flying Toasters which you can download for free here.

Wallpapering with Dude

Over the next couple of days I’ll be wallpapering Teenie’s room and finishing the great Hannah Montana, rock n’ roll bedroom that I started two months ago.  After begging Dude to paint the trim, prime the walls and paint the ceiling, he’s finally completed his part.  Now, it’s time for me to do some made wallpapering over the next few days so I can get us ready for Disney.

Yes, I said “Hannah Montana” bedroom.

I’ve also convinced Dude to attend TequilaCon with me on May 3rd so I won’t have to drive.   He never used to understand my blogging “thing” until he witnessed the kindness of everyone in the Disney fund raiser.  It led to many discussions between us about my blog and what I write about.  Although he’s never read my blog, that I’m aware of he knows that I refer to him by his real nickname…Dude.

Last night he asked me if everyone is going to call him “Dude” at TequilaCon.   Oh I hope so because I think that would be great.

Idiot List

I soon found out you can’t change the world. The best you can do is to learn to live with it. ~Henry Miller

For the past two weeks Dude has been requesting an “Idiot List” and not only has been requesting it, he’s been starting to nag me about it.

“You have got to make me an ‘Idiot List’!”

It takes everything I’ve got not to say, “Dude, you are an idiot.” Only, because it’s a wide open playing field.

On Sunday evening we finally sat down and got to the heart of the matter. My husband and I started to have some of the hardest conversations that we’ve ever had in the 11 years we’ve been married. We discussed the real possibility that I may die no matter how hard I fight, no matter how positive my attitude is, no matter what we do.

That’s a hard pill to swallow.

Look, all of us are going to die and none of us know when our number is up. That’s the way life is and we should live our lives that way, but when you are faced with a disease that you know is killing you I think it’s a lot different.  Maybe I’m wrong, I’m not an expert or anything…I’m just someone trying to make sense of this mess.

All I can think about are my two daughters.  They need me.  Dude can’t raise two tweens alone let along two teens. There are so many things left to teach them. Who is going to teach them everything if I’m not here and how can I cram it all in now? I can’t and that makes me so feel completely helpless.

My husband suggested that I make videos for the girls so that they can watch them in the future like when they graduate from high school. Teenie is in second grade and as I write this I’m sobbing because I can’t imagine her going through school without a mother, without me.

I thought about deleting this post because it isn’t uplifting, positive or cheerful but not everyday can be that way.  I wish it could but you know me, I keep it real.

So, here we are again at the end of a post and you probably have no idea what to say. Please, don’t tell me your sorry because like I’ve said before, you didn’t cause this. Instead, help me out. If there was one thing or one lesson you had to teach a child, be it your own child, a nephew, a niece…what would it be? Let’s talk about that.

I’ve always taught my children the Golden Rule…to do unto others as they would have done to themselves…

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