tavie.com

Some rat bastard is stealing my newspaper again. I decided to leave it on my way out to brunch this morning and pick it up on my way back, but I swiped the Sunday magazine "just in case". Looks like it was a smart thing to do, because when I got back from brunch, the whole thing was gone.

Mother fucking fuckers. I pay for those. How dare they steal it? How do I stop them? This fucking Honor System sucks. :(

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:02 PM | shower me with attention

Friday, June 02, 2006

I remember the names of the other two Obese Disney Princesses now: Heaping Booty and Porkahontas.

Steph says my idea to paint their portraits is a good one, but that the insulting names may detract from my commentary on how children't entertainment perpetuates unrealistic standards of beauty in that it may appear that I'm actually making fun of obese people rather than attempting to shed light upon the cruelty that is so often inflicted upon the larger citizens of the world.* I say art answers to no one, but at the same time, I find the names funny. If I weren't myself a larger citizen, I would most certainly be offended by them.

Something to think about. Or it would be if I actually intended to carry through with this project. Alas, it's more fun to think of insulting versions of Disney Princess names than actually go about producing the artwork itself. Here in the real world, inspiration bleeds away into apathy and despondency.

I gotta go to work in a few hours, and instead of sleeping I'm thinking of insulting names for cartoon characters.

*MY RUN-ON SENTENCES ARE BIGGER THAN YOUR RUN-ON SENTENCES!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:23 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Photos from my trip.

YES I'M WEARING A BELT PACK AND BAGGY SHORTS. LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:25 PM | shower me with attention

And now, to make up for 5 days worth of blissful reports, I will resume my usual stream of complaints:

I went to work today. Real life is starting to sink back in. I am starting to feel depressed again. Guilt at my indulgences of the past week (no, of the past six months, really, let's be honest, I never recovered from Christmas, I'm 5 pounds heavier than before I started Atkins 2.5 years ago, and I had lost 20 pounds on Atkins) is starting to sink back in. I'm sinking, siiiiiiiinking. And it's raining out. I got all wet walking home. And I'm almost done reading Tom Sawyer and I'm enjoying it so much; whatever will I read next to distract me? Does anyone have a copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court they can lend me? I am really feeling the Mark Twain thing lately, (We missed getting to Tom Sawyer's Island yet again. Denied, denied, denied.)

And my sunburn hurts.

And now there's some stupid guy singing a song from Jersey Boys on tv and it's making my ears hurt.

The Drowsy Chaperone and Sweeney Todd seem to be winning a lot of Drama Desk awards, though, so there's that to be happy about, I guess.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:44 PM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Flight delaaaaaaaaaaaaaayed.

Sleepy...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:26 PM | shower me with attention

I am in the airport, and I am sunburnededed. Ouchie.

Today we ordered breakfast and ate it in our room while watching The Golden Girls. Then we did nothing. By the pool. Sometimes in the pool. All day long. It was so, sooooo nice. Except that we geniusly switched from SPF 50 to SPF 15, and thus, sunburnededed. I actually wore my bathing suit, all day, in broad daylight, in front of people, and I didn't care. And I'm at least 15 pounds heavier than the last time I'd worn a bathing suit. Still didn't care.

But there was a lot more body exposed than I am used to, and thus I didn't get all of it with the sunblock. So: ouchie.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 7:24 PM | shower me with attention

Today was an historically melancholy day, our Last Day in the Parks. We're hanging around the resort all day tomorrow until our bus picks us up to take us to the airport. We're getting in pretty late at night so I'll probably spend the night on Staten Island with Steph so's I can get a ride home with my heavy-ass luggage on Thursday. (Sorry J-Rock.)

But I'm ahead of myself. Today was fabulous. I got to experience that rare bit of magic, the First Time on a New Disney Ride. In this case, it was Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom is my least favourite park, of course, because I've had but little time to bond with it in the scheme of my 23 years of Disney vacationing. However fond I am of the place, I don't consider visiting in a "necessity", and, consequently, I hadn't been there in a couple of years. I actually skipped the Dave Foley Experience (a.k.a. "It's Tough to Be a Bug") this time because a) I want to keep it special and b) the wait was too long for our purposes. But I did take a paparazzi photo* of Flik posing with some children.

I digress. "Expedition Everest", the verdict: AWESOME SAUCE WITH SPRINKLES. Loved it. It was just scary enough for me to be wholly alert, but the drop wasn't godawful. I loved the darkness, the backwardsness, the speed, the climbing, and most of all, the gigantic scary Yeti that tries to grab you. I highly recommend that all people free of head, back, neck, shoulder problems, motion sickness or expectant motherhood ride this ride.

We also did Dinosaur and the Kilomanjaro safaris, where I SAW THE BABY ELEPHANT! It was so cute! I love me a baby elephant. There's just nothing like a baby elephant. All hail baby elephants.

After Animal Kingdom we scuttle-hurried back to Magic Kingdom to do the necessaries (Peter Pan, Touching the Slipper) and some extr-ys (Tiki, Country Bears, Haunted Mansion again.) Then we headed for the monorail to do our Fabulous Dinner at the California Grill.

This has become quite the hot spot. A cast member (neither young nor old, this was a rare middle-aged cast member, a security guard) overheard Steph and I reminiscing about the Castle's Pepto days, and fell into step with us as we headed out of the park. When the subject turned to the fireworks and he heard we had reservations at the California Grill, he said, and I quote, "You guys bite." This was extremely hilarious, and he made us promise never to tell anyone he said that because he's not allowed to, but boy were we in for a treat. (I didn't tell him that I've had dinner at C.G. at fireworks time at least four times, because that would be both snobbish and sad.)

Dinner was all that and a bag of chips (not literally, more like all that and a platter of exotic cheeses) and we got a coveted Window Table (ooooh, ahhhhhhh) and ate too much and felt sick from eating too much and rode the monorail around twice before catching our bus.

Tomorrow it all ends. But first, swimming all day!

*This appears to be my new thing: taking pictures of Characters from afar as if I were stalking them for photos to sell to the Enquirer. I know it's just an 18-year-old-girl in that Friar Tuck costume, but the Little Tavie inside of me says that's really truly him!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:40 AM | shower me with attention

Monday, May 29, 2006

I think it best I start backwards with the most incredible event of the day, that being the chocolate-apricot-pistachio cake with raspberry gelato at Spoodle's, the most, decadent, insane, wonderful, endorphin-firing dessert on the planet. I'm still stuffed with chocolate-y contentment. (After.)

Today was Epcot day. It was supposed to be Animal Kingdom day, but we didn't get up in time. (Our overly ambitious plan is to get there at early-opening at 8 am tomorrow so we can get fast passes for Expedition Everest right away. I don't really see that happening, but it's nice to dream.) So we went to Epcot instead. By the time we got there, all the Fastpasses to Soarin' had been distributed. I was very eager to ride it again, but the wait was 70 minutes so we decided to come back later. Foolish-- when we came back a few hours later, the wait was 130 minutes. It soon jumped to 140 minutes. We gave up. The day I spend two-and-a-half hours waiting in line for panoramic scenery and orange scent (that I can't even smell) squirted in my face is the day I should be banned from all theme parks forever.

My feet hurt like a biznitch. I'm kidding myself if I think I can ever do a relaxing vacation at Disney World, because, like it or not, I'm clearly very obsessive about this place, and too many attractions are compulsory no matter how much I try to pretend they aren't.

Disappointment: The Fountain Bakery and Cafe was inexplicably closed. Happily, the Coca-Cola Ice Station is back, with the same selection of beverages, although minus the ice-cave walk-through entrance. Whatevs, the end results is still free sodey.

I finally saw "Turtle Talk with Crush" in the Living Seas pavilion and humiliated myself-- twice-- by trying to snap a picture with the flash still on (NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY). The second time, I was sure I'd had it off. The Disney lady wagged her finger in my face. At least it was an older lady. It would have been too embarrassing if one of the College Program kids had scolded me in front of the auditorium full of strangers. (There are two groups of employees at Disney World: kids 18-to-early-twenties who are here under the Disney College Program, and retired people who move to Florida and find themselves bored with canasta. I find the first group makes nice eye candy and the second makes me happy in a cozy, grandparent-y kind of way.)

There's some sort of Flower and Garden festival going on at Epcot now and there are Disney character topiary all over the place. Makes me miss the Elliott bush at the TTC in the '80's.* There's no Pete's Dragon merch to be found, not even a pin, which is sad for me, since I lost mine.

Steph's tipsy from the sangria we had with dinner and I'm enjoying not being the Immature one at the moment. She doesn't find it as funny as, say, Gina does when I make fart-noises on my hand in the elevator...

*Who understands what I just said? Kirsten.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:49 PM | shower me with attention

A man, walking amongst a large group, points to the shipwreck waterslide at Stormalong Bay and boasts, "I went down that in the buff."

Brrrrrr. Thanks for the warning?

Today we did MGM. We meant to leave the place fairly early, but actually ended up staying the day. I can't remember the last time I spent almost a whole day at the Studios; it's just not my favourite park. But we had fun. I even did Tower of Terror again. It is easier to take now that they've switched to wussy-drops.

We dashed to Epcot for dinner at Marrakesh in Morroco. It was yummers. Then we came back to the hotel and swam in the quiet pool. I didn't even bring a tee shirt with my this time. I'm really just past caring what I look like anymore, and it was night time and only a few people were around. No one's eyeballs are going to be scarred by the sight of my backfat.

My Epcot time was brief and I am eager to spend some quality time in my favourite place in the world. But we have to do Animal Kingdom tomorrow, because I'm letting Stephie drive this trip. She needs to relax, and it's not like I haven't been here a million times (this is the 27th, actually) and it's not like I won't be here a million more times. I do have a few "must-see"'s, but I won't have any type of attack if I don't get to do all my favourites.

Some guy, evidently from The Dukes of Hazard, is singing some song on tv for memorial day, and Stephanie is giving me incredulous stares because I've never seen The Dukes of Hazzard. "Tom Wopat? Is that Tom Wopat?" (I only know the name because he was opposite Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun some years ago.)

"No," she says patiently, "it's the opposite of Tom Wopat."

I guess I'm just too square. I also like being the only person under 60 walking around with a belt-pack on. I don't give a shit. I like to be hands-free. (I'm trying to make that my catch phrase, but it ain't sticking.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:16 AM | shower me with attention

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Tired. Tired and happy. I like it when the park is open late and the kiddies go away to sleep and we can cycle through Thunder Mountain several times and watch the fireworks as we whiz around under the stars.

I yike it, I yike it a yot.

We did Stitch (KEVIN VOICE! I giggled throughout, as usual), we did Space, we did Pooh Bear, we did Thunder twice, we did Mansion, we did Mickey's Philharmagic. We got FastPasses for Splash and were de-nied - told it was broken down. This happened last summer, too. I think we jinx that ride. We'll try again on Tuesday.

We saw a runaway duck with an injured wing. We saw old grandpas take their kiddies on the rides. We saw a sleeping kid on a bus with a chocolate milk moustache.

We tiiiiiired. Good night.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:19 AM | shower me with attention