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Bye Week

I could feel something in the back of my throat Wednesday evening, and by Thursday I had a 103º fever that Tylenol would only coax down to about 101º. I ran the full gamut of chills, heat flashes, body aches, and eventually sinus and chest crud. Dad brought me a COVID at-home test that was advertised as having a propensity for false-negatives, so it wasn’t COVID. Maybe.

I remember getting out on Friday with Summer to take Kevin his birthday present to the airport, but we didn’t stick around for pulled pork. I stopped by the old house to check on the fish, and in hindsight I should have left the automatic feeder on. We made it back home, and the next thing I remember doing is getting out late to pick up some burgers from Sonic. The pickle fries were awful.

The fever never let up, but between waves of medication I felt well enough to watch The Secret of NIMH on Saturday, and then out of nowhere, the fever was gone on Sunday morning. Recovery was nearly as rough, with more crud in my chest than anything else. I felt gross and sweaty all day, but I had a shower and brushed my teeth.

Summer had mowed in the morning, so she left it to Eaddie when it came time to walk the dogs. She didn’t mind, but said she couldn’t walk both alone, so I went with her. It was immediately obvious that they hadn’t been properly walked in my two week absence, as the line was taught nearly the entire time. We made it about halfway to my parents’ house, which was already a longer route than Eaddie wanted to take, when she had to stop to scoop some poop, so she insisted that it was my job to walk the dogs alone the rest of the way. She might have reconsidered if I had pressed, but I had more fight in me for the dogs than for her.

We gave them a drink at my parents’ house, and then headed back home. It was a hot struggle, and I was completely drenched in sweat, so I took a cold shower and finished up my laundry. The dogs were fussy outside, and tore into the bags of potting mix on the porch. I went back out to discipline and clean that up, and left the hole they had dug under the north fence for another day.

If you do nothing, bite your tongue when I do.

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Half Asleep

I slept for nearly 12 hours last night, though I woke up a couple times with a pretty bad headache. Once I got around, I felt much better for the rest. Someone tagged me in a lost dog post on the Nextdoor app, but upon checking, both of our dogs were still home. They had gotten into more stuff again, so I’m having to deal with random chewed up garbage all the time.

Summer was working from home, and I was pretty hungry for some lunch, so I ended up going to Burger King to get a big bag of food. Eaddie was already awake but wasn’t hungry, so Summer and I were the only two that ate any of it. I had the best shower I’d had in a week and then took the dogs for a walk to my parents’ house to help Dad move the refrigerator out of its little nook so he could investigate a hiss and some possible steam. The dogs did pretty well, and weren’t completely chaotic when tied up to the deck. Stilgar took a dip in his pool when we got back, and then I tried to do a little bit of training with them while they were hungry.

Noah came back over after work, since he’s been driving our Pathfinder. Eaddie spent most of the day in her room while Summer worked. I eventually had to go back to help Dad move the refrigerator back into place, but I just took the Onewheel instead of walking the dogs again. Mom was hungry, so they decided to get some Taco Villa. I went with Dad to pick that up, and then headed back home in the dark after we ate.

Everyone went to bed pretty early after that. The kids took the dogs out for another walk while I was gone, so even they were pretty tired and just slept on the porch.

It’s all just noise.

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We’re in for Some Chop

I was on the verge of crashing all day long, but still stayed up late trying to get things back into order. We rolled out of the hotel and hailed a Lyft as we walked down the hallway. The ride was quiet, and traffic wasn’t bad at all until we got right into the airport. Evidently there was a convention for the National Federation of the Blind this week, because I’ve never seen so many white canes in my entire life. It was interesting to witness them traveling through such a hectic environment that even we struggled to navigate, and I’m sure they appreciated the time to see each other face-to-face.

We timed things just about right, so we had plenty of time to get through security and grab some pretzel breakfast sandwiches from Auntie Anne’s. I watched part of Dune: Part Two on the first flight, which was pretty smooth. We had just enough time in St. Louis to switch planes, and then I watched a bit more during our much more turbulent flight to Little Rock.

Eaddie wanted Mexican food for lunch, so I found a well-reviewed place called Tortas Mexico in North Little Rock that had some of the best food we’d had all week, at a third the price. I felt rich. Then we continued home, unloaded, and played with Muad’Dib for a bit before Eaddie and I went to get Stilgar from the vet.

Muad’Dib seemed a little happier to see us specifically, while Stilgar seemed happy to see anybody. He did pee a little in the excitement. The lady that helped us was really concerned that we might have lost Muad’Dib, but I told her they simply didn’t have room to board both of them while we were gone, and we decided to make sure the younger spirit was kept safe.

Stilgar wolfed down a whole bunch of food, as though he hadn’t eaten anything all week. We played with them for a bit, and then I went inside to unpack and get things in order. Noah came back after work and Summer had a talk with him about some responsibilities, but you could tell he was just sitting in silence to receive the lecture.

Once I had things put away enough, I took the dogs out for a roll through the neighborhood on the Onewheel. They did really great, but I did finally see worms in Muad’Dib’s poop. He had to stop a couple more times on our journey to and from my parents’ house. We didn’t stay to visit for too long, and made it nearly all the way home before Stilgar got too hot and tired, and flopped onto some cool dirt. He refused to move, so I tried to get Summer to bring us some water. She and Noah walked up the wrong street, but it didn’t matter because a girl came out of the house across the street from us, and her dog ran at us full-force off-leash, which got Stilgar up and full of energy immediately. They wagged and sniffed, and then we were on our way home.

One or the other of the dogs kept chewing on potted plants I had on the deck, so I repotted what was left of one of them. Hopefully having both of them here again will settle them down overnight, but more importantly, hopefully they can’t get out of the fence again.

The ants we had in the master bathroom looked to have moved on, but after just a short while they came back. They went straight for the bait, but I wish I knew what triggered them to come back in the first place.

Finally down for the long snooze.

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All Parks and No Play

We got up extra early this morning for the Animal Kingdom. We didn’t quite get out as early as I wanted, but my sleep deficit has only grown while we’ve been on vacation, and I just didn’t care as much on the last day. We headed straight for Flight of Passage, where everyone else seemed to be headed. In reality, we probably could have circled the entire park and ridden or watched everything else while everyone else was waiting for that one ride, but instead we just followed the leader and watched the rest of the wait times in the park go up.

I got us a little breakfast snack that the girls didn’t really ask for, and we ate in line for the Na’vi River Journey, which was the last of the Pandora area. We spent the rest of the morning and a large part of the afternoon in Africa, wandering in circles. I got incredibly hot, tired, and irritable after seeing pictures of the ruin that Noah has left around our home, and I just wanted to scream at Summer.

We ate lunch a little early at Tusker House and got to see Mickey, Donald, Daisey, and Goofy multiple times throughout our buffet. It made me appreciate them that much more, because at Cinderella’s castle, we just got to see her sign autographs from afar. I did ask Mickey to blink twice if he was being held against his will, which got a silent chuckle and zero blinks. I still think something’s up.

We finally moved on after giving up on the Lion King show, and watched the Feathered Friends show instead. One of the crows brushed my face when it flew by us in the audience. Then we made it to Asia where we got stuck in line for the Kali River Rapids while they waited for the distant lightning to go away. Everest was so fun that it was basically the last thing we did. We weren’t able to do anything else because of how much time we sank into walking around the gorillas. We thought we’d at least get to Dinosaur, but the girls opted not to wait for the entire last hour at the park in line for that. Luckily we were able to get back on Everest back-to-back eight more times because they were just speed running people through it. We walked back on every single time. We tried to get ten, but they had a security guard posted at the start of the line after we got off our ninth ride. I made the comment to him that we only needed one more ride to make ten, and without a smirk, giggle, or friendly tone, he said to try again tomorrow.

The bus back to the resort was packed, but a short ride. The girls spent some time in the gift shop there while I went back to the room to make some green tea and change for a swim. They ended up closing the pool for more storms, so I went out on the balcony down the hall and watched the zebras, giraffes, and whatever else was outside.

Get me outta here.

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Island of Misfit Toys

As far as we could tell, we were on the first bus to Hollywood Studios this morning. We got to the park and past the box office where they held everyone, and then made a dash straight for Slinky Dog. We stepped up all the way to the ride as they started loading people, and just as our turn was coming up, they stopped the ride. Evidently one of the doors to the loading platform wouldn’t close correctly, and they had to shut it down for safety. Luckily we got Lightning Lane passes for it.

After that, I checked us in to Oga’s Cantina for our reservation, but we rode Smuggler’s Run before that, while the wait was low. The guy that wanted to pilot with me was awful at it, and kept crashing into things. After that, we were a little late to our table at Oga’s, but they weren’t busy. I had considered cancelling it because they didn’t actually have any proper breakfast, but we ultimately decided to check it out. The girls enjoyed it.

After some weird juice and charcuterie, we headed to Rise of the Resistance for a long wait in line. It started to get hot pretty quickly, but the line had lots of fans and shade. The ride was great, but kind of breezed by after such a long line without a virtual queue. We continued around the park through Star Tours, and then had to make lunch at the Brown Derby.

The food there was really good. I had a root beer brined pork steak as recommended by our server. Eaddie did not like the grapefruit cake we had for dessert, because as she discovered not long ago, she doesn’t actually like grapefruit.

After lunch, we continued to tick rides off of our list. Tower of Terror and Rockin’ Rollercoaster were good, but the lines were long and the sun was hot. The Runaway Railway was fun, but with another ridiculous line. At least it seemed fair with less Lightning Lane nonsense. After that, we were able to catch the last Indiana Jones show before trying to wrap up Toy Story Land.

Unfortunately, we ran into more trouble, as the Alien Swirling Saucers also had door problems and we were stuck loading. Then just before we were about to load onto Toy Story Mania, they had another door fail. Luckily we just barely got out of there and up to the 50s Prime Time Cafe for our dinner reservation.

Dinner was good, and some of the cheapest we’ve had so far on our trip. Our server wasn’t particularly sassy to us, but I had her laughing myself. As soon as we finished eating, we headed to Fantasmic to finish the night. Eaddie had suggested we might skip fireworks, but she was glad we didn’t.

Somehow we managed to miss the last bus that was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, so our bus had plenty of empty seats on the way back to the resort. One more, much shorter day, and then it’ll be time to figure out how to get home.

Keep up.

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Springstime

I slept in super late today to catch up, and woke up feeling much better. I was still the first out of bed though, which I just don’t understand. We got everyone up and headed to Disney Springs to shop for souvenirs. I told the girls we should find something to eat for brunch so we could have a nice dinner, but we just started walking through stores instead. They were the only two to walk up to a giant physical map of the place, and still asked me for directions. We pushed through as it got hotter and hotter in the early afternoon, and just went straight to T-Rex for a late lunch. Our server seemed good, but our food took forever to come out, and my pot roast pot pie had a film of dried gravy on top. Everything tasted alright, but this whole trip, I’ve been thinking the food has only tasted as good as it does because we’re all so hungry by the time we eat.

We circled the property, then doubled back so Eaddie could find a keychain that we ultimately could have just bought in our resort gift shop. Then it was a sleepy bus ride back to the room. Summer went down to lay out by the pool, and after taking a break for a while, I got Eaddie to go down and swim with me. She didn’t last long before heading back up to the room though, and then Summer and I followed shortly after that. Then the two of us went to the front of the resort to visit our gift shop before settling in for the night.

Storms comin’.

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Give It a Rest

I slept in a little bit today, but didn’t want to miss seeing any animals. That was kind of the point of staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was the first one up and spotted an addox in the field outside our room. I woke the girls up to show them my picture, and it wasn’t long before we saw some giraffe as well. We eventually got everyone rolled out of bed to try and swim for a bit, but then we smelled breakfast cooking at Boma, the restaurant downstairs from the lobby. We were able to walk up and get a seat nearly immediately, and the buffet was incredible. There was some pretty typical breakfast stuff, but a lot of new African things to try as well. I particularly loved the orange, passion fruit, and guava juice blend, as well as the stewed tomatoes. I stuffed myself silly, and then we went outside to swim under some direct sunlight.

I didn’t want to stay out and burn, so we weren’t out terribly long. We came back to the room and the girls played on their phones. I started to doze a little bit, but never took a proper nap. We went back outside for a little bit at one point, but eventually had to start making our way to the Beach Club Resort for our reservation at the Cape May Cafe. I wasn’t prepared for another buffet, but the girls were hungry again since they hadn’t eaten much at the first one.

We took the bus to Hollywood Studios, the Skyliner to EPCOT, and then a boat to the resort, where we had some time to kill in some rocking chairs by their pool before it was time to eat. There, some of the food was super good, but then I was disappointed by some others. I guess most of the seafood I had was pretty good, but I could only eat so many fried calamari. The pork loin and prime rib(?) were both pretty tough and unenjoyable. I did really like the clam chowder, and the glaze they used on their salmon was super good. I wished I liked the taste of salmon more, because they were really thick cuts.

After stuffing myself again, we headed straight back to Hollywood Studios by boat, and then took the bus back to our own resort where we went out for another dip in the pool. Eaddie joined us at the side of the pool for a little bit, but then went back upstairs. Summer and I goofed around in the water for a little while, and then headed back up for bed.

You’re a nuisance to my plans.

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Dusted and Busted

It was super hard to wake up for a second day in a row with only a couple hours of sub-optimal sleep. We didn’t make it out of the room quite as quickly as yesterday, but we still got there for park open. Summer scored us really early virtual queue tickets to the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind coaster, so we ended up cancelling our breakfast reservation at Akershus and tried to be first in line. They didn’t actually open that ride until 8:40 though, and recommended we try something else for our early hours. We didn’t want to walk far, so we just stopped next door for some Starbucks and then came back.

The whole ride seemed pretty out of place for EPCOT, but it was super cool nonetheless. We were so early that there wasn’t a queue at all yet, and in fact we were the only three people on our train. The ride was incredible, and I only partially jokingly asked if we could stay on for another ride. The first guy said we didn’t want to know what was behind the door that led back to the start of the ride, but then another woman asked if we wanted to ride again, and took us through a staff door and loaded us on the back of the next train, which only two other people were on. After riding both first and last cars, I think the rear was my preferred. It really was an excellent experience, and getting to ride twice, back-to-back, was super special.

The rest of the day was some tough bouncing back and forth, partially to hit rides, and partially to make our lunch reservation at Space 220. Overall the food was great, but the experience was fairly middling. The screen for the “space window” could have been way better, and we were seated too close and too far to one side for it to be even noticeable at all.

By the time we got back to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the reported wait time was like 160 minutes. I think we actually got through in just under an hour though. The ride was super cute, but we kind of thought it was more kiddy-cute than something we really cared to ride repeatedly.

We squabbled a bit in pain as we decided how to attack the rest of the afternoon and evening. I really wanted to at least experience the new Frozen ride, and we eventually made it. Eaddie and I both came away with the exact same thought, that Disney has started relying too heavily on projections for their rides. We preferred actual animatronics, and felt the projections just took away from the experience.

Overall, I think most of the things we’ve experienced this trip have been disappointments, and I’m definitely falling out of love with Disney. There are just an intolerable number of people here, and everything feels like a blatant money grab. The only other highlight for the day was really the special fireworks display over the United States pavilion. Julie and Kevin missed it because they went to the front of the park, but we watched from right next to the pavilion and it was intense.

We all made it back to the resort without too much trouble, but a little worse for wear. Everyone’s feet were hurting pretty badly. I have a pinky-toe that’s more blister than toe. The girls crashed pretty quickly, but I didn’t get to sleep until late because I kept trying to wake Noah up off of our couch at home by playing music over my speakers remotely. Then I had trouble stopping them when he finally woke up. I just wish he’d leave, because I’m tired of him blatantly disrespecting us.

Wake me up before you verti-gogo!

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Open to Close

I squeezed in about three and a half hours of mild sleep before getting up and ready to rope-drop the Magic Kingdom. Summer was able to get virtual queued for Tiana’s Bayou before we left the resort, but Eaddie didn’t have access to her email associated with her Disney account, so she couldn’t even try. We got onto the bus around 7:30, and they started letting people into the park way earlier than their open times. It was already a struggle with heat and not having a plan of attack for rides. I fought to wait in line for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train first, but the line was already super long and we were there for about an hour. While we were in line, I called and got Eaddie’s account fixed. We were also called for Tiana’s while we were still in line, and we just barely made it by our assigned time.

Otherwise we had a reasonably good day for rides just because we were there for so long. We made our reservation at the Liberty Tavern and stuffed ourselves. By that time I had a massive headache on top of being full. We carried on, and I ended up just cancelling our Crystal Palace reservation.

We waited for fireworks for way too long and should have kept riding rides instead. We had some drama about where to view, and then I thought Kevin was going to beat up some kid that kept bumping into us for the two hours we were standing waiting for the show to start. They had a DJ on the stage playing awful music at an ear-damaging volume the entire time, so that was awful. The girls loved the show, but I was disappointed in the projection, which was basically just a flag over and over again.

We not only closed the park down, but went to the end of the extra magic hours for staying at a Disney resort. Summer had lost her Magic Band somewhere along the way, but we were fortunate enough to find it at the lost and found on the way out. The only ride we really missed was Buzz Lightyear’s shooter thing, but what are you gonna do when the kid wants to ride Small World?

We got back to the resort around two in the morning after accidentally getting off at the wrong bus stop. Luckily they were unloading a wheelchair and we had time to run back. We were all beyond exhausted, and we’ll have about four hours to sleep before we have to get up for EPCOT and do it all over again.

It’s pretty sad that the most magical part of the experience was the lost-and-found.

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More Expenses Paid Trip

The silence stirred me this morning. I was hopeful after spending so much time and effort fixing up the fence, but I knew there should have been more noise outside, at least from the neighbors’ dogs. I got a call from a group of people with Muad’Dib, and then Summer got a call from the vet because someone else had Stilgar. I took the Onewheel because I thought Muad’Dib was only a block away, but he wasn’t much farther. I talked to the folks that had him, and then rode with him to get Stilgar. That woman came out in a mumu and had locked him up behind her privacy fence. Behind that fence was a chain-link fence. She wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, but she wasn’t pleasant about it.

The dogs ran home with me at a pretty good clip, so they were fine with coming in for the day. Then I started packing and getting ready for our Disney trip while Dad came over with some more concrete blocks.

I was high stress for the entirety of the day. I only missed one thing when packing, because I couldn’t find my USB power bank. I remembered taking it out from my daily carry, but I couldn’t remember where I put it after that. The girls took Stilgar to the vet for boarding, and Noah would be staying at the house. Dad and Suzanne both said they could check in periodically. Summer drove us to Conway to eat at Raising Cane’s, which was just more spicy mayo. Then we got to Expressway Parking and took a shuttle to the airport. The TSA line was long, but manageable, and we made it to our gate in plenty of time.

Julie and Kevin showed up, and then Summer saw Jeff and his wife get off of our plane and talked to them. I was still trying to plot and plan and understand the Disney Monster, but it was only more stress. It’s just become too much. Maybe it will be fun in the moment, but the people and the money and the stress just makes me want to do anything else.

The flights were uneventful and long. The changeover at St. Louis was easy enough, but then finding a ride to the resorts was stupid. Julie managed that for us, and we shared a ride with two stops, but the Disney and Lyft apps were both frustrating to navigate. Too much.

We got to our room and I found a dried up contact lens on my nightstand. The girls made it to bed quickly. At least in this time zone I’ll be awake before I get a call about the dogs.

Boat.