A Gay Old Time at the Magic Kingdom

For years I have heard tales of the infamy of Gay Days at Walt Disney World, but up until today I had never managed to see it in person. For those who might be unfamiliar with this yearly event, it's a weeklong celebration when gays and lesbians head out to Orlando for a whirlwind tour of the theme parks, plenty of other events and parties, and even a cruise.

Gay Days started out quite modestly back in 1991, when gay and lesbian parkgoers and their supporters donned red shirts and headed out to Disney on the first Saturday in June. From just one day and a few thousand attendees, it has now grown to a weeklong bash with upwards of 100,000 red-clad visitors.

In its early days, the event attracted criticism, and even protests, by conservative Christian groups. For the most part, the protesters appear to have lost steam, while Gay Days has gained the momentum of Splash Mountain plummeting down the watery hill. There are official host hotels, corporate sponsors, and all the other trappings of a successful event.

Still, people tend to pass around horror stories of the shocking PDAs (public displays of affection) that occur on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, causing small children's eyes to burn right out of their sockets and evaporating God-fearing conservatives on sight. Having seen some pretty raunchy PDAs between hetro couples (particularly during the cheerleader events, when I'm sometimes not sure if I'm witnessing a French kiss and grope session or a teen doctor prodigy conducting a breast exam and tonsil cleansing with his tongue on his comely female patient), I couldn't image that anything at Gay Days could be any more shocking.

For the past several years, I've always been on a Disney cruise during Gay Days. This year, finally, I was in town and able to finally witness the spectacle.

Red is the color de rigeur for gay and lesbian attendees and their supporters. My husband donned his bright red Incredibles t-shirt, but I had decided that I wanted to make a bolder statement. I had a very close gay relative, and through their situation I learned firsthand just how much tragedy can be caused when a person isn't free to live life as they were meant to. I work professionally with many gay and lesbian clients, and it drives me crazy when people characterize it as a "choice" or act like it is a pathology. I tend towards Liberitarian views; I don't care what goes on between consenting adults in the bedroom, and if you are truly in love with someone and want to marry them, why should I care if you're a same-sex couple? Gay marriage hasn't destroyed Canada or Massachusetts, and I doubt it would destroy the rest of the country...we've got plenty of other, more-pressing issues to worry about.

Thus, I chose a shirt that summed up my personal sentiment: Straight But Not Narrow:






I am perfectly comfortable in my hetrosexual life, with my male spouse, but that doesn't mean that I expect everyone else to conform to my personal view of marriage or sexuality. I am also an active Christian, but I figure that God made everyone, and Jesus Himself could be pegged as a liberal. Thus, who I am to judge anyone else?

Hubby and I had planned to visit Animal Kingdom and Disney MGM, the first two parks on the Gay Days agenda, but the weather was iffy. After weeks and weeks and weeks of drought, the first day of hurricane season ushered in a named tropical storm (Barry) and an onslaught of rain. While we really needed the downpour, it was frustrating not to make it over to the theme parks.

Still, the Magic Kingdom is the Holy Grail of Gay Days, and by the time Saturday (i.e. MK day) rolled around the forecast was looking decidedly better. It was still cloudy and drizzing in the morning, but by the time we headed down World Drive at 11 a.m., it looked as though the storm clouds were on their way out.

There was only a small trickle of cards at the Magic Kingdom toll plaza; I had expected a much larger crowd. I did notice the red shirts in many of the surrounding vehicles. At the Ticket and Transportation Center, we took the ferryboat over because I thought it was the most apt choice, given the event of the day.

At the park, the crowd was surprisingly thin, although the sea of red was very prominent. We hadn't planned on doing much riding because of the expected crowd density, but we quickly realized that we could probably fit in a spin on most of our favorites. I was also hoping to see the 3 p.m. parade, which is a highight for the gay and lesbian guests.

On our way under the train platform, hubby found a penny. "Aha, you're going to have luck today!" I teased him.

"Yeah," he responded, "Too bad we're not at Universal. They sell lottery tickets over there."

Since we hadn't had any lunch, my first stop was Sunshine Terrace in Adventureland for my favorite sugary treat: frozen orange juice swirled with vanilla soft serve ice cream. I gazed around, watching for the shocking displays that had reached legendary status on the internet. Any kissing? No. Groping? No. Wild sex in the streets? Hell no! If it weren't for the red shirts, I would barely have noticed anything difference.

We headed over to Pirates of the Caribbean so I could oogle Johnny Depp (he's sexy even in Audioanimatronic form). Next, we rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad twice (we grabbed a FastPass, waited in the standby line, and it was time to use our FastPasses by the time our first ride was done).

I got a great response to my t-shirt. Many of the Gay Days attendees seemed to appreciate seeing a straight person announcing their support quite publicly. I got several thumbs up, lots of "Great shirt" comments, and even an enthusiastic "Good for you, darlin'!"

I also got a couple of evil eye looks from fellow hetros who seemed to take my statement as some sort of betrayal of my orientation. I just raised my eyebrows at them and silently sent out vibes of tolerance.

It was getting close to 3 p.m., so I staked out a spot near the castle while hubby ran off to get Buzz Lightyear FastPasses (our first choice, Space Mountain, had a return time of 7 p.m.; we intended to be long gone by then). At first the crowd was sparse, but the sea of red continued to grow and expand until it became an unbroken band:



The wait time went by rather quickly as we watched our fellow parade-goers do waves and break out in chants such as "Gay Days!" "Tinker Bell!" and "Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck," with one side of the street taking one word and the other side responding with the second part.

Soon enough, the parade had wended its way from Frontier Land through Liberty Square and had reach the castle. It was interesting to watch some of the characters' gestures! The float that drew the biggest respond was the villians...as Cruella, Ursula, and the others of her their ilk hammed it up, the crowd chanted, "Diva! Diva! Diva!"

We planned to head for Buzz after the parade, so as soon as the end passed us, we jumped in behind it. So did the rest of the red clad crowd, with people shouting, "Come on! Get up! It's our parade now!" We maneuvered ourselves to the lefthand side so we could quickly disengage ourselves from the impromptu gay pride march when we reached the Tomorrowland entrance. On our way to Buzz, we noticed that the new Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor show only had a 10 minute wait. Since we had never seen it before, we decided to give it a try.

The show was really cute; it reminded me of Turtle Talk at Epcot because it features digital characters interfacing directly with the audience. I absolutely love Turtle Talk, but I wasn't sure just how well Disney could pull it off a second time. I have to admit, they did a great job. It's definitely a repeater. There are core parts of the show that you will see every time, but there is enough audience interaction to make each experience uniquely entertaining.

Next up was Buzz, which fell rather flat since I've gotten used to Men In Black at Universal. The sky was starting to darken, but we pressed our luck and grabbed a last ride on the Wedway People Mover (yeah, I know it's now the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, but it will always be the Wedway to me).

We decided to have an early dinner at one of the hotel restaurants. Ever the optimist, hubby said, "How about Ohana?" I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, right." It's virtually impossible to get Ohana ressies unless you call days, or even weeks in advance.

If you're never been there, I highly recommend that you try it sometime. It's located at the Polynesian, and it serves an all-you-can-eat feast of salad, wontons, chicken wings, oriental vegetables, and shrimp. But that's just for starters! Next up, the servers bring out huge spits of meat that have been roasted over the firepit. There is turkey, pork, beef, and sausage, with three sauces to dip them in. The peanut sauce is so good that I could drink it with a straw, although the chimichurri is a close second.

"If we can get there right when they open at 5, maybe they can take us as a walkup," hubby said. "And if they can't, we can always eat at Kona Cafe." (That's the other Poly restaurant, which is typically not as crowded.) Reluctantly, I agreed.

He suggested that we take the boat to the Poly (the other choice was the monorail). Little did we realize that we had just missed it, and the next boat was a looooooong time in coming. As my watch ticked closer to 5, I could see any possibility of tucking into that delicious skewer-roasted meat drifting farther and farther away.

Finally the next boat arrived, and we piled on with the rest of the crowd. Its first stop was the Grand Floridian hotel, and I fidgeted nervously as I waited for the next step. We might make it...we might...it wasn't quite 5 o'clock yet....dare I actually hope? On the way, I called 407-WDW-DINE to see if they had any reservations available. The agent could barely keep the laughter out of her voice as she informed me that Ohana was totally full.

We finally arrived at the Poly and hustled through the hotel and upstairs to the Ohana podium. My heart sank as I saw the crowd; if they were all waiting for tables, too, our chances had plummeted from slim to none. But maybe they were just hanging out in the bar...if so, then perhaps hubby's hope would be rewarded.

At the podium, I was astonished...they actually could take us! The cast member told us that it would be a 15 to 20 minute wait. No problem! I clutched our precious beeper as we headed over to Kona to check out the menu for future reference. They had some very tempting items; even if we had been turned down at Ohana, we definitely wouldn't have suffered.

Back at the entrance to Ohana, some fellow waiting diners noticed my shirt, and we got into a very interesting conversation. I was almost sorry when our beeper went off to summon us to our table.

In the restaurant, as I was tucking into the appetizers, I suddenly remember hubby's morning find. "Hey," I said, "I guess that was a lucky penny after all!" Sure, you can't compare Ohana to a lottery win, but those small strokes of luck do make life a lot more enjoyable.

Ohana was just as delicious as we remember it. We had a wonderful meal, topped off with bananas foster bread pudding ala mode. It was hard to save room, but I reminded myself just how delicious the bananas foster sauce is and managed to set aside my plate without indulging in any more fire-roasted meat.

After dinner, we took the Polynesian walkway back to our car at the Ticket and Transportation Center. On the way, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt showing a profile of a hetro couple in wedding clothes, captioned "The end." I wondered how he was going to feel if he spotted some of the people that we'd seen at the Magic Kingdom, such as the lesbian couple wearing matching "Just Married" shirts or the gay men wearing pink wedding veils.

But overall, Gay Days was rather anti-climactic compared to what I had read on the internet. According to one rather bizarre website (click here to read it if you want some amusement), I should have been witness to "...shirtless homosexuals were twisting the nipples of each other and fondling the butts and groins of their lovers...open-mouth kissing, group urination in public restrooms – and worse." Supposedly, according to the website, the hordes of homosexuals also train young kids into gay or lesbian relationships...gasp!

How on earth do you "train" a child into being gay? Call me silly, but every gay man and lesbian that I know knew their sexual orientation from early on. They might have repressed it, but it's not something that just smacked them in the face one day out of the blue, nor is it something that a devious homosexual trained them or converted them into.

Oh well, we're all entitled to our opinions, as long as we don't force them onto others. I don't know which Magic Kingdom the author of that website visits, but at the one that I visited today, all I saw was a typical group, albeit a lot more crimson than usual. The only PDAs that I noticed were the subtle sort that any couple might share...someone rubbing their partner's shoulders, holding hands, or giving a quick peck. Hubby did notice some groping between one couple at the parade, but I totally missed it.

I'm glad that I finally managed to witness this "wild" event for myself. I'm definitely planning to attend next year, and as the Flinstones would say, I know it will be a gay old time.

Visit my Celebration, FL website: http://www.celebrationinfo.com/

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Chicken of the Swamp

One of the hazards of living in or near a "touristy" area is the stunning sense of complacency that eventually numbs you like a dose of Novocaine. It happened to me in Chicago; even though I lived near a host of tourist meccas, there were many that I never (or rarely) saw in person. Although I visited the North Avenue Beach a couple of times, normally I eschewed the Downtown Chicago beaches, preferring to drive out to Indiana in order to swim in Lake Michigan. I never went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, nor did I visit the Field Museum. I never saw a Bears game in person and never made it to the top of the Sears Tower (although my husband and I did hold our Valentine's Day nuptuals on the observation deck of the John Hancock building). When you live close to things that inspire awe in outsiders, you learn to take them for granted yourself. You put them on a list of "Things To Do Someday," and often you never get around to them.

Now, I notice that the same thing is happening with our lives in Celebration. People tend to identify this area with Disney World and Mickey Mouse, but there are dozens of other sights and attractions within a stone's throw (or at least within a take-your-life-into-your-hands excursion down I-4). We often pick up coupon books to use at the local restaurants, and as I thumb through them, the glossy ads pop out at me. "Rent an airboat!" "Feed a gator!" "Ride a simulated top speed dragster!" "Soar through the skies in a hot air balloon!" "Get shot 300 feet in the air on a bungee cord 'sling shot'!" "Have dinner with gangsters!" "Pilot a stunt plane!"

Whew, who would have thought that the Orlando/Kissimmee area is an attraction all on its own? Even if Disney World was sucked into a freak black hole tomorrow, you could still visit our slice of Central Florida for several weeks without a hint of boredom. And of course, that doesn't take the other theme parks, like Universal Studio/Islands of Adventure and Seaworld/Discovery Cove, into account.

As I thumb through the tourist books, I make a mental note: "We've got to see this other stuff." But somehow, we always end up at either Disney World or Universal/IOA, as though drawn by a magnetic forcefield that blinds us to any other attraction.

My husband and I have made a commitment that we are going to force ourselves to expand our horizons. Each weekend, we will take turns picking an off-the-beaten-path attraction. We've had a few false starts, as it's hard to get excited about going somewhere where the lines might be outrageous when we can use our Universal Premier Pass and get unlimited Express Pass ride time every day after 4 p.m. They sure know how to addict Florida residents! But this weekend, we finally broke free of the "box" and did something totally and utterly different. We visited "Titanic: The Exhibit."

Actually, it's not entirely new for us. We saw the travelling exhibit when it was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. That was the one museum that was near and dear to my heart; from the time I was a child and made a yearly field trip trek, I loved its hands-on exhibits and the really cool stuff, like the WWII submarine, the "underground" coal mine, Yesterday's Mainstreet with its authentic soda fountain, the giant dollhouse that was more detail and luxurious than most real homes, and (very creepy) the unborn babies suspended forever in formaldehyde, each at a different level of development from head-of-a-pin size up to impending birth.

The museum is also home to Mold-O-Rama, one of the most fascinating inventions known to childkind. You pop in your money, select a style, and a mini-sculpture is injection-molded right in front of your eyes. That melting plastic has a distinctive smell that I would recognize anywhere.

My favorite exhibit was always the oil well, where you could "drill" for your own black gold using a ball and flippers to guide it into an oil field. If you were lucky enough to strike oil, you won a gold-colored plastic medallion.

Sadly, that exhibit was removed, as were many of the most interactive ones, due to vandalism. Now, the museum is "okay," but it's a shell of its former self. It has been dumbed down to cater to the hands-off-or-they'll-break-it ADHD crowd. I still have one of the pseudo-gold oil medals, which I treasure to this day because it is the key to a trove of happy childhood memories of other exhibits long gone.

My husband and I were members of the museum, primarily so we could attend special events like sneak previews of new exhibits and overnight campouts where you spent the night locked in with a passel of other members, enjoying a selection of Imax features and all the other exhibits without having to be among the unwashed masses.

Once of the "members only" events was a preview of the travelling Titanic exhibit. Having taken nearly 60 Disney cruises (well, probably closer to 30 at the time), this was the sort of thing that appealed to us. Thus, we attended and gazed in awe at the various artifacts plucked from the mighty ship's oceanic gravesite.

That was several years ago; now, we thought it might be interesting to compare a permanent version with the travelling exhibition. Thus, we loaded into the Family Truckster and headed off to I-Drive for a quick "sail" aboard the doomed liner.

We had a general idea of its location; turns out it is in a creepy, semi-abandoned I-Drive mall called "The Mercado," not too far past the convention center. There is a building close to the road where you buy your tickets, and although it looks large enough to hold the whole exhibit, that is not the case. Instead, you are directed to hike through a disreputable-looking courtyard where you'll find the actual attraction in a different building, surrounded by the shells of long-closed stores and an occasional still-open-but-possibly-soon-to-be-condemned-by-the-health-department restaurants. Some of the storefronts still bore the ghostly imprints of former signs, but their papered-over windows gave mute testament to the fact that their heyday was long over.

We arrived just as the tour was starting. A Titanic "passenger" greets you, checks your ticket, and welcomes you into the "shipyard." The Orlando version is quite similar to what we saw at the Museum of Science and Industry, although at the museum we had a celebrity guide: The Unsinkable Molly Brown. At both locations, your ticket lists the name and details about a particular passenger. At the end of the tour, you can check a chart and see if your passenger survived or perished (hint: if they happen to be in third class, they're almost certainly a goner).

In Chicago, my husband had gotten Bruce Ismay, the head of White Star Lines, who ignored the "Women and children" first rule to secure a spot in the lifeboats. I told him with derision, "Gee, I wonder if he's gonna make it!" Hubby, who was clueless about the name despite seeing the movie "Titanic" more times than I care to count, looked at me blankly. I guess that the sight of Kate Winslet's bare chest crowds out everything else from his brain.

In Orlando, he was a reverend in second class, and I was a crew member working in the spa (perfect place for me). We trooped through an exhibit about the ship's construction and were then led aboard through a "gangway." There was a recreation of a first-class suite and various exhibits and artifacts. I was hoping to see items from the Titanic itself, but most were from its sister ship, the Olympic. I was surprised that the permanent exhibit had less authentic items than the travelling version, but hubby pointed out that the roadshow probably needed more of a draw. The permanent location has somewhat of a captive audience, since it is located smack in I-Drive, in the midst of a daily tourist stampede.

After viewing the artifacts, we were led into a room with a wall of ice representing the fatal 'berg. Everyone had a chance to press their palms to its deathly-cold surface. Our guide (who had switched now to another "passenger") reminded us that the bitter cold we were feeling was equivalent to the temperature of the water on that deadly night in 1912. Contrary to popular belief, most passengers died of the cold rather than drowning.

Next, we were led to a dark, chilled area representing the Promenade Deck on the night of the sinking. Ghostly strains of "Nearer My God to Thee" played in the background as we all looked down from the deck into the inkwell of black, freezing water below and a black velvet sky above. The cheerfulness of the twinkling stars belied the grim reality of the tragedy below. Although it was silent, save for the music, my mind drifted back to survivors' accounts I had read before. Those drifting far off in the lifeboats likened it to the roar of a crowded stadium that slowly diminished and fell silent as the desperate people, crying for the rescue boats to come back for them, finally sucumbed to the deadly embrace of the cold.

Afterwards, there were more exhibits, and we were allowed to go back and look more closely at the sections we had already passed through. First, hubby and I checked out the fate of the poor souls on our tickets (his had perished, mine had lived). Then, we wended our way back through the various rooms, pondering the impact of a tragedy so profound that it still fascinates the public nearly 100 years after its occurrence.

The tour ends in the requisite gift shop, and we purchased "Titanic" shirts to wear on our August transatlantic crossing on the Disney Magic (yes, I have a warped sense of humor). Then we wended our way through the maze of abandoned shops to locate the Family Truckster. On the way, I noticed a forlorn-looking set of public restrooms, The men's room was open; the women's was locked, with a sign "Obtain Key from Titanic Giftshop." But I knew that would be futile, as the woman in the shop had directed a restroom seeker to the Goodings grocery store when he inquired while we were making our purchase.

Since it didn't look like there was any eminent danger of a crowd descending on the area, I posted hubby to stand guard and went inside the men's room. Ugh! After checking half a dozen stalls and finding everything from seats wrapped like an old mummy in toilet tissue to festering bodily wastes in plugged commodes, I finally found a "throne" upon which I could sit my derrierre without too much fear of disease. On the way out, I hazarded a glance at the urinals, which were just as disgusting as the toilet stalls. Oh well, at least I wouldn't have to spend our impending drive with my legs crossed.

Since we had successfully resisted the allure of Universal/IOA and embarked on a new adventure, we decided to continue in that vein for dinner. We randomly chose an I-Drive restaurant called Ran-Getsu, which we soon discovered featured Japanese cuisine. It had the usual sushi and tempura, but it also featured some more unusual items...including Florida gator! Hubby and I had tried gator before, but it was blended with other meat. A Japanese restaurant was truly one of the last places where I would have expected to find 100 percent, unmixed gator meat, but there it was, right on the menu: Deep fried gator bites (forget the "Man Bites Dog" headlines...in the Sunshine State, it's "Man Bites Gator").

We had a lovely table by the window, overlooking a serene koi pong. Hubby ordered a selection of four appetizers, including the Gator Bites (he also chose tuna sushi, Chilean sea bass, and fried shrimp). I opted for vegetable tempura, two ounces of Kobi beef with the house sauce, and pork dumplings with hot mustard. The menu was so intriguing that we promised ourselves we would return someday to explore it further.

I of course had to try the Gator Bites, and dare I say it? They do taste like chicken! If I had closed my eyes, I could easily have imagined that I was biting into a somewhat chewy Chicken Tender. I felt like I had somehow managed to pop over another Floridian hurdle, even if it was in the confines of a Japanese restaurant. I have eaten gator!

To add to my sense of amusement, our server presented hubby with the following card:

Now, if anyone dares question that we ate Japanese...er, Florida gator, we have wallet-sized proof.

The meal was very tasty and uneventful, save for two little incidents. First, I somehow managed to knock over my waterglass, bathing myself and my half of the table. Then, a while later, the hostess was seating a party of three (man and two teen boys). The diningroom is huge, but they were seating people in a particular section, presumably for ease of serving. She led the trio to a table near other other diners, and suddenly the man piped up loudly, "Geez, a whole empty restaurant and you're going to sit us by other people?" He spat out the last two words as though they were something filthy. "We do not want to sit here. Take us to something more suitable."

Now, I can understand not wanting to sit near a brood of unruly children or a screaming 120 decible baby or a tour group from the local leper colony, but none of these conditions existed as far as I could see. Maybe they had an immune disorder and had forgotten their bubbles, or perhaps they all suffered from a raging social anxiety disorder which the man covered up through extreme rudeness. His tone of voice towards the hostess was the sort usually reserved for someone who has murdered your mother and desecrated her corpse. As a customer, we all have the right to ask for what we want, but why not do it in a polite and respectful way?

At this point, hubby and I had tucked into our desserts (apple tempura-friend ice cream with mint sauce for him and mini trio of cakes for me...despite the name, one item in the trio was actually a green tea creme brulee, which was unusual but very tasty).

We headed out with full tummies and contented tastebuds, glad that we had stepped outside of our Disney/Universal comfort zone. We had visited a new attraction, discovered a new restaurant, and added a uniquely Floridian experience. Now, when I hear someone say "Tastes like chicken," I can nod in true assent, knowing firsthand that gator meat is truly Chicken of the Swamp.

Visit my Celebration, FL website: http://www.celebrationinfo.com

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

Picking My Poison

Since Florida is prime cow country, when we moved here I had high hopes that I'd be able to find an old childhood treat: raw milk. Basically, that means milk that has not been pasteurized or homogenized; we used to get it when I was a very young child, but at some point it became illegal to sell. Ostensibly, that's because unpasteurized milk carries a high risk of disease, plague, death, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...in short, mass hysteria. However, in view of the recent spinach contamination, the deadly poisoned pet food, and the latest contaminated ground beef scare, it seems as tho' milk straight from the cow teat should be the least of the lawmakers' worries.

I hadn't had a taste of this creamy, cholesterol-laden treat since the late 1980s, when I used to get it at a riding stable. The owner had a few cows among the horses, and he sold raw milk and ice cream to people he knew. My favorite among the homemade ice cream was "Lemon Creme," lemon-flavored ice cream chock full of smashed-up lemon creme cookies. I boarded my horse, Cochise, down the street, so I'd ride down to the stable and tie him up while I purchased my treat. When I was done, Cochise wouldn't move until I gave him his share...I always saved the bottom of the cone, with a bit of ice cream left inside, for my steed.

Sadly, that stable is now a subdivision, and my raw-milk sources dried up for two decades. When we moved to the Sunshine State, the herds of peacefully grazing bovines piqued my hope. Surely I would be able to find a new source. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that most of the blissfully unaware critters were destined to become steaks, not milk producers.

After doing some research, I discovered that raw milk can be legally sold in Florida, as long as it is labeled for pet use only. That's fine with me, and if I happen to accidentally grab the wrong container in the fridge and mistakenly pour a glass for myself...oh well...

Still, it took me a long time to find an organic supplier that carries it. Finally my persistence was rewarded, and this week I've gotten my first taste of Liquid Heaven in 20 years. Sure, I bought it for the cats just as the law stipulates, but I think somehow it accidentally got switched with the regular carton.

Actually, I did share my bounty with the cats; Farquuad adores milk, but Tooncinator has never been all that excited about it. But when he got a sniff of the raw stuff, he actually pushed Quaad aside!

It brings back so many memories to see that thick clot of cream on the top through the glass container. I actually had a flashback of the days when a real, honest-to-goodness, white-uniformed milkman would deliver glass gallons to our door.

We really lived on the edge when I was a child...a true Darwin Family, ensuring that only the most hardy genes were passed along by placing us in all sorts of dangerous situations. I guess it's sort of ironic that I chose not to breed; having survived my upbringing, I have proven an intrinsic hardiness that Charles D. would be proud of, but it won't make it to a new generation.

My favorite childhood endangerment was my mother's bright idea of bathing me in the kitchen sink, right next to a plugged-in toaster. Better yet, she disappeared somewhere in the bowels of the house, leaving me unattended. So what does a bored two-year-old do? Sure...stick their hand into the closest available interesting niche. A toaster...shiny...silver...ooooooo! OWWWWWWW!!!!

Fortunately, my screams roused my older brother. He tried to touch me but got a jolt, so thank goodness he had the presence of mind to unplug the toaster. To this day, I'm still not certain why I wasn't killed. Oddly enough, I still remember the incident, although I don't remember the shock. A burning feeling sticks in my mind, though I have no burn scars on my hand. My brother, of course, has never let me forget that he saved my life. I think my mother showed up at some point, relatively non-plussed at the chaos. Her reaction was to institute a new family rule that the toaster had to be unplugged after every use (my sink-bathing continued unabated).

Recently, I was going through one of my childhood photo albums, and I came upon a picture of my toddler self, naked and sudsy, soaking in the kitchen sink. The infamous toaster lurks in the background, awaiting its opportunity to seduce me. Ah, memories....

My mom also served us raw beef in the form of meatballs; as she was making dinner, she would make a few extra that were given to us kids as a "treat." Thus, I developed a taste for bloody cow flesh that remains with me to this day. When I return to Chicago, I seek out my favorite German restaurant and order hackepeter, i.e. a plate of raw, ground-up filet served with a raw egg on top and a garnish of raw onions. It probably sounds gross unless you are either a) German or b) rather fond of playing Samonella Roulette.

But I am living proof that raw, bacteria-laden food and a little occasional shock therapy are good for the human constitution. In over four decades on this earth, I've never been in the hospital and have enjoyed almost perfect health, save for a variety of annoying allergies. But if that's the worst that I've ever had to deal with, I have no cause for complaint.

In researching sources of raw milk, I discovered that there is actually a whole movement to legalize it again, mainly because of its purported health benefits. Like other raw and organic foods, the milk is supposedly much healthier than its heated and treated counterpart.

I don't know about the health benefits; all I know is that the taste is sheer ecstasy. There are plenty of other things you can buy that are supposedly "bad" for you, from cigarettes to Triple Whoppers with cheese. Hopefully, the day will come when I don't have to buy my raw milk supertiously, sharing my bounty with my felines in order to stay within the letter of the law. In the meantime, I'm just pleased that I can finally indulge my cholesterol craving once again...now, if I could just find a local restaurant that serves hackepeter, my self destructive appetites would once again be complete.

Visit my Celebration, FL website: http://www.celebrationinfo.com

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

The Monkee Mamas

Ah, has it really been three years already? I marveled at the passage of time as I readied myself to join the Mickey Mommas for our annual sojourn to see Davy Jones. Every spring, like a sprightly (if somewhat wrinkled) tulip bulb, Davy pops up on the Epcot stage. And each year, without fail, the Mickey Mommas caravan from Celebration to oogle and swoon at his feet.

This year was no exception; as you can see from the photo above, we had quite a large contingent of Mommas, with more planning to meet us at Epcot. We were all sporting stylish Monkey Hats, courtest of our intrepid leader (wielding the bag in the front row).

We always ensure that we are alcoholically enhanced for the yearly Davy Stalking. Thus, our first stop was the Mexican pavillion to toke up on frozen margaritas. Since we hadn't eaten dinner yet, my next door neighbor and I made a quick pitstop at Britain for fish and chips. The fish and chips are excellent and make a handy mobile meal. We crammed our craws with fish and french fries as we whizzed through World Showcase to catch up with the rest of our crew. We knew it wouldn't be too hard to spot them; how many others at Epcot would be crowned with a rainbow of primate-themed chapeaus?

We caught up with the other Mommas just in time to place our margarita orders. I opted for some sort of blended concoction, consisting of four flavors. I think that kiwi, lime, and strawberry were involved, although I couldn't swear to it. All I know is that it was cold and strong and delicious!

We snagged a prime place in line and milled about expectantly as the last strains of Davy's previous show echoed all around us. Finally, the gates (well, more accurately, ropes) to the Promised Land were cast aside, and we were allowed to enter. Acting as a primal pack with one mind, we made a stampede for the front row. An exasperated cast member shouted at us to walk! Obviously, he had no proper sense of Davy's allure and the lengths through which we would go to achieve the closest possible proximity. Soon enough, we were all seating in the front row on the lefthand side:

While all seemed to be proceeding smoothly, there was a faint undercurrent of unrest. It seems as though one of the Mommas had an "in" with Davy:

Notice the photo on her shirt above, documenting her up-close and personal meeting backstage with Mr. Jones. How would this sit with our Fearless Leader, who jealousy guards Davy for herself each year? She had packed a secret weapon: a matching green monkey hat with which she hoped to divert Davy's attention from his former flame:

Would the bribery ploy work? Or would there be a catfight at the foot of the stage? I began to fear the latter as the performance throttled into high gear. Davy was blatantly flaunting himself at his t-shirt-wearing former fling, and also at my next-door neighbor, with whom he'd had also been flirting last year.

Unable to bear Davy's relentless taunting any longer, our leader lept up and proffered the coveted money hat. As you can tell by his startled deer-in-the-headlights expression, her bold profession of love caught him off-guard ("I thought I told my manager to make sure that the restraining order was still in force and to have her photo posted at every entrance").

Like the good sport he is, Davy donned the hat:

He finished his song in his lovely new green headgear, and afterwards, it inpsired him to launch into a monologue about how he will never escape being a Monkee. Later, the big tease danced with another Momma, but our leader was now assured that it was all an act...she knew that he belonged to her and her alone, and that he wore the mark to prove it.

After the concert, Davy took the hat offstage with him...I won't even speculate on the unholy purposes for which it may have been used.

Afterwards, we all stuck around to watch Illuminations, but the Disney fireworks were anti-climactic after the explosive display between Davy and the Mickey Mommas. I can't even begin to guess how we will top 2007's excursion, but I'm sure our leader will dream up an even better way to get the attention of her Cheeky Monkey in 2008.

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The Quest for Chicago Cuisine

One of the few things I miss about Chicago is the wide variety of regional cuisine. You can get almost anything in Orlando, but there are a few hometown taste treats of which I've never found an equivalent.

Primary among them are real Chicago hot dogs, slid into a steamed bun and topped with onions, relish, cucumbers, and tomatoes (I eschew the traditional squirt of mustard for a blob of ketchup). Then you must top the tantilizing taste treat with a sprinkle of seasoned salt. My favorite hot dog stand is JR's, which also serves a delicious drink with the destructive-sounding name Orange Bang. It tastes as if you mixed Orange Julius with Tang.

Next up is Culvers custard; the chain is not limited to Illinois, but they are as scarce as an unscarred manatee in Florida. Make my poison a serving of chocolate custard, topped with marshmallow sauce and chopped almonds and finished up with a fluffy cloud of whipped cream and a ruby cherry orb.

I also adore real Mexican food. Oh, sure, we have plenty of pseudo-offerings in Florida. I dearly love Chevy's, but the authenticity of their food is about as close as chop suey is to Chinese. I mean, come on, when is the last time that you think a native Mexican villager really tucked into artichoke and portabello quesidillas?

There are plenty of Mexican neighborhoods in and around Chicago where you can sample real south of the border tastes. I usually sneer at chains, but there is one called Pepe's that is actually pretty darned close to genuine. I lust for their stuffed steak tacos (melt cheese between two soft corn tortillas, then cram them with carne asada). They also have the best chili con queso; their version is a delicious red sauce with a consistency just a bit thicker than tomato soup, although the taste is entirely unique. Dip in corn chips or spoon it onto flour tortillas and you will quickly discover that it is chock full of floating cheese chunks. You can feel your ateries solidifying with each bite.

I also have to visit one of the local Japanese steakhouses. I know the Florida residents are rolled their eyes; we have one of those on virtually every street corner here in Tourist Land. The trick is, none of them here in the Sunshine State seem to serve Lard Lobster. The name Lard Lobster was bestowed by my brother to describe a teppan-style lobster tail cooked with a generous portion of egg sauce. The sauce pretty much consists of solid lard infused with egg yolk; they have ambulances standing on call outside and a hotline to the local coronary care units. I know it sounds odd, but it's rather an acquired taste.

And last, but not least by a longshot, is Lawry's. They serve my beloved silver cart prime rib with whipped cream horseradish sauce imported straight down from Heaven. (As I type this, I've noticed a trend...nearly every food that I love is a heart attack on a plate. Oh well, at least I'll keel over with a wide smile on my face and contented tastebuds.)

I had decided to drag my carcass to Chicago for the first time in nearly a year. It would serve a fourfold purpose: to see family and friends; to say "Happy 30th birthday" to my horse; to have a last "practice flight" before I fly to Europe later this year so I could fine-tune my aeronautic Xanax dose; and to go on a gastronomic binge.

I managed to indulge in all of my favorites. Most of them lived up to my memory, although the Orange Bang was nas-tee! It tasted like something prisoners might distill in their cells by fermenting purloined orange juice for a week.

But perhaps the biggest shock was Lawry's. The food was the same as always, but the atmosphere...well, it's hard to put into words, but I half suspected that Randy Quaid as Cousin Eddie had taken over management of the restaurtant.

Lawry's is located in a former mansion, and the setting is truly elegant. Think mirrors and inlays and crystal chandeliers. Once upons a time it was a dress-up occasion, but that has been slowly but surely changing in tandem with the general grunging of society. But still, it retained a measure of stately ambiance.

This time, I felt a vague sense of disquiet soon after we entered. Close to the entrance, in a flea market-esque touch, there was a large table set up with cookbooks and seasoned salt for sale. Not a big deal, but just a little creepy.

We were meeting friends, and once everyone had arrived, we were seated in the main dining room. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the open area between tables was now apparently a toddler play area. The Trashmans, sitting at the table across from us, let little Billy Bob Ray Trashman roll around the floor and run amongst the hot silver meat carts, dodging dish-laden servers and trying his darndest to be taken out of the gene pool. It just wasn't the sort of clientele that I was used to seeing. They were probably letting the kid run amock because the kind of restaurants they usually visit (McDonald's, Chuck E. Cheese's, et. al.) always have a playground. They were probably wondering where the plastic ball pit was.

A while later, I heard the little poster child for ADHD screaming at that piercing level that summons dogs from five miles away and that bursts the eardrums of everyone within 20 yards. I glanced over and saw Mrs. Trailia Trashman holding him. At first, I assumed she was trying to quiet him down, but I quickly realize that she was the one inciting his screams! She was tickling him enthusiastically, causing the ungodly screech to emenate at regular intervals, in rhythm with her finger strokes. Sigh....

Thankfully, the food as as godly as I've come to expect. The service was lacking in some subtle, hard-to-define way...it just didn't have the usual edge of elegance. But I hadn't come for pampering. I had come to scarf down roasted cow smothering in gobs of horseradish-laced whipped cream, and I definitely wasn't disappointed.

On the way out, I stopped in the restroom, accessed by a magnificent sweeping staircase with a beautifully carved polished wood bannister. The restroom itself is larger than my first apartment; it has a lounge area with a couch, and then the toilet area. As I entered, I noticed a woman reclining on the couch with a magazine in hand, looking quite at home. Seemed a little strange, but what the heck. Then, as I entered a stall, I noticed a tray on the sink filled with perfume, Tic Tacs, snack sized candy bars, and Blowpops. Okay.....

I overheard another woman coming out of her stall and realized what was going on. The magazine reader was a restroom attendant, something Lawry's had never had before. I could hear them interacting, and when I stepped out of my stall, the attendant squirted the soap dispenser for me and handed me a paper towel from the dispenser. Not too elegant. If you're going to have attendants, at least have better soap and cloth towels! Do I look so weak that I need someone to pull out a paper towel for me? Puh-leese! Basically, it's a thinly disguised ploy for tips.

Sure, I could have taken advantage of the perfume, but that would conflict with the scent I was already wearing. Maybe a Tic Tac would have been okay, but why the heck would I want a Blow Pop? I mean, come on! I had just finished eating a Chocolate Bag (the signature dessert). Why would I want to sully my tastebuds with a kiddie sucker?

I know the woman was dying to return to her magazine, but she wasn't about to budge until I'd parted with the obligatory dollar. For a moment, I had a flashback to Haiti, where I'd been shaken down in an identical manner, expect that the perfume and candy had been missing in that Third World land.

On the way out, I noticed that a woman had been stationed at the entrance door where she practically pounced on every poor soul who stepped in. "Check your coat? Check your coat?" It was more of a demand than a question, as she virtually blocked their paths until they surrendered their outerwear. Good thing no one tried to enter without a coat, as she probably would have forced them to remove their blouse or shirt!

Outside, as we waited for the valet to retrieve our car, a van pulled up and began to disgorge such a vast stream of humanity that I thought I was watching a clown car. Out popped two adults and half a dozen kids, like some hellish version of the Brady Bunch (they probably hailed from the same trailer park as the Trashmans). I breathed a sigh of relief that we had finished our meal...with my luck, they would have been seated on our other side.

As we escaped to the Pimpin' Family Truckster (my husband's Aztek), I shook my head sadly and made a mental note that I needed to visit Lawry's again very soon. At the rate they are going, I predict that either a) the food is going to plummet downhill along with the atmosphere, so I'd better get one more good meal before that happens; or b) it's under new management on a downhill slide that will culminate in shutting down completely.

It reminded me of Sauzer's, a kiddieland in Indiana that I visited when I was very, very young. At that time, it was a cheerful, well-kept paradise of neon lights and amusement rides. Many years later, I returned with my husband, and it had been transformed into a horrorshow version of itself. To ride the Galaxi roller coaster, you literally had to reach out pull the train along to the lifthill via the support beams. There was a Bamboozler rusting and mouldering in a patch of weeds that I thought was inoperable...till they actually fired it up and loaded people on board! How melancholy to see what a once-beloved place had become.

Lawry's hasn't made it down that far (yet), but I fear that they're on the way. And in the meantime, it's too bad that Sauzer's closed the year after my visit. Otherwise, I could have given directions to the Trashmans and the Clown Car Family. It definitely would have been their kind of place!


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Forever Young

Other than the very last moment when we loaded up Canyonero for our move down to Celebration, I've never questioned whether we made the right choice. Sometimes I miss Chicago in a vague, nostalgic way, but I can't imagine ever leaving Florida and returning permanently to a state of short summers and wicked, wind-whipped winters where gray skies and snowstorms make cabin fever a way of life for almost half the year.

But there is one thing that I sorely miss: My 30-year-old Appaloosa, Cochise. In the past, I've blogged quite a bit about Figment, my younger Appy who I moved to Florida last June. But since 'Chise was in his late 20s when we moved (and has since turned 30), I didn't think that a jouncy, bouncy 1200 mile trailer ride would be good for his old bones.

To give you an idea of how he has changed over the years, here he is in his young, spry days on the left, and three decades old on the right:

As you can see, he's regressed into some sort of wooly mammoth/missing link. He's had trouble shedding his winter coat for a few years now; the vet tested him for thyroid disease, but it came up clean. I guess he's just like one of those shivering senior citizens who always wear a sweater, even in the sweltering heat of July.

Cochise has been my pride and joy since I was 16. My mother wasn't a supportive type (mostly, she just wasn't present at all), so around the age of 12 or 13 I figured out how to get to a riding stable via a string of three buses and a 1.5 mile walk. I babysat and did housecleaning for the neighbors in order to fund a weekly trail riding "fix."

By the time I was 16, I got in a school work program and managed to save enough to buy my very own horse and to swing the board, shoe, and vet bills each month. Since my father had passed away years before, and my mother was in her own chemically enhanced universe that didn't include the bother of child-rearing, 'Chise gave me something positive to focus on. I couldn't have asked for a better horse; he did everything I ever asked of him. Where it was jumping in the showring or cross country.....

Or hopping fences in the corral for fun, or gearing up for a trail ride.....

Or showing off at a parade.....

.....Cochise was my loyal companion. We muddled together through my teenage years, through the big leap when I escaped the bedlam of my mother's house to strike out on my own, and through my young adulthood and eventual marriage (I warned my husband up front that horses in general, and Cochise in particular, were part of an unnegotiable package deal). Through all of that, 'Chise was my best friend, loyal riding partner, and therapist/stress management specialist. We spent countless hours traversing miles of woodland and open fields. Stress slipped away from my psyche as we galloped top speed down endless straightaways. I rarely rode him with a saddle, so we shared one mind and almost one body as his muscles pulsed beneath me, hooves churning the dirt and his mane rippling and waving like a flag in the wind.

He was four years old when I bought him; somehow the years slipped by like the pages of a novel that you can't put down because you're so immersed in enjoyment...then, all too suddenly, you realize that you've almost reached the end. How can 'Chise be 30 already? Wasn't it just yesterday that I braided his mane for a show or hopped aboard bareback for a day on the trails? Where did that carefree teenager go who was so unconcerned with mortality that she and her steed leaped over picnic tables like a sturdy bay Pegasus with a wraith perched over its wither? I look back at the old photographs, then look at Cochise now and glance into the mirror...who is this shaggy old equine and this chubby woman, both of whom have way too many gray hairs and too few years ahead?

Actually, with any luck, I'm only halfway through my life, but 'Chise is living on borrowed time. It's pretty rare for a horse to make it into its 30s, so he's currently the equivalent of an equine centarian. It breaks my heart that he lives 1200 miles away, but I also know how guilty I would feel if I tried to ship him down to Florida and he didn't survive the trip, or if I brought him down and he died shortly thereafter.

At the moment, he lives at the barn where I've boarded him for over two decades. Over the years, the barn owners have had a parade of their own equines, but he's always been the only boarder (other than Figment). Sadly, the last of their horses died last December, so now 'Chise is flying solo.

Generally, while I'm in Florida, I try to put him out of my mind. I know that he is fed well, has a warm, clean stall, and is turned out regularly in a half acre corral. He gets a semi-regular hoof "pedicure" and a vetting every spring. The only thing lacking is equine companionship (which, oddly enough, he doesn't seem to miss) and lavish human attention (vs. just the basics). I try to justify it to myself by saying, "Well, after all, he's retired. He's probably quite happy plodding through the same old routine that he's known most of his life. Sure, he'd like some coddling, but it wouldn't be worth two days bouncing in a horse trailer, only to arrive in an environmental oven of 90 degree-plus days."

Since I hadn't visited Chicago in nearly a year, it wasn't too hard to keep my guilt on the back burner. But now that I returned for a visit, all the old emotions came flooding back. When I arrived, the barn owners were out so 'Chise was confined to his stall, munching contentedly on a pile of hay. It hit me hard to see the others stalls all converted into storage space; over the years, I came to love the barn owners' horses as much as my own, so to see them gone so permanently was a blow. Granted, I know that they all lived happy lives and died at relatively ripe old ages, but I still felt a deep pang of pain. It was like seeing the ghosts of an era gone by...my husband and I spent so many happy Saturdays riding 'Chise and Serenity (a big, high-spirited Saddlebred who was dumb as a box of rocks but who had a puppydog personality). Serenity thought he belonged to my hubby and would cuddle up for a carrot and a "massage" with the soft brush. We'd head out into the forest preserve and to the straightaway by the lakes, our eager mounts tensed for the signal to run. We'd trot down the trails, enjoying the ever-changling tableau of the seasons...the explosion of green in the springtime, the rainbow burst of flowers in the summer, and the earth-toned hue of Nature's fall paintrush...until finally, winter rendered the landscape barren until it surrendered to spring once again.

But now Serenity, that silly, sweet Saddlebred, was gone. It was quite ironic, since he was a few years younger than Cochise. I patted my old man, thankful that he was still alive and healthy.

'Chise was more interested in carrots than sentiment, so I dropped a two pound bag into his feedbox. It took him a while to consume them, due to a dwindling number of teeth, but he made sure not to leave a crumb.

As he ate, I worked on his neglected coat, which seemed thick enough to survive a Siberian winter. He had already started to shed, so I removed as much of the loose hair as possible. In some areas, I could see a semblence of the Appaloosa that I knew lay buried beneath the hair. But his belly, legs, and neck were hopeless, so I finally threw in the towel, satisfied he look at least 20% more civilized than when I had started. I also brushed and trimmed his mane as best as I could, removing the worst of the knots.

Then I took him outside for some photos. I figured I could turn him loose to graze on the lawn and get some candid shots. I had removed his halter because it had rubbed a raw patch on his nose, but I didn't think it would matter. After all, I do that with Figment all the time. He's a very good boy...I cut him loose in a grassy patch while I put away my tack or take care of other chores, and when I'm ready, he stands like a rock while I retrieve him. Besides, at the age of 30, just how far or fast could 'Chise go if he decided to run?

I sure found out!

'Chise has always been the sort who takes full advantage of liberty. I usually brag that he's a better horse than Figment, but he reminded me that it's not true when it comes to handling without a halter and lead rope. He started off grazing peacefully till he realized that he was halterless and outside the fence. With more fire than I could ever have imagined, he galloped down to the other end of the property. I managed to retrieve him with the help of some treats, but as soon as I let him loose again, he was up to the same trick.

I knew he wouldn't go far, so I managed to get my photos and then lured him with more food and looped a leadrope around his neck. He grudgingly surrendered to my control and I returned him to his stall.

After being separated for nearly a year, it was good to see that he seemed relatively happy. But it pained my heart, too; even though he was well-fed and healthy, it was apparent that no one was giving him that extra love and attention on a regular basis. It made me think of the horses where I board Figment. You can easily spot the ones whose "Mamas" visit them frequently. Like Figgie, they have shiny, well-groomed coats and a contented look in their eyes. The ones whose owners rarely appear stand forlornly at the fence, watching the others get babied. Their coats have an unkempt air and they exude an aura of loneliness.

'Chise seems happy enough, but that little spark seems to be missing (or at least my paranoid mind tells me so). I don't know if bringing him to Florida is the best option, but perhaps it would help to visit him more often. Just a good grooming once a month or so, coupled with half an hour of grazing on the green lawn at the end of a leadrope might enhance his twilight years.

In the meantime, you can see that he's not suffering too badly. He may be a hairy mess, but he's still got a smile for his Mom.

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The Great American Pie Festival Revisited

Every April in Celebration, if you head dowtown on the right weekend, you'll find people staggering around in the throes of sugar intoxication. If you crane your ear, you'll be able to interpret their pained mumblings: "No more pie...please, no more pie!" But there is no escape for the weary...the creamy and crusty delights surround them on every side. Once you have entered the Endless Pie Buffet, a highlight of the annual Great American Pie Festival, you won't be allowed to leave until you have gone up at least one pants size and/or until your blood sugar level meets diabetic standards.

Last year, I volunteered at the buffet, handing out baked goods to hungry fest-goers (and imbibing in no small quantity myself). This year was a little different, as I worked at the hotel where the Crisco National Pie Championship competition was being held.

On the Celebration end of things, besides the Coneheads-style consumption of mass quantities, there is also entertainment such as pie juggling, games and crafts for the kids, and of course a pie eating contest. But things are much more serious on the competitive end...amateurs and pros alike vie for monetary prizes, prestige, and an appearance on the Food Network.

The compeitive categories are intriguing; they run the gamut from mundane (e.g. apple, cream, fruit/berry) to the more intriguing and creative (holiday, Splenda, and "open," i.e. let your imagination run wild).

My volunteer duties put me in the thick of all those pies...literally. I reported for duty at the Sheraton Safari hotel and was assigned to serve as one of six pie cutters. This meant that I hovered at my station, equipped with a cutting board, knife, pie serving spatula, pitcher of hot water to rinse the implements, and paper towls for between-pie wipedowns. Volunteers working the judges' tables would plop down a pie, which I did my best not to mangle and massacre as I hacked out a hunk.

Since the table-workers would bring their pie to any available cutter, I ended up chopping through every category, from firm, lovely, easy-to-cut creations to sloppy, disintegrating tins of pudding and Cool Whip that melted into soupy masses on sight.

At first, I was terrified. I've never ranked high on the manual dexterity scale, and adding a sharp implement into the mix seemed like a recipe for disaster. Would my pies look like they had been cut with all the finesse of a lobotomized surgeon on crack? Would I be the only volunteer ever fired at the Pie Fest? I gulped down my paranoia and plunged into my work.

Thankfully, while I doubt that I'll win any awards for pie-cutting prowess, I managed to do a halfway decent job. Soon, I could tell by sight whether a pie would be a pleasure to cut or whether it was likely to collapse into a crusty heap at the first touch of my blade. The absolute worst was a chocolate cream creation that literally melted into soup the moment it was cut. A close second on the challenge scale were the pies that had been over-baked, melding their crusts to the bottom of the pan as though they had been secured with Super Glue.

Pumpkin and sweet potato weren't too bad, nor were most of the traditional fruit varities. Cream pies were sometimes iffy, although generally not too bad. The pecan pies could be a challenge, and the fruity works of art (usually strawberry) with mounds of berries piled on top were usually a nightmare. No matter how carefully you tried to carve them, there was always an inevitable avalance of fruit.

Some of the pies were such breathtaking works of art that it seemed almost criminal to cut them. They were festooned with everything from candy pirate coins to chocolate and nut mice (on a mousse pie, course). The talent and imagination was amazing.

I was happy that I'd chosen to work "behind the scenes," as working a table required mental abilities that are well beyond my bushed brain on a typical weekend morning. You had to find specific pies on racks and in coolers, keep track of numbers, put the pies back in their original spot after judging, collect score cards, etc...ugh! I enjoyed my mindless route of hack, rinse/wipe, hack, rinse/wipe, hack, rinse/wipe, and so on....

At some point, we started cutting small pieces of the most appealing creations after they were judged and passing them among the cutters and the table workers. I sampled a small bite of everything from apple (LOTS of apple) to berry to key lime to pumpkin. My personal favorites were a sweet potato pie topped with toasted marshmallows and a berry/rhubard mix (I am a rhubarb fanatic). But alas, there was no "Volunteers' Choice" category, so their creators will go unrewarded unless they capture official titles.

The judges were an eclectic mix...everything from professional chefs and food critics to Miss Michigan Apple (I'm probably massacring her title, but her crown was impressive). Their tables were equipped with water and oyster crackers for between-pie palate cleansing as they imbibed in a continuous flow of crusty creations. By the end of the day, they were surely on a sugar high that would still have them bouncing off the walls come midnight.

As a volunteer, you receive a free ticket to the Endless Pie Buffet back in Celebration, but by the time my shift was over, I never wanted to see another pie for another year. In a way, it had been better than the buffet, where virtually all of the booths hand out full-sized slices. I prefer to sample tiny bites because then my stamina lasts much longer and I experience a wider variety of tastes. Also, at the buffet, you don't get to experience desserts with monikers like "Coco-Nutty Citrus Pirates Dream Treasure" or "Chunky Monkey Swinging Jungle Jam."

Now, pie fest is almost over for another year (it wraps up tomorrow), but I don't think I'll come down from my sugar buzz till then anyway. And if I want to reprise my memories, I'll pay a visit to Perkins and then tune in to the Food Network in November, when it will be televised, while grasping a glob of French Silk in one hand, pumpkin in the other, and apple crumble at the side in my own simulation of the Endless Pie Buffet.

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The Writing Nomads of Celebation

I know it probably sounds unbelievable, but I have a love of writing. One of my earliest memories is wandering through the basement of our cookie-cutter Chicago bungalow, telling myself detailed stories starring our cat, Fluffy. My imagination had transformed him into Super Fluffy, a fearless feline superhero. I was probably all of three at the time, since poor Fluffy disappeared by the time I turned four...most likely a road-pizza-ed victim of the crazed Chicago drivers.

I had a set of old-fashioned wooden blocks, and in my mind they transformed into a cast of colorful characters. The yellow triangles were birds, the rectangles with a half-moon cut out were horses. The rounded "sticks" were cats. The rest of the pieces were used to construct elaborate settings for long, rambling tales that I acted out on the living room carpet. Anyone viewing the jumble would have seen precarious and disorderly block stacks; in my mind, they were far-away kingdoms full of dazzling adventure. The plots are lost to antiquity, as I was much too young to be able to write them down.

As I grew older, I realized that people could actually get paid to write. While most little girls played with Barbies and Easy Bake Ovens, I pecked away on a second-hand typewriter, spinning long, fantastic yarns about cats and horses (the birds were dropped from the cast when I switched mediums from blocks to ink).

I sold my first newspaper article while still in high school, and soon I was selling a steady string of horse training pieces to "Horse Illustated" (a journalistic sibling of "Cat Fancy" and "Dog Fancy") and other equestrian publications. I did some news stringing for a Chicago daily, too, and became a reporter, columnist, and eventually editor of a bi-monthly community newspaper.

I put my freelancing on hold when I got a job in corporate communications. That morphed into a career in training and development, and my writing got shoved off to simmer on the back burner. Still, I knew that someday it would return to a place of prominence in my life. The well of words never went dry in my brain; it simply had no spigot for the past decade, but now I was ready to tap in again.

Coincidentally, a fellow Celebration resident decided to start a writers' group. I joined in, figuring that a structured focus on writing would help me gingerly dip my toes back into the stream of creativity. I had some ideas for the horse magazines, so I thought that the club would be a great way for me to make a commitment to complete and submit some articles.

The club has been going strong for two months now, albeit with an interesting challenge. Much like the wandering tribes of Israel, the Celebration Creative Writers' Club wanders the "desert" of our fair town in search of a permanent Promised Land.

We started off at one of the two coffee shops for our first meeting, then tried out the second one for a comparison. While they both offered comfortable quarters, it was hard to read out loud with the constant flow of traffic. Thankfully, we all write in relatively benign genres, but I can just imagine the reaction of the caffeine-seekers in anyone had specialized in something like erotic fiction: "He tore the bodice from her heaving, sweat beaded bosom, cupping the buttery buds in his hands and burying his face in their fullness...." (You get the idea.)

Next up, we met twice in the local bookstore. It worked out well, although we were still reading out loud in public (there was less foot traffic than the coffee shops). But during the second meeting, Mr. and Mrs. Beezlebub came in with their brood of satanic spawn, who proceeded to create aural mayhem for the next half hour. With our ears ringing, we agreed that we'd look for quieter, more private quarters next time.

This Wednesday, our meeting was slated for the Celebration Foundation office. They make it available for community groups, and since it was in the evening, we'd be the only ones there. I met up with a fellow member and we headed off to building by Seito (the Japanese restaurant on Front Street) where both of us believed the Foundation was located. The first scary sign was that the door was locked...hmmmmmmm. The second ominous indication was that the name "Celebration Foundation" had been scratched off the signplate. Apparently the Foundation is just as nomadic as the Celebration Creative Writers.

My friend dialed the Foundation phone number, hoping that they might have a recording with their address. No dice. We walked down to Town Hall, thinking perhaps someone might be around to direct us to the proper location. No dice there, either, but a quick phone call to my husband revealed that the new location was on Sycamore Street. My cell phone lost signal before he could give me the address, but Sycamore was right around the corner. Sure enough, as we rounded the bend, the other members of the group were waiting in the doorway.

We managed to have our meeting, but the leader of our group said that getting the key had been a marathon process. Thus it looks like our traveling gypsy band will be moving on to a new location two weeks hence.

Oh well, writers are adaptable people. It doesn't matter where we meet, as long as we get together somewhere. The group has been very rewarding for me; since we started, I've actually sent out my first query letter in a decade and a half and got an article assignment out of it. But the nice thing about our group is that it is made up of people with all sorts of ambitions, from writing for fun to commercial sales, in a wide variety of genres from mystery to horror to general fiction and, of course, non-fiction. At the meetings, we each share a tip and then read a sample of our writing (new or old) for the rest of the group to critique. It's a fun and supportive atmosphere,

If you live in Celebration (or the surrounding environs) and want to join, we'd be glad to have you as everyone is welcome! Just one little challenge...I can tell you when but not where. Oh well, by this time next week I'm confident that the Writing Nomads will know their next "campsite" and the creativity will continue, no matter where we rest our rumps.

Don't Pee in the Palmettos

There are many wise adages regarding the topic of tinkling. For example:

-Don't whiz on the electric fence

-Don't eat yellow snow

This weekend, I learned another one quite personally and graphically:

-Don't pee in the palmettos

It all started at the Lake Louisa State Park Trail Obstacle Challenge. This bi-annual event consists of ten items to be negotiated by horse and human. They change from year to year; the current course included (in no particular order):

-A pinwheel of railroad ties to step over

-Poles with tennis balls on top, to be woven through without touching a pole

-A tipping teeter-totter to ride over

-Logs to ride over and a ribbon to tie onto a tree

-Barrels to back up between

-A mattress to ride over

-A giant puddle to ride through

-A rope gate to open, ride through, and close

-Giant timbers forming a "bridge" to ride over

-Hanging pool noodles to ride through

Below are photos of Figment and I negotiating the poles and the tree-tie:

Even though Figgie and I ride through the state park nearly every day, I had no idea how he'd react to the various foreign objects that had suddenly invaded his tranquil territory. Last year, I had planned to ride in the October challenge, but Figgie colicked the morning of the event. For those not familiar with equine illness, that means a massive horsey bellyache. In the worst case scenario, it can be fatal so it's nothing to play around with. Fortunately, a dose of Banamine brought him back around, but it was too late to go on the ride.

But the day before the October event, we had moseyed out on the trails for a sneak preview. You can't ride on the obstacles beforehand, but you can take a look at them. Figment didn't give a hoot about the obstacles themselves; no, my big, brave trail horse had melted down at the white plastic chairs that were placed out for the judges! I had to dismount and lead him gingerly to the Seats of Certain Horsey Doom. I sat in one of the chairs, flailed my arms all over it, and even picked it up. Eventually, he realized that it wasn't ripping me from limb to limb, so perhaps it was also safe for apoplectic Appaloosas to approach.

This year, I hoped he'd remember the benign nature of the chairs so he could concentrate on the real obstacles. Actually, the thing that worried me the most was how he would react to the sudden appearance of dozens of trailers, campers, and tents, as well as a hundred strange horses, in the normally tranquil environs of Lake Louisa. Fortunately, I was riding with the barn owner and her unflappable old mare, Queenie. I was hoping that Queenie's calmness would rub off on my excitable young Appy.

I had bathed Figgie the day before with his special fru-fru shampoo; it's a pink concoction called Pampered Pony or some-such silly moniker. Supposedly it's watermelon scented, but the aroma is no match for those old barnyard standards: Sweaty Horse and Eau de Manure. Still, when I was done, his white rump glowed like a big, hairy beacon of equine good grooming. I brushed his mane and tail into a flaxen shine and crossed my fingers, hoping that he wouldn't roll in the muck the moment I set him loose.

By the next morning he had, indeed, rolled, but thankfully the damage wasn't too God-awful. I arrived at the barn early to brush him out; one of our riding group had checked us in already, so we were slated to start the course at 10:45.

Lake Louisa State Park is right across the street from the boarding barn. Figgie approached non-chalantly, still blissfully unaware of the amazing transformation looming just ahead. Suddenly he stopped dead and his eyes bulged as big as two liquid brown balloons. There were tons of trailers and tents! A verticable covey of campers! Hordes and hordes of humans! And, most exciting of all, a huge herd of horses!

Queenie glanced over at him as if to say, "What's wrong with you?" Feeding off her indifference, Figment decided that perhaps it was safe to do some exploring. His ears were forward and his nostrils were flared as we negotiated the crowd, but fortunately he refrained from flipping into a meltdown.

We met the rest of our group, and at 10:45 we set off on the six-mile course. Figment was a little confused at the way in which the trails had been transformed. Soon, however, he was acting like an old pro. Usually he likes to hang behind, but midway through the course he decided that he didn't mind being the leader. His ears were pricked forward in full equine radar mode as he eagerly scouted out each obstacle.

The only one he refused was the innocuous-seeming rope gate. To human eyes, it was simple: Unlatch the rope from one of the poles, ride between them, and relatch it. But in horsey perception, a thick, orange rope bears way too much resemblance to a commonly-used type of electrified fence tape. Figment couldn't figure out why I wanted to maneuver him so close to the Danger Zone. For 90 seconds (the time limit), I tried in vain to convince him that it was safe, while he was apparently equally devoted to protecting me from a shock.

Oh well, nine out of ten wasn't bad, considering that it was our first-ever try. I was especially pleased that Figgie backed up between the barrels; that was the one obstacle that I was firmly convinced we'd blow. Queenie, the barn owner's horse, did so well that she won third place.

But even though the obstacles went smoothly, I ended up making my own adventure. Halfway through the course, I realized that I had to pee. I mean, I really, really had to pee; there was no way I'd make it through five more obstacles without soaking my saddle. But I didn't relish the thought of bluntly announcing my base bodily need to the rest of the group.

Fortunately, as we approached the next challenge (riding your horse over a mattress), I noticed that there was a horse trough and bottled water just beyond. I figured I could do the obstacle first, then rush over to the rest area, pee in the surrounding screen of palmettos, and be done by the time the rest of the group arrived. We'd all be dismounting anyway to get a bottle of water, so I wouldn't be holding them up. With any luck, they might not even realize that I'd been off tinkling among the trees.

Figgie gingerly bounced across the mattress, and I rushed around the corner to complete my dirty deed. I tied him to a tree, then slipped off to pee in the privacy of the palmetto screen. Unfortunately, I didn't factor in two important items: 1) Saw palmettos got their name for a reason; their leaves are as sharp as a freakin' Ginsu knife; and 2) To a horse, the loud rustle of palmetto leaves translates to vicious wild animal approaching...run!

Apparently, when I disappeared among the loud and all-engulfing shrubbery, Figgie decided that I had been devoured by some stealthy and ravenous creature. The continued rustling convinced him that it was coming for him next. He promptly broke loose and galloped off to the safety of the herd, still gathered at the obstacle.

All eyes were on the palmetto privy as I emerged. So much for a private pee! Now, not only my group knew, but also the judges at the obstacle. I confessed my dirty deed to the group as I reclaimed my horse. Worse yet, the reins had broken, so I had to tie them on precariously to make it through the rest of the ride. After remounting, I noticed that the leaves had sliced my finger as neatly as a knife blade, and it was now dripping with blood. Later in the day, I found a long, gory gash on my leg, too.

The rest of the ride went without incident, other than Figgie keeping a nervous eye on the palmettos that line the trail. My bladder was relieved, but at quite an embarrassing price. I'm already planning to ride in the October trail challenge, but you can rest assured: If I need to tinkle on the trail, it will not be in a palmetto patch!

Rap Cat Gets a Bad Rap

Let me preface this blog entry by saying that I am against animal abuse in any way, shape, or form. All three of my cats have a traumatic backstory (and Tooncinator alone proves my devotion to my pets...being feral, he has bit me to the bone at least twice, but we still let him live his Howard Hughes-like existence hiding under the bed 90% of the time counting toenail clippings). I am paying the board on a 30-year-old retired horse because I believe that animals are a lifetime commitment. My bird, Bradley, roams the house wild and free because I believe that caging 100 percent of the time is cruel.

But with all that being said, I just couldn't get myself fired up about allegations from Hillsborough Animal Services that the Rap Cat cat-in-a-bag promotion is cruel and a potential felony.

Yes, those yahoos actually believe that putting a paper sack on your cat is a felony! So do people who force Fifi into one of those lame pink doggie ballet outfits get the death penalty in Hillsborough?

Basically, what Checkers/Rallys is doing is printing a Rap Cat jersey on their bags, with instructions on how to cloth your kitty. Then, you take a photo or video and send it to them for possible inclusion on their website. Cute idea, right? I mean, cats crawl into bags on their own all the time, and if they get pissed at the prospect, the flimsy paper "jersey" is going to rip.

But the publicity-hungry folks in Hillsborough apparently crafted a press release that piqued a lot of interest among a media tired of the ongoing Anne Nicole circus of the bizarre. Click here to read the story in a new window; the video coverage was much more pathetic. It featured clips of pissed-off cats ripped off directly from YouTube. Pretty sad when the National Enquirer puts more effort into their research than Fox Orlando and its brethern.

We have wars, starvation, and poverty among humans, and cases of real animal cruelty where helpless critters are starved, beaten, dragged, shot, and God only knows what else. But in Hillsborough County, apparently their biggest cat-related worry is that some sick-minded felon to be will actually cloth Kitty in a paper sack. Appalling! Hang the bastard! And God forbid, don't force your cat into a flea bath or cram it into a carrier for a trip to the vet. If a Checkers bag is so abusive that it makes the national news, those things are probably grounds for an immediate lynching.

And what about me? Am I living on the edge of lawlessness with my own kitties? I most definitely would cram them (well, not Tooncinator) into Rap Cat costumes, save for one tiny detail: Checkers sacks don't come in Extra Portly Feline size.

The Return of Rap Cat

When you move 1200 miles from your original home state, there are many things to get used to: climate changes/weather differences, the absence or abundance of different plant, animal and insect life, driving laws, accents, and various forms of culture shock.

For me, some of the biggest were: learning to deal with sweet tea (pre-sweetened iced tea), which is a Southern staple but which I cannot stand; I receive it at restaurants roughly 50% of the time, even when I emphatically order unsweetened; preparing annually for hurricane season; becoming indifferent to the abundance of mini frogs and lizards (the true mark of a tourist is shouts of, "Oh look at those cute little things!!"; and learned to say, "We don't have roaches. Those are palmetto bugs."

But another big adjustment lies in new brand names and regional advertising. I have learned to accept Publix supermarkets and Race Trac gasoline, but I am still adjusting to some of the more unnerving examples. The worst is Appliance Direct, a local chain of appliance stores. They run both short and infomercial-length commercials which consist mostly of shouting their name while galavanting among a forest of fridges, stoves, washers, and the like.

I guess their advertising is effective in an annoying and brain-searing sort of way; we bought our washer and dryer there and were actually quite pleased with our experience. But still, their ads induce a primal survivial instinct in most Central Floridians; I, too, have learned to drown them out automatically.

It's not any worse here than in Chicago, where veterans of the late 70s/early 80s will surely remember Timmy of Long Chevrolet fame. This urchin newsboy from Hell heralded all their commercials with an annoying cry of, "Extra, Extra!" while wielding a shief of phone newspapers. Usually he yelled a headline like "Long Chevrolet announced big sale!" or some other such brainwashing drivel. He horrified an entire generation of Chicagoans until he finally got his comeuppance...one day the headline was "Kid gets pie in face," and the climax of the commercial was annoying little Timmy getting a big, creamy one in the puss.

Here in Florida, we're subjected to the likes of a bull terrier named "Mr. Incredible," advertising Toyotas (I think), but unlike Timmy, he just sits there quietly on the hood of a car while the huamns blather.

There is one regional ad that made the move to Celebration worth it all on its own: Rap Cat. Actually, the rapping feline isn't limited to Florida; he's featured on Checkers and Rally commercials, so you can see him in a variety of states. He burst onto the scene last fall, fascinating me with what was apparently a rap version of the Meow Mix catfood song. If you'd like to see what I'm talking about, click here to open Rap Cat's MySpace profile and view his commercial in a new window. Be patient, as the good part doesn't come till the end.

Rap Cat drives my husband insane, but to me he's one of those things that's so annoying that you just have to embrace it, sort of like those hamster-looking things that used to sing shrilly in praise of Quizono's pepper bar.

Rap Cat was absent from the airwaves for a while, but now he's make a triumphant return. Checkers is putting together a website, www.rap-cat.com, although most of it is still under construction. It looks like they're going to have merchandise and ringtones, so I expect to soon have a Rap Cat doll and to have my cell phone chant "Meow meow meow meow..." rhythmically whenever I have a call (hopefully to the horror of all those around me).

I don't eat at Checkers myself (any inkling I might have had to do so ended with a brutal murder a couple years ago at the Checkers just outside of Celebration...instead of bacon cheeseburgers, the chain brings me visions of a poor, innocent grandma being shot through the drive-through window). But from what I've seen on YouTube, their current bags double as Rap Cat costumes that you can put on your cat; if you videotape its performance, you can send it in for possible fame on their website. Maybe I'll have to overcome my aversion temporarily in order to get some "clothing" for Stitch and Farquaad.

If you come from an unfortunately state where Rally's and Checker's don't have a presence, be sure you fit some TV time in around your trip to Disney World. I promise you, once you see him, you will never get his trademark rap out of your head.

Is This Illinois or Florida?!

Lately, the weather here in Central Florida has been pretty darned close to winter in Chicago. We've had freeze warnings several nights this week. Yes, freeze warnings, i.e. the temps. have been dipping below 32 degrees. Brrrrrr! I never want to hear the words freeze and Florida uttered in the same sentence, unless it's in the context of "Freezes never occur in Central Florida."

But sadly, those words are not true, and my thinned-out Floridian blood has been causing me to shiver and pile on the layered clothing whenever I go out at night. I have a couple of jackets, but nothing thick enough to ward off temps. in the 30s and 40s. I know that I need to buy one, but I am stuck in some sort of stubborn denial. Perhaps I should buy one; for all I know, I'm the reason for all this freezin'. After all, I've learned through trial and error that I can ward off rain simply by carrying an umbrella with me. If I leave it in the care, telling myself, "Those dark clouds don't mean a thing," I'll inevitably get caught in a downpour. If I grab the umbrella, it will stay dry as a bone, even if the clouds are pitch black.

Following that same theory, maybe I just need to buy a winter coat. If I buy it, no doubt I'll never need to use it, and that would definitely be worth the investment.

The really sad thing is that I'm not only hearing the word freeze but also that obscene phrase wind chill. A wind chill here in Celebration?! Has the world gone mad?! But supposedly we've got one in the 20s tonight...again, something more suited for Chicago.

Of course, I was foolish enough to buy a few flats of flowers two weeks ago. I lovingly planted them around Duloc Manor, thinking that I was in the clear. Now, I've been out for several nights straight, covering the ones in the flower beds and hauling in the others that I planted in pots. So far they've all survived, but they're in for another round of freezing tonight, and I don't know how much more their delicate constitutions can take.

My husband proved that he is certifiably insane the other night...he actually suggested that we go into the hot tub!!! Worse yet, I am probably crazier than him because I took him up on it. We've both been so busy with work that we haven't made it out into the bubbly, therapeutic water in ages. Finally we had a quiet evening, so he enticed me out into the yard, wrapped like a mummy in a robe and towel. I unwrapped my cloth "bandages" and sprinted into the hot tub in record breaking time. Once you're in, the hundred degree water negates the cold outside. Problem is, there is a physics rule that states: What goes in must come out. Ugh!!!!

After putting off the inevitable as long as possible, I lept up from the water, launched myself down the steps, and galloped into the back door like an Olympic sprinter. Yes, the soak and jet message was worth it...but just barely.

Over the next week the temps. are supposed to slowly but surely climb back up to normal. In the meantime, I am tolerating the deep freeze by repeating my new meditation mantra: "Chicago is single digits...Chicago is single digits..." That mantra never fails to remind me that freezing is all a matter of perspective.