Fireworks and Seagulls

Here in Celebration, the Fourth of July is a throwback to small-town festivities of yesteryear. It typically starts off with a cheesy hometown parade, followed by downtown activities and capped with a fireworks blow-out over the lake.

Nostalgia usually places such events sometime between the 1940s and 60s, but this year it jumped ahead in time: Our theme was the 1980s.

While some residents scratched their heads over what the era of Alf, Rubiks Cube, and hair bands has to do with patriotism and independence, overall it seemed well received.

The big capper of the weekend was a concert by A Flock of Seagulls, mainly (perhaps entirely) known for their song, "I Ran (So Far Away)." It's running through your head now, isn't it?! Or at least it is if you're in a certain age group.

Back in the 1980s, lead singer Mike Score was well known for the whoosh of blonde hair spilling over his forehead. Unfortunately, current photos show that nowadays the last remaining hair is waging a valiant battle against baldness. The only territory it seems to have managed to retain is the back of his head. A victorious pony tail hangs from beneath a ball cap, diverting attention from areas of the battleground that were claimed by the troops of male pattern baldness.

Also, the band isn't quite a flock of seagulls any longer. Mike is the only remaining original member, so it might be more aptly titled One Seagull and Some Pigeons.

Still, it was intriguing to have an 80s band headlining in our little town. Unfortunately, I missed the concert because Mother Nature decided to make up for our early summer drought with a midafternoon/early evening deluge.

We had gone over to a friend's house for a little pre-fireworks party. We had all hoped to walk downtown together, leaving early enough to catch some of the concert and to stake out a good spot to watch the fireworks on the lawn at Lakeside Park. Driving downtown on the 4th is a good way to have yourself certified insane; even with shuttle buses, it's typically a parking nightmare. We're only 20 minutes away via the boardwalks, so we planned to hike en masse.

Sadly, the storm clouds impeded our plans. Not too long before we had planned to leave, the heavens let loose with a wall of water. When it slowed down, most of the party-goers headed out with their plans up in the air based on which way the weather went.

We went home since I had some work to do, planning to wait until 9 p.m. to make our "now or never decision." Since the fireworks were scheduled to start at 9:30, that would give us enough time to get downtown and stake out a spot. Rather than going to Lakeside, we figured we would just hang out across the lake from the backside of the hotel.

At 9 it was barely drizzling, so we decided to risk it. We were the only ones on the boardwalk, which seemed a little odd as it's usually pretty packed with fellow residents on festival nights. My husband predicted that many had chosen to drive despite the sheer insanity of that decision. Sure enough, when we reached Lake Evalyn, there were packs of people parking on the narrow streets. Residents know that it's a quick walk downtown from Lake Evalyn if you take the boardwalk, so they had swarmed the area.

We took our spots and watched as the mass of humanity grew. I don't know how many people were downtown, but it seemed that all those who'd been driven away from the main festivities by the rain had now swarmed out for the fireworks. The darkness was broken by an eerie glow of blue and yellow cast by the dozens of children wearing glow necklaces.

9:30 came and went with no explosions. 9:35...9:40...9:45...the clock ticked away as the restless crowd shifted around and slapped at the ravenous mosquitos that must have seen as as a human buffet. I decided that if the show didn't start by ten, I was going to head home before I succumbed to anemia.

Finally, at 9:50 an abrupt BOOM signaled that the show was on! My husband and I watched in awe as the sky filled with color and sparks descended like fiery sprinkles over the lake. Nearby, I heard a cell phone ring, and someone launched right into a conversation despite the deafening booms and bangs. I wondered how she could hear the person on the other end and what was so important that it couldn't wait 20 minutes. Was it really worth missing the spectacular in the sky to plan what restaurant you're going to over the weekend?

My thoughts drifted back to the theme. Back in the 1980s, people weren't tethered electronically to cell phones and Crackberries and the internet. At the time "I Ran" was popular, I had just graduated high school; although I had ambitions, I could never have guessed my future job because it literally didn't exist at that time.

Now here I was in Florida, in a town that didn't exist back then either. Just as I couldn't have imagined my future job, I could never have known that I'd live in a place called Celebration. It made me ponder what the next two decades might bring and where I would be standing on July 4th 2027, celebrating a retro theme "Return to the 2000's."

After the display we headed home, following a wall of humanity that dissipated magically when we reached Lake Evalyn. Our path was farther, out into the wilds of East Village. Malfunctioning path lights and the heavy air that had trapped the firework smoke like fog in a layer so thick I could barely see two feet in front of me turned a leisurely walk into something that felt like a Grade B horror movie. The lights that usually marked our way were completely off, and the swamp critters put on their own concert of squeaks, groans, grunts and chirrups as we blindly followed the concrete.

Finally we spotted lights from a house at the end of the path. We were nearly home! We had made it through the fog, and Duloc Manor was within striking distance. I sighed with relief to see the familiar pool and park.

We made it home by 10:30, so I snapped on the TV and found a fireworks display in Boston. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen; if some people here in Celebration thought the 80s was an off-kilter theme, the Boston presentation was way off the map in weirdness. There was everything from "Unchained Melody" to the type of shit-kickin', boot-stompin' caphony that makes me lunge for the remote. Strangest of all was the Sesame Street theme, accompanied by fireworks in the shape of alphabet blocks, smiley faces, and the numbers 1, 2 and 3. That gets old after about the first three repeitions. At first, it's like: "Oooo, look at the shapes." The second time, it's, "Yeah, that's kind of clever." Then it's, "Okay, been there/done that...time to move on." Unfortunately, it went on for the whole song.

If nothing else, the Boston display showed me that our modest little town hadn't done too badly. With Disney World right down the road, the bar is pretty high. Perhaps we hadn't achieved that level, but our fireworks display had drawn out plenty of Ooooooos and Ahhhhhhhs. Hometown festivities are always the best, especially when your hometown is Celebration.

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

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

Almost Complete

It's been a few years now, and Duloc Manor is almost (but not quite) complete. When we left Chicago, all we were able to take with us was what we could fit into Canyonero (my Aztek). Even then, the space was severely limited by a giant cage containing three cats, a smaller cage containing Bradley, my cockatiel, and two baggies temporarily acting as fish habitats.

Still, there wasn't much in Chicago that I couldn't live without. My mother was a compulsive packrat/hoarder, which pushed me to the opposite extreme. With few exceptions, I don't get overly attached to material items. There were only a handful of things that it broke my heart to leave: My paperback library, since I am a voracious reader and am also the sort who can read favorite books over and over again, with just as much pleasure the 100th time as the first; my comedy and tragedy mask collection, which as swelled to well over 100 pairs in virtually any style you can imagine; and a very special piece of Disney Cruise Line artwork.

Below are two walls full of my comedy and tragedy masks (there is a third wall, but sadly I don't have a shot of that one). If you look very closely at the lefthand picture, you will see a duplicate of the pair that hangs at the 50's Prime Time Diner at Disney MGM Studios. Below them are a duplicate of the masks that started my passion; when I was a tiny toddler or two or three, they hung over the mailbox in my Chicago home (we had the sort where the mail is put in a slot and comes into the house). I would sit on the chair below the mailbox, flipping the door open and closed with a child's idle curiosity as the masks hung benignly overhead. My mother would point to them and say, "That's Comedy and that's Tragedy." What does a tot know of drama? It my simple, literal child's mind, I figured it was two guys and those were their names. I have no idea what happened to those original masks, which disappeared when I was four or five. But as an adult, I made it my personal vendetta to find duplicates. It was a long, frustrating search until my husband discovered the wonders of Ebay; it still took me a while, but I managed to find the originals along with over 100 adjunct styles.




To a lesser extent, I miss my doll collection (I have all sorts of charater dolls, ranging from Drew Carey to Ed Grimley to Dennis Rodman to the Simpsons and the South Park gang, plus a generous sprinkling of Disney luminaries). But for some reason, I'm not quite as deeply attached to the dolls as I am to the aforementioned items.

This past week, I was finally reunited with one of the missing pieces: My Disney Cruise Line print. That was easier said that done, as it is enormous. It's one of the prints that hang over the stateroom beds; I love this one in particular because it is a duplicate of the one in my favorite stateroom, 5650. After nearly 60 Disney cruises, with the majority of them spent in my favorite location, 5650 is almost like a vacation home to me...a place I know almost as well as my own home. I love its location, way off in the back of deck 5. There is only a neighbor on one side, and no one at all across the hall, so noisy foot traffic is virtually absent.

You do hear the rumble and vibration of the engines, especially when the ship is docking, but I am a white noise fan so it doesn't bother me a bit. I also like the somewhat larger verandah, which is recessed due to the curve of the ship. It makes a very cozy little nook to enjoy breakfast at sunrise, to curl up with a compelling novel at midday, or to watch the orange fireball extinguish itself on the horizon at dusk.

Over time, I fell in love with the print that hangs over the bed in 565o on the Disney Wonder (the ship on which we spend most of our time). It's a picture of the ship, with little circles showing various goings on:




From left to right, there's a man lounging on a deck chair, a chef preparing lobster, a couple dancing, and a shuffleboard player. There is a matching print in some of the other staterooms that shows Castaway Cay (Disney's private island), but because this particular one is in my "home away from home," it's the one that grew on me.

A couple of times, a copy was offered for sale in the onboard auction. But the starting bid was high, and each time I tried, someone else had to jump in and offer more until the price exceeded my comfort level. How I coveted that print; it would be so lovely to have a little piece of the Disney Wonder and stateroom 5650 to enjoy while back on shore.

I was beginning to lose hope; then we went on a holiday cruise, and I received a very special Christmas present: A copy of the picture for my very own...I was estatic! However, I still faced a daunting challenge. The picture was quite large (four feet by two feet), and at the time, we still lived in Chicago. I had to figure out how to get it home in one piece.

It was wrapped snugly in tissue and bubble wrap, but I knew that the packing materials would be no match for the desctructive capacities of the baggage handlers. My only possible hope was gate checking it, or by some miracle being allowed to take it on the plane. Since the airport was packed with luggage-laden holiday travelers, and since the picture didn't even come close to meeting any carry-on dimensions, I doubted that would be a possibility.

As we waited to board, with the hulking, mummy-like package, nearly as tall as me, leaning against my side, a gaggle of teenage girls caught sight of it. They whispered and giggled amongst themselves, and from what I could gather, they were trying to figure out what might lay below all those wrappings. Finally I said, "I know you're dying to ask, so I'll solve the mystery. It's just a giant picture." Not as exciting as a body that had been run over by a steamroller or a panel from an ancient Egyptian tomb, but at least their curiosity was saited.

As we neared the jetway, I was seized with fear. Even if my precious cargo made it through the rigors of the baggage hold, I knew there was no way it could survive the tender mercies of the Midway airport baggage handlers. Their mascot: The silverback gorilla. Their motto: "No item makes it through unscathed."

Fortuntely, luck was with me in the form of a merciful flight attendant. She laid the picture on the floor of a luggage bin, and she only allowed soft items like coats, purses, and the like to be placed on top of it. Whew! Even though ATA eventually went to hell in a handbasket, I am still eternally grateful that they let me transport my beloved picture in one piece.

For years, it hung in a place of prominence in our Chicago condo. When my mood was as gloomy as the gray winter skies outside my window, I only had to glance at the wall and a smile would spread across my face. Forget the bitter cold and the heavy, slushy snowflakes. My mind was two thousand miles away, on a sunny verandah somewhere out in the azure ocean.

Now that we had moved to Celebration, I was back to Square One. Just as I couldn't easily get the picture from Florida to Illinois on an airplane, I was now faced with the same dilemma, albeit in the opposite direction. It would have to come by car someday, but I knew that day lay in the far, far future.

Almost five years later, my patience finally paid off. Two of my nieces and three of their friends embarked on a road trip to Florida in an SUV. With all of those bodies and the attendant luggage, there wasn't much additional room. But somehow they managed to fit my beloved picture into the mix; now, FINALLY, it hangs in its rightful place of prominence, dominating the family room of Duloc Manor.

We've been bringing my books in a small but steady trickle; my beloved masks are still at the Chicago condo, but I have faith that they'll be back in my hands someday. In the meantime, as my fingers fly across my laptop keyboard and I feel overwhelmed by my work, I can glance up just as I did in Chicago for an instant smile recharge. Even when I can't be on the Disney Wonder, a little piece of it is always close at hand.

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

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

From Blog to Book?

Several months ago, I blogged about the Writing Nomads of Celebration, aka the Celebration Writers Group. I'm happy to report that we've found a permanent meeting place at 851 Celebration Avenue, where we can be found at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, sharing tips, critiques, and general banter. If you are in the area and have a propensity for writing, you are welcome to join us; the "Celebration" in our name refers to where we meet, not a residency requirement.

The group is made up of writers at every ability level and in a variety of genres. We all have different goals, from pleasure writing to professional publication. Personally, I joined the group to kickstart my dormant writing career, which I put on ice back in the early 1990s.

Once upon a time, way back in the late 1980s, I was an active magazine writer. Most of my articles were focused on horse training, as you can see from the following samples (warning: slow-loading PDFs):

http://www.bnlifeskills.com/tear2.pdf

http://www.bnlifeskills.com/tear6.pdf

I also did some general animal-related articles and worked for the Daily Southtown Economist, a Chicago-area newspaper, as a "stringer." Basically, that means I covered the really, really boring stuff, like school board meetings and city council sessions. It was tedious but worth its weight in gold as a training ground for honing my writing skills. I learned to write fast and to value brevity. Granted, many of my blog entries are anything but brief, but this blog is my therapy so I turn off my inner critic when I write here. I always apply the journalistic lessons to my professional work.

Over time I racked up an impressive array of tearsheets, but in 1989 I got a full-time job in corporate communications that leeched away my time and desire for freelance work. It's hard to churn out creative magazine articles when you've already spent eight hours racking your brain on how to fill the company newsletter and how to make yet another 10th anniversary celebration or sales award sound exciting.

Three years later I got married, and three years after that I returned to college, earning my BA, MA, and eventually PsyD in psychology. All of the research papers required for school, coupled with my ever expanding job duties, sapped the pleasure out of writing and turned it into a mundane task. Thus, my magazine work went on hiatus, and I barely noticed that it had slipped out of my life.

After we built our home in Celebration, I was anxious to make the move; logically, I knew it was still a year or two away, but my heart was already in Florida. I needed a therapeutic and constructive way to contain my restless energy...what better outlet than a blog? Slowly but surely, I reclaimed the joy of writing, albeit in a very information way.

Once we got settled in town, the itch to write professionally returned. It's almost like an addiction; you can push your muse aside, but you can never truly banish it from your brain. It waits for an opportunity to pop out, and when WHAM! You need that writing fix! If you're not near a keyboard or pencil and paper, you'll imagine the words marching across a blank wall.

This spring I renewed some of my old horse magazine contacts and made my first sale in nearly two decades. Woo hoo! It felt sooooo good to return to that long-neglected aspect of my life. In the meantime, I'm busily developing other markets as I expand my range of topics.

But as I applied myself to magazine work, I slowly realized that I was hiking through the forest and not seeing the giant redwood tree standing smack in front of my face: My blog! Over the years, various people have suggested and even requested that I turn it into a book. I laughed off the idea; after all, who would want to buy a book of my skewed rantings about life as Mickey Mouse's neighbor?

Now, the idea seems more and more feasible. After all, there have been other books published about our fair town, and I don't think my writing is any worse than theirs. I devoured them myself when we were in the moving process, and it annoyed me that the viewpoint was from people who had moved to Celebration solely to write about it...they moved away not long after their journalistic ventures were complete. You can try all you want to be neutral, but your view is going to be different when you don't have anything invested beyond a work project. I was sad that there was no book written from the perspective of a person or family invested in Celebration for the long-haul.

Later, a Disney-sanctioned book was published, but of course it was pretty much the party line; a pretty piece for the coffee table, but with no real substance.

So maybe there is a literary place for the viewpoint of a permanent Celebration resident who loves this town but who tempers that love with a sense of reality. I've started on the project by making a complete backup of my blog; that's probably a good idea anyway, since I would have lost it for good if Blogger ever had a catastrophic failure. Even if it's never formally published, it's still a part of me...an important slice of time in my life preserved forever in my uncensored words.

Now I need to winnow it down, since not every entry is book-worthy. I plan to select my favorite entries and organize them by topic, e.g. "Moving to Celebration," "Life in Tourist Land," "Holiday Celebrations," etc. That will basically give me a completed manuscript.

I'm not sure if I'm going to go the self-publishing route via Lulu.com or whether I will seek out an agent. I'm leaning towards the agent route, since I can always flip-flop back to Lulu if I don't get any nibbles.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, or even if you've just blundered by for the first time ever, I'd love your feedback on which entries should be included. Some, such as the stories of the Cypress Cove nudist colony, are no-brainers for inclusion. But for the others, I'd love some options, so if you'd like to cast you vote, please email me at the address below:



I'll update the results here. And in the meantime, I promise not to neglect my new entries. Whether or not it ever makes the leap to paper publication, my Celebration, Florida blog will continue to be my therapy and a way to document my skewed view of life in the best place I can imagine.

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

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

Go Go Gatorland!

Way back in November, I lamented the fact that I'd never made it to Gatorland, a true artifact of "Old Florida," which unfortunately suffered a major fire at the beginning of that month. Gatorland predates Mickey and crew by nearly three decades, having debuted in the late 1940s. It's one of those kitschy, touristy things that had been on my to-do list even since we moved to Celebration. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, it was removed from the picture because of the blaze.

Fortunately, most of the damage was confined to the entrance and giftshop. Gatorland managed to reopen within a month; unfortunately, its trademark "gator jaw" entrance (shown below) was out of commission, but the shows and exhibits were pretty much unscathed:



My determination to visit was renewed, although it still took half a year to follow through. I'm happy to report that my hubby and I finally made it to Gatorland this weekend and that it was just as kitschy and touristy as I had hoped.



As the name implies, Gatorland has plenty of...alligators. The scaly, razor toothed reptiles are definitely the main attraction. They come in all sizes, from egg/baby....



...to fully grown. As you can see in the photo below, you don't just gaze at them in passive surroundings. Sure, there are lots of gator pools where you can watch them lazily float and toss them bits of hot dog (which will graphically demonstrate just how fast they can move when food is involved). But there are also shows in which you'll see just how much annoyance a gator can take without chomping a chunk out of a human:






There are actually three shows. The photos above were taken at the gator wrestling exhibition. The wrestler gets much more up close and personal than I'd ever want to be to all of those teeth. Yes, that gator in the picture above has his mouth open, with his teeth mere inches from the wrestler's neck. Don't try that one at home (or at Lakeside Park), kids! There is another show featuring various venomous critters like cottonmouth snakes, scorpions, and the like (the Wildlife Encounters show), but my favorite is pictured below...the Gator Jumparoo show:



As you can see, the trainer's fingers are just above a hungry gator's mouth. I wouldn't trust that scaly sucker to figure out where that man's finger's end and the dangling food begins. As the name implies, the show features gators jumping out of the water to feast on whole raw chickens.

Out of the three shows, that one was definitely the most popular. People were lining the viewing area 20 minutes ahead of time; early arrival is critical because if you don't get a spot up against the fence, you are not going to see the action.

One late arriver was trying to convince people to let her kids into a good viewing spot. Unfortunately for her, cranky tourists who have been standing around for 20 minutes in 90 plus degree heat to secure their own spot don't have a lot of sympathy for Johnny Come Latelys. Eventually she wandered off, her optimism unrewarded.

The other shows are not as competitive for a good viewing spot. They take place in arenas with plenty of covered bleachers. Each show is repeated several times a day, so even if you arrive by noon, you'll have time to catch them all.

There are interactive experiences, too. My favorite was the lorikeet aviary, where you can buy little cups of sugar water to attract flocks of fine feathered friends:



I did discover one small fact the hard way: they love to chew on moles! I couldn't figure out why one of them was chomping like a vampire on my neck until the attendant explained that moles look like food to them. Sure enough, that's what the little sucker had been after. Ouch! They will also preen and groom your hair and lick you to get the salt from your sweat. They're not shy about ganging up on humans; you can easily end up with half a dozen or more perched on your person at a time. If Hitchcock's "The Birds" sends you into an anxiety attack, this is not the place for you.

I happen to own a self-assured cockatiel named Bradley; my fiesty little feathered fiend has survived over ten years living in the company of three crafty cats, so he is an assertive bird. Thus, I am used to being accosted by, perched on, and chewed on by assertive winged critters, so I felt right at home in the lorikeet flock.

Other hands-on experiences included petting/feeding areas with goats, sheep, a cow, deer, and llamas; photo opportunities with gators and snakes; and even the chance to sit on a gator's back (albeit one with its mouth taped shut). Be prepared for lots of nickle and diming; for example, you pay for the feed at the petting areas, the bird nectar, and a batch of hotdogs if you want to feed the gators in various areas throughout the park. You also pay for the photo ops, and for certain poses (i.e. sitting on the gator and holding the giant snake from the Wildlife Encounters show), there is a "sitting fee" that doesn't include the actual photo. However, for those two, you can use your own camera if you have one. It was no worse than any other Orlando tourist trap, but be prepared because the costs can rack up pretty quickly if you have demanding young 'uns.

There is also a train ride (also at an extra cost) that takes you on a brief circle tour; the most interesting part is the jungle crocs, although you can see those via a walking trail, too. If you have kidlets with you, bring their bathing suits so they can cool down in the new "splash zone" water playground.

There are plenty of concessions with food, drinks, and souvenirs. Since we have already tasted gator, we skipped the opportunity to feast on a variety of gator meats. But we did indulge in the fresh-squeezed lemonade and iced lattes, and I only resisted the dazzling array of fudge through a supreme effort of will.

We purchased the requisite t-shirts (how could I resist one emblazoned with the legend: "Gatorland, This Place Bites!"?) and a photo featuring hubby and I holding a gator and snake, along with a matching frame. Then hubby spotted a souvenir that he absolutely had to have...MOLD-A-RAMA!!!



I mentioned Mold-A-Rama in a previous blog entry, since it's a staple at the Museum of Science and Industry and other touristy venues in Chicago. As native Chicagoans, both hubby and I have fond childhood memories of plugging in quarters and watching the magical injection molding process produce an instant figurine that pops into the little drawer, hot and exuding a distinctive plasticky odor that will stay with me forever. I picture myself at 100+ years old, blind and deaf, babbling and drooling in a nursing home without having said a coherent word in a decade. One day they'll take me on a field trip to a museum or zoo featuring those machines; they'll wheel me past, my nose will twitch, and I'll yell "Mold-A-Rama!" as clear as a bell.

Hubby plugged in two bucks and was rewarded with a warm, waxy, stinky little gator figure. His inner child was definitely pleased.

All in all, it took us about five hours to cover every inch of Gatorland. There were a lot of people, but considering that we're in the season when the line for Soarin' at Epcot typically runs two hours long, I hesitate to use the word "crowded." It was actually a pleasant change of pace to visit a place where we weren't caught in a crush of humanity, swimming upstream among sweaty, swearing theme park commandos.

I was a little disappointed not to be able to get my photo in front of the famed entrance, but that was only a minor glitch. Even post-inferno, Gatorland is a worthy stop for anyone who wants an adventure in nostalgia at one of Florida's oldest attractions.

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

Click below to visit my Life Coaching office at Kasamba:

Horses and Houses, Future and Past

This morning, my horse Figment paid a visit to Duloc Manor:

It was 7:45 a.m., so the streets were mostly deserted, but it certainly was a head-turner for the man walking by with his little daughter! Horses do occasionally pop up in Celebration, but usually they're in the downtown area pulling a carriage for tourist rides or a wedding. East Village is not usually known as a bastion of equine activity.

Figment happened to be on his way to Community Presbyterian Church to welcome the kids to Vacation Bible School. This year's theme is "Avalanche Ranch," so an equine greeter fit right in. Since my house is only a couple minutes down the road from the church, we swung by with the trailer and unloaded Figgie for a quick photo op.

But it struck me as odd for a different reason; not the general lack of horses in our fair town, but rather a sense of deja vu. I remembered a day, 26 years earlier, when my first horse, Cochise, paid a visit to the yard of my old Chicago home:

If you think horses are unusual in Celebration, the chances of seeing one on the South Side of Chicago is virtually nil. Still, I was somehow born with an innate bond to equines that maifested itself in my unholy attachment to a wheeled plastic horsey (the kind that toddlers scoot along on). As tiny as I was, I still distinctly remember that toy and my abject grief when it disappeared one day. My mother claimed it was "sick" and "had to go to the hospital"; I never saw it again, and to this day, I still don't know why she really got rid of it.

Next up was a rocking horse on springs; I had glued myself to the floor model like a baby monkey to its mother's back as they swing through the trees. Mommie Dearest tried to reassure me that she was buying one and that I could ride it at home if only I would get off the darned model. Due to the disappearance of my toddler toy and various other sneaky tricks she had pulled on me, I didn't have much faith in her word.

Fortunately, this was one of her rare sincere moments, and a duplicate of the rocking horse (which I named Dark Pony) was soon erected in our living room. I rode it day and night, galloping through hills and fields and vales in the endless landscape of my mind. It was a sad, sad day when I outgrew Dark Pony and he was relegated to the basement, but I vowed in my determined little mind that I've have a real horse someday.

As soon as I was old enough to figure out bus routes, I managed to plot out a course to a suburban stable. It required three transfers and a 1.5 mile walk, but I didn't care. Diligently, I babysat and cleaned houses for neighbors to earn precious money towards busfare and weekend trail rides.

During this time, I distinctly remember an odd dream. I was riding a horse two streets down from my house, in a grassy area that used to be a park, heading towards the adjacent cemetery fence. While it certainly wasn't odd for me to be on horseback, riding in our neighborhood was just about as likely as Michael Jackson fathering any biological children. It was filed in the back of my mind, out of consciousness but never entirely forgotten.

By the time I was 16, I had managed to get a full-time summer job that allowed me to earn enough to buy a horse; when it shifted to part-time during the school year, I would still make enough to cover board, vet, and farrier bills.

In an odd coincidence, around this very same time the cemetery I mentioned earlier (which abutted our alley) purchased a horse to lead funeral processions. I volunteered to exercise him; he was a wonderful old Saddlebred/Arab cross named Elegant Sam who was trained to fourth level dressage, and he taught me more than any human instructor. (Click here to read more about Sam the cemetery horse in one of my old magazine articles.)

When I first got Cochise, I kept him at the cemetery for a couple of months before moving him to a suburban boarding barn. Technically horses were not allowed in the surrounding neighborhood, but Labor Day weekend of 1981 was a rare exception. Joe (who rode Sam in the funerals) and I were participating in the annual Labor Day parade. Since it was pretty close by, and since Sam had an unholy fear and hatred of trailers, we simply rode to the starting point.

Since we would pass directly by my house, I had to stop and get a picture of Cochise in my front yard. I tied him to the porch and ran in for my camera, little realizing how precious the picture would be to me 26 years later. At the time, I was just a 16 year old kid walking on Cloud Nine because my one of my biggest dreams had finally come true...I had a horse of my very own.

Then we headed for the parade route, turning down a street two blocks from my house to follow along the outside of the cemetery fence. As I bobbed along on Cochise's back, I realized that it was the street in my dream...we were riding on the same parkland, just as I had done in my subconsious netherworld! At the time, I had pooh-poohed it as ridiculous; how could I have ever imagined the chain of events that would someday take place? I never would have believed that the cemetery would get a horse; I knew I would have one of my own someday, but I never dared to hope it would be as early as my 16th year, let alone keeping it in the cemetery, too.

And now, nearly three decades later, I still own Cochise (at 30 years old, he's fully retired), but I also have Figment. As a kid, I may have dreamed about riding down my neighborhood street, but I certainly never dared fantasize that one day I would live next door to Disney World. I never imagined what my next horse might look like or whether I would snap his photo standing by my future front porch or where that front porch might be.

Now, Figgie has followed in the footsteps of his "big brother." After his stop at the house, he continued on to the church and reveled in being the center of attention. As the children patted him and fed him carrots, you could almost hear him sigh and exclaim, "Ah, this is the life!" (much as Cochise did many years earlier when he was surrounded by admirers at the parade).

I was a little concerned because Figment has never been away from other horses before in his life. I thought he might prance around in the church yard, neighing plaintively for his lost herd. But he was a perfect gentleman; I don't think he even realized that he was the sole equine for miles around. The kids and carrots kept his attention focused, and he didn't spook at anything, from motorcycles to trucks to screaming youngsters to churchbells. I think he truly enjoyed himself, although by the time it was over, he seemed glad to hop back in the trailer and return home to a generous pile of peanut hay.

It's funny...sometimes you get a glimpse of the future, and you don't even realize it because it seems so improbable. And sometimes the future is a total surprise, unraveling in ways you would never have imagined. Yet every now and then, past and future overlay each other in a neat little deja vu...whether the threads are hidden or whether we get a tiny glimpse, eventually we see how they are all intertwined.

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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.

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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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