Transplanting a Seattleite

Cabin crew was deeply suspicious of A.’s cough, which was wildly aggravated by anxiety in the leadup to takeoff. Once we were in the air, it settled down. I’m not buying her any more plane tickets until we talk this thing through. On the way to Florida, it was hand washing. And now this. Ugh. It was looking like they were going to ask us to get off the plane; they did offer that. No way in hell was I taking them up on that offer, and after what happened later on in Laguardia with a late, sickness related aborted takeoff, I feel weirdly justified. Mostly, I just didn’t want to figure out hotel and all for however long we were going to be stuck in Florida being sick.

Of course I was also sick by this point, but much more quietly.

Flight was uneventful. I listened to the new Harry Styles album repetitively. R. and I had seats next to each other on the 2 side of a 2 and 3, and A. had the aisle seat across from me. Really the perfect configuration, IMO. A. and I had matching aisle seats flying down, which was also nice. The only issue is the anxiety is relieved by hand holding, and there’s that flurry of cabin crew activity before takeoff and you can’t block the aisle with your hands.

I retrieved my car with no issue, and was driving home (possibly a mistake). I still hadn’t gotten new tires (definitely a mistake) and it was raining and the visibility was not awesome (are you sensing that something is about to happen?) altho it was still daylight when we were coming home. I hit a monster pothole on 93N between exits 21 and 22, about 1.2 miles before my exit. Total blowout. *sigh* I got into the breakdown lane (impressive, as I was not in the right hand lane) (and there was a breakdown lane, by no means guaranteed in Massachusetts). There were other cars ahead of me pulled over with blinkers on. I think the pothole got a bunch of us.

I called BMW roadside, and it took forever to get to a human, who made a big deal of getting my number in case the call was dropped. Call was dropped. They did not call back. On to AAA I guess. (It’s possible that call screening did me in here; I didn’t think to turn it off until the next morning.)

AAA phone tree sent me to a website which said they cannot transport more than 2 people. How is that going to work? *sigh*

By this time, I’d seen multiple flat beds drive past me, so I googled, called Stephens (10/10, would recommend) and while they overshot me the first time, they picked us up the second time. They had a solution for the 3 people in the car situation, which was all I really needed. They stored the car overnight in their lot to flatbed it to my usual service location the next day. We walked over to a Dunkin, used the loo, bought a muffin and apple juice for A., and got an Uber home, who I tipped heavily. I am also glad he was wearing a mask, because I’d feel bad if we got him sick.

Not fun.

R. was very helpful, and got my sourdough out of the freezer for me.

We got out of VGF and over to Helios. We passed a Walgreens on the way and I stopped to get starlight mints, ricola and hand lotion for A., and burt’s bees lipbalm for me, because one of my lip balms hopped out of its plastic container in a Disney companion bathroom. May it rest in peace, but the bathroom gods have been unusually kind to us so perhaps a sacrifice was required.

A. likes the pb and strawberry uncrustable. I had the pb and chocolate, because I’ve only ever had the pb and grape before. The bread is a little better than it used to be, and the innards are fine. A. picked out a “That’s It” apple and blueberry bar. It’s a little bitter, but fine. The tea here is above average. Juice is available on request. There’s a freestyle machine and a coffee machine (fancy kind that will make espresso style drinks, but predictably I’m using it for hot water). I thought I was going to have to go track down real food, but since the uncrustables are workable, and there are pastries and chips, I don’t think I will need to do that.

R. is out for a bike ride. I’ve caught up on blogging. My sister’s family is having a good time doing shows in the park. The view from the lounge is, as reviews online mentioned, the checkin turnaround, the top of the parking garage and a more distant parking lot, as well as some kind of water retention pond which is full due to recent weather.

St Patrick’s Day!

Lunch was at Skipper Canteen and dinner was at Kona Cafe so that was pretty easy. We had some lightning lanes set up, but we did Laugh Floor first. We’re a lot more sensitive to the violence (heavy things landing on Mike Wazowski) than we were in the past, so it’s less funny, but still a good time. The castle moat is empty and there are lift cranes in there so people can paint the blue roofs. It wasn’t obvious that’s what they were doing so we asked, and a woman cast member said she was literally “Watching paint dry” all day on the job. LOL. She had a funny joke, too: did you hear about the toast at the zoo? It was bred/bread in captivity. Her delivery was also excellent!

We tried to go on Peter Pan, but it was down. We came back later and it went down again, but came up so we did get to ride it. Yay! We also rode Haunted Mansion and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. I did Tron by myself, well, by the time I got on, I was part of a group from Make a Wish, which was really nice. The actual wish-recipient was overstimulated and elsewhere, so I got to meet family members. Apparently the airport they flew out of in Indiana had a disability coordinator to help them get in their plane with the extensive carry-on / gate check medical equipment, but MCO had nothing and it was a nightmare getting unloaded. Yikes! Nice people, happy to have met them.

C. is really sensitive to the floor movement at Kona. That’s such a bummer.

I had a parking reservation at Logan and that turned out fine.

We got to the airport and to our gate in good time, and enough extra to go to the loo and get a donut. We did not have enough time for a second trip to the loo, and that became a problem because the water wasn’t turned on on the plane yet and wow did that set of A.’s hygiene issues. Which, fair.

Lots of great people offering wipes, but they were scented. One person had unscented, which was awesome.

I brought a couple sandwiches, and we bought the cheese and crackers box for A. And the gluten free for me. I am not gluten free and could not eat the cheese straws, but everything else in the box was fine.

field trip turkey jerky is decent; A thinks it is meh but she didn’t spit it out
gfb bites slightly better gf and vegan
yes bar maple pecan awesome; A thinks it is better than mid

The almonds were almonds.

R.’s train left late and did not get any earlier, so we drove to the Grand Floridian without him. No trouble getting a rental car; we got a Honda Odyssey this time. Apparently, the most popular mini van choice is the Siena.

Our room wasn’t ready until 4, so we went over to the Enchanted Rose and I had the Rye Not. It was awesome.

We dumped our stuff in the room, used the bathroom, and then headed out to Disney Springs. R. did not make it to The Edison, but the rest of us did. A. was really struggling, but everyone was kind, and she ate a pretzel. I picked up some bagels and jam and made her a toasted bagel for a bit more food back at the hotel after.

T. and I took an Uber over to Portos to meet S. who we determined we have not seen in person sine 2006. Portos has bread I can have but no baked goodies (but if you can have milk products wow I have to say everything looks beautiful and delicious). I got the walnut raisin batard and it is fabulous. High quality english breakfast, and they give you two bags.

Discussion was meandering and enjoyable. T. had prebooked the uber, but then S. got there early so we canceled and rescheduled on my app. I really should stop him pre-arranging for this kind of trip, because the area is wildly oversupplied with TNC and they show up in 2 minutes and Portos was not far away. She gave us a ride back and she has the coolest car with black exterior and deep red upholstery and I felt like a superhero sidekick riding in the car next to her.

A. got up on her own (!!!!) and R. toasted leftover waffles. I heated up leftover eggs. He retrieved more ketchup and an apple juice and then went to return his bike. A really enjoyable morning! There’s still pizza and asparagus in the fridge (from Pitfire and Flemings), so that will likely be some or all of my dinner tonight between escape room and Strong Water.

Today was our 4th park day, mostly Disneyland. A. and I did: Star Tours, Finding Nemo Submarine, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain. We had lunch at Galactic Grill and I’m definitely pro-black bean veggie wrap altho it’s a little odd that it is cold, it works great. We had dinner at McCormick and Schmick’s, which I had honestly expected to be one of the worse meals out, but was actually really good (and great value vs. Flemings). Oysters were not charged for, because they were not delivered until I asked to have them removed from the bill because they never showed up. Server tracked them down and delivered them but we were not charged. Given they charge about $5 per oyster and there were 9 of them, that was not trivial.
A. and I had a lightning lane reservation for Guardians, and it was tight getting there, but we did it and it was great.

Second DCA day. A. and I did the Silly Symphony Swing and Jumpin Jellyfish, repeated Monsters Inc, and we had lunch with my sister’s family at GCH Craftsman Bar. I apparently confused that with what is now the Hearthstone Lounge. But that’s fine — great anniversary ginger drink and a rye manhattan, so feeling no pain after eating a poke bowl (minus the crab salad and plus the guac from nibling’s nachos). No dessert for me, but others really enjoyed the apple galette.
We hopped to Disneyland and did Snow White (wow, big change from my childhood and I’m not sure I went on it ever in between), Haunted Mansion (fantastic Nightmare Before Christmas overlay — absolutely amazing!), Star Tours, Smuggler’s Run (we got to be pilots!). A. and I hopped briefly back to DCA for Guardians then back to Disneyland for dinner.
Dinner was at Cafe Orleans. It was a long wait (over 45 minutes past our time, and we arrived about 10 minutes early). My sister bailed out, and when T. saw the menu he did too. We were seated outdoors and kinda cold and also randomly assaulted by Moreton Figs. But the plant based hummus and lavash, risotta and creme brulee were all tasty. R. and I did laundry after.

The time change worked in our favor, so we were up, breakfasted and in the park less than 8 hours after our arrival, which is all kinds of chaotic. I felt a little drunk from fatigue. We ran in to my sister’s group (had snacks in San Franyoko) and then swapped to J.’s group (more snacks at Pixar Pier), and then went off on our own to have lunch at Wine Country Trattoria. Nice memories of visiting there with AY’s family back when we first did this trip just with T. I picked DCA for our arrival park because I figured I would mind less if the whole day got screwed. My top picks were Monster’s Inc (boo is going away, sad face, but we got to ride it so yay!), Guardian (rethemed Tower of Terror, and always a favorite for me and A.) and Spiderman (did that twice single rider — it’s exactly the same as Paris, so it was slightly lower priority than the other two). We had dinner at Fire + Ice, which it turns out several people had done before a decade plus ago in another location. It’s a Mongolian Grill, altho the presence of a lot of other cuisine options threw me off. It worked out well for everyone. R. and I went over to the Blind Rabbit after, and had fabulous drinks and the staff was delightful. The decor was amazing and the holiday overlay even better.

I finished read Now I Am Known and we had book group and chose Thursday Night Murders for next month.

It was a nice conversation, altho people had mostly forgotten or hadn’t read the book. M. didn’t attend because her granddaughters had visited and the ensuing chaos meant she didn’t get to read it and was thoroughly social-ed out.

ETA:

Peter Mutabazi’s Now I Am Known is extremely readable, which is impressive given how difficult some of the material in it is. He tells the story of growing up in a small village in Uganda on the border with Rwanda. His abusive father frightens him enough that Peter literally does the Goes Out for Cigarettes and Never Comes Back move. His dad sends him for a few cigarettes in the rain in the middle of the night, and Peter takes money he earned selling peanuts (IIRC) to people at the bus station to buy a ticket to Kampala. Once arrived in Kampala (he’s 10), he has no idea what to do, so he hangs out with other kids at the bus station, cleaning buses, lifting plaintains and similar from vendors and bus passengers, and offering to help carry things in exchange for food and similar. Once he’s been there for a few years, he develops a connection with someone who ultimately offers to send him to boarding school. While he struggles to accept the offer of help, and then to adapt to the extremely different environment and different conditions, he does, and this becomes the first of many massive changes in his life. From the boarding school, he goes to Makerere college in Kampala, where he develops connections with Uganda’s educated class, and works for relief organizations as a translator and in other capacities, including going into Rwanda after the genocide to get aid to the childrens’ camps.

The connections he makes helping visiting missionaries and similar turn into an offer to attend Oak Hill College in England for a Crisis Management degree, then to California to attend another college, and finally Masters’ University. A classmate invites him to speak at a church that is fundraising to sponsor children in Africa, and Mutabazi is far more successful at this than anyone has been before and this leads to job with extensive travel doing on a larger scale what he had been doing while still in Uganda.

But it’s clear that Mutabazi is not necessarily articulating in the memoir that he’s got an unmet need, a strong desire to be a father, and to do so without marrying a woman. Once he comes to understand the foster system, and the unmet needs of children there even in wealthy USA, and perhaps most importantly that this is a path where a man from Uganda who is single could still adopt, he fully commits — changing his home and his career so that he can foster children and ultimately adopt a few.

While a lot of this material is very grim, Mutabazi’s forthright tone, humility and the way he focuses his faith relentlessly on finding ways to help others thrive, makes this a highly readable and inspiring book. A.S. recommended it to book group, along with the second book by him (Love Does Not Conquer All), and I don’t regret reading it at all, which is a surprising thing for me to say about something so explicitly Christian coming out of Uganda. The publisher is a Evangelical publishing house, so if directing your money to that kind of organization bothers you, consider getting it from the library.

I went to bed early last night, and slept in this morning. Amtrak did something that messed up our seats for an upcoming NYC trip to see Mincemeat; I got those fixed today including coordinating with Priestess who will be joining us.

I had lunch at Momoyama with R. It was really good! Later, J. recognized which place that was and described it as “fancy sushi”. It was fairly fancy. They had a couple really good vegetarian rolls, and I also got a spicy nw roll that was massive (shared that one with R., who got the really big Bento Box).

On the way back to the hotel, we got a chocolate croissant for A., and a vegan scone for me at Lovejoy Bakery.

I drove over to Oregon City to meet M. and J. at a park. And Mr. Cooper! So much fun!

For dinner, we did food trucks (expensify food trucks). I had a chinese crepe that was sooooo good. Duck. I’ve never had the crunchy crepes before, but I’ll be watching for those from now on. The bar had a mezcal old-fashioned-ish called “Hot Receipts” that was fantastic (I had two). BIL and SIL met us there.

We bought some beer for us and produce for A. after we brought her back to the hotel. She’s been requesting fruit and veg. Woot!