Motor Scooters at Disney World

On my recent trip to Disney World I noticed all the people on motor scooters — there were a lot of them. And while some of them clearly needed the motor scooters, there were others who seemed to be on motor scooters just to be on motor scooters. And sure, I would have loved to ride a Segway throughout the parks, perferably one with air conditioning because let me tell you this, it was freaking HOT there — but I’m fully capable of using my two legs and WALKING.

You know the movie Wall-E where all the people are up on the space ship, floating around on their space scooters? That’s what Disney World looked like. Scooters everywhere.

I believe in signs

I believe in signs.

For instance, whenever I see someone make a Florida U-turn I know that it’s a sign from my grandpa, who died in 2003, he taught me what a Florida U-turn was. Another sign was when I was at the grocery store on the anniversary of the day that he died and I was paying for my groceries with my debit card when a penny shot out of the change machine right in front of me. It took me a whole day to figure it out, but the coincidence that a penny dropped out of nowhere on the death anniversary of a grandpa who collected his pennies for me (and my brother) was, to me, definitely a sign.

And then there is the sign from my other grandpa, Leonard. He died in 2002, and since then I get mail addressed to him … at my house. Yes. Mail. And he didn’t even live with me. It all started about a month after he died, and its been arriving a few times a year ever since. I’m not getting personal letters or anything, in fact some might call it junk mail. However I call it a sign.

So then onto yesterday.

It was my husband’s grandma’s funeral. Twelve years ago, when we were first married, she took us to a chicken dinner at her church. She made a huge deal out of it, and it really meant a lot to her, this chicken dinner. I’ll never forget it, it was mostly because of the music. I’m pretty sure there was a strolling accordion player playing a polka. A POLKA — and for some reason I thought that was just hilarious. Anyhow, there we are, at the funeral, which was at the church of the chicken dinner.

At first I sat in a pew on the far left, then I moved to the middle second row, and finally I decided to save the third row for my husband, his brothers, and his nephews, who were all pallbearers. I was sitting on the far lefthand side of the pew, and you’d think that the men could have come in from the right, but they didn’t. As a result, my husband and his family made me scoot all the way down to the other side of the pew.

I noticed right away that there was a bulletin in the book rack in front of us. It was from Sunday, September 21st, and I thought it was odd that it was there because it was Monday, September 22nd, and usually someone goes through the pews and removes anything that doesn’t belong there — like old bulletins. You only get a bulletin on your way out of church, not before. Anyhow, at one point, most likely to take my mind off of the funeral, I decided to flip through the bulletin. It was hard to miss the blue sheet of paper folded inside of it, and my husband noticed what it said before I did: Chicken Dinner & Raffle, Polka Mass, October 5th.

And there you have it. A sign. But for who? Him? Me? Us? My husband wasn’t too convinced at first, until he searched through all of the pews after the service to confirm what I already knew: we had the only bulletin left in the pews. The pew that wasn’t our first choice, second choice, but third choice. And if the guys would have filed into the pew the way I imagined they would, my husband’s nephew would have sat there, and it would have meant absolutely nothing to him. Instead, we are left with a sign.

Unorganized Travelers

On Sunday we travelled home from the Animal Kingdom Lodge at Disney World, to home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our check-out was at 11 a.m., our shuttle left at noon, and our flight left around 3 p.m. With the suitcases packed, we went down to the lobby to check our luggage for our flights and then wait for the shuttle. Small problem, my suitcase was 4.5 lbs. too heavy. So I had to pull out 4.5 lbs. worth and disperse it amongst my husband’s and my daughter’s suitcases. For some reason, I grabbed my cuddle pillow and put it in my carry on.

Once my luggage met the weight requirements the next problem was that the computers were having problems connecting with United Airlines computers and finally, after trying for what seemed like forever, we were told that we’d have to check our luggage at the airport. But then we had to wait in line (forever) again at the airport, and we had to pay $15 a bag too.

With all this waiting, and unpacking, repacking, waiting, and paying, by the time we got to the security checkpoint we were a bit punchy. The officer took our boarding passes and our id cards and asked something like “are you expert travelers?” To which my husband said: “more like unorganized travelers.”

And I wouldn’t ever recommend saying that to a security checkpoint officer at the airport. Because do you know what he did? Do you? He smiled at us, and we thought awwwwww look, he’s so nice, and he feels for our pain today. And so he called over a lady officer and told us that she’d take extra special care of us. And we smiled back and all took a big sigh of relief. But then we followed this lady officer past all the other security lanes, to the far wall with all the huge x-ray machines and the x-ray wands and do you know what they did? They actually patted down my 7 year old daughter. Like Zoe’s a big threat, with her backpack filled with stuffed animals and magic markers.

We all were given the pat-down actually. And they rifled through all of our bags with their x-ray wands. Jeez.

But we were released to continue on to our flight, where we were delayed, and then delayed again, and we had to run through O’Hare Airport in Chicago to make our connection to Milwaukee. We landed in Concourse A and had only 12 minutes to get to Concourse F. We made it! (barely)

Our luggage did not. Which is where I was thankful that I had to repack my suitcase and I stuffed my cuddle pillow into my carry on bag.

Busia

This morning I got a phone call from my younger sister-in-law, Dani. I said: HELLO. She said: HI, HOW WAS DISNEY?

I didn’t catch on right away that there was something wrong, and so I told her that we had a great time, it was really hot ….. and then she bursts into tears and starts sobbing. When I asked her what was wrong she blurted out that Busia is unresponsive, doesn’t have a pulse, the rescue squad was there working on her, she can’t get her parents on the phone, and she needs to talk to my husband.

Oh. My. God. I thought to myself, this cannot be happening!

Busia is my husband’s 91 year old grandmother. She’s been in and out of the hospital over the past few months, and she’s always bounced back. She and her four sisters have longevity in their genes, with her oldest sister living to be 101. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Busia? Unresponsive? No pulse? Today?

Today. Right this minute. And the only person Dani could get ahold of was me.

Me.

Now I have to tell you that Busia and I didn’t really see eye to eye. There were times that in the beginning of my marriage that I really thought we connected, but somewhere along the way something changed. I’m sure she liked me in her own way. But for the most part, from my point of view, I felt that she didn’t. My husband told me that he thinks Busia and I didn’t get along because we were too much alike. That might have been true. I don’t know.

Regardless, Busia was unresponsive, Dani was at the point of a meltdown, and I had to react. I told her that I was on my way. I got in touch with my husband, couldn’t think of how to put it and ended up blurting out: I THINK BUSIA DIED. And even at the time it seemed like the most ridiculous thing to say: I think Busia died. Who says that they think that someone died?

He made it to her apartment before I did, and they were just giving him the okay to go up when I walked into the lobby. We went up together. Both of us. Making small chit chat in the elevator with two little old ladies.

We walked into the living room, and there she was, lying on the living room floor, her head resting on a pillow and a sheet covering her to her shoulders. The rest of the morning was so surreal. My in-laws arrived, and my husband’s aunt was there too.

There were questions from the police that were there: What was Busia’s middle name? Gosh, I have no idea. We all looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

Did we call everyone?

She got up this morning, seemed to be find, ate her breakfast, took a nap and died while she was sleeping, yet how come she was on the living room floor?

When all of the emergency response teams were gone, we were left waiting for the funeral home to come. We talked in the living room, discussing plans and who to contact, and things like that, and the whole time Busia was just laying there on the living room floor. And part of me really wanted to reach down pull the sheet over Busia’s face, like they do in the movies when someone dies.

Then two people arrived from the funeral home, the director and his apprentice. The apprentice was a young girl, very professional looking, dressed in nice dress pants and a blazer jacket. They gave us the option of leaving the room while they put Busia on the cot to carry her out to the hearse (which was actually a minivan). I looked at my husband and told him that I would do whatever he did. If he wanted to go into another room I would go with him, but if he wanted to stay, then I would stay with him. He said he’d do whatever everyone else did. My father-in-law said we were staying.

The funeral director went on to explain how they were going to position Busia onto a sheet, and then lift the sheet onto the cot. He asked if someone would be able to support her head as they were lifting and my husband bent down and cupped his grandmother’s head into his hands. The funeral director, his apprentice, my mother-in-law, and my husband all lifted Busia onto the cot, and in that single moment I completely lost it and the tears started to flow. It was so heartbreaking to see my husband help to place his grandmother onto the cot, and ultimately into a body bag. And as they zipped it shut the reality of what was happening really hit.

God brought comic relief though, because that young apprentice had quite the tattoo right across the small of her back, and when she squatted down in front of me to position Busia on the sheet her jacket rode up and I could see the artwork. I think it said: Dreams Come True, but I don’t know for sure. I let out a snicker and pointed to her back while looking up at my husband, trying my best to give him my look that said: DID YOU SEE THIS???? Through his tears he smiled back, he saw it.

After they left, we tried our best to put the apartment back into order for his aunt who lives there too. My husband turned to me and said: DO YOU THINK YOU COULD VACUUM? I think just about everyone knows that I love to vacuum, so I found the vacuum and I did just that. I vacuumed that entire apartment, the whole time thinking to myself: My husband’s grandmother just died, has been lying on the floor in the living room while I sat on her couch, and now I’m vacuuming.

(I want to say that I write in my blog about things that happen in my life. This is what happened today. It’s not meant to be disrepectful. I loved Busia, we didn’t really get along, but I did love her. She was my husband’s grandmother, and she will be greatly missed.)

Preferences

The following is a one-sided conversation Zoe had with us tonight, where she did all the talking, and we just nodded our heads. Or, as in my case, sat there and wondered where she comes up with this stuff.

She doesn’t want to eat a mouse.

And then she asked if people eat mice.

And then she wanted to know if when mice are eaten, is it with fur? Or without?

And then she clarified that she did not want to eat a mouse with fur. And futhermore she’d prefer not eat a mouse at all.

And then she carried on with eating her cheese pizza as if discussing the eating of a mouse, with or without fur, was perfectly normal dinner conversation.

Rain Water

Downtown

We are in Downtown Disney tonight, and will be eating at Wolfgang Puck Cafe. We ate there last time, it was awesome. I had pizza. Zoe had pizza. And I don’t remember what my husband had. My cousin, who lives near Miami, will be spending the day with us. I’m sure we’ll have a blast. The intinerary has us at the Animal Kingdom, but we’ll see.

It’s our last night of vacation. Tomorrow we go home. Life is so unfair.

On a sidenote, today is my grandma’s birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAMMY!!!

Florida just isn’t the same without you there too!

A Day of Epcot

If you need me, I’ll be at Epcot. We have dinner reservations at a foo foo posh french restaurant, Chef’s de France. It was our second choice. First choice was the Canadian steakhouse, Le Something or Another, Le Cellier, I think. Anyhow, it was booked. Completely booked. So we are eating french.

French toast.

French fries.

French bread.

French wine.

And then afterward we are going to do the 45 minute race around the world, a reenactment from our 45 minute race we did during our last visit. It was tough. I carried not one, not two, BUT THREE bottles of wine the whole way. My husband carried Zoe on his shoulders. And we ran through the countries like crazy people trying to get this mask thing filled up with little token thingys.

We did succeed. 

Then, when we got back to our resort we had to stop at the front desk to get our room keys fixed. My husband took down the whole computer system while he was waiting, and when things got back up and running, our entire electronic trail of purchases had vanished. Poof.

I should have bought more bottles of wine that day.