A Story Of Crustasceans On Steroids, Friendship And Hitting You Up For Money

(breakfast)

Some friendships come and go, and some friendships are those that span the test of time, life trials, law school, marriages, the arrival of children, arguments, and ill-advised hair-color choices. I have been fortunate to have an amazing friend in my life who has stood by my side, no matter what. Years ago, we worked for the same law firm and shared an "office" of thinly-built cube walls and formica desks. At first, we seemed very different, so while we were respectful of one another, it appeared unlikely we would ever become close.

But, after many hours spent together in close cube quarters, we realized we both had silly senses of humor, and both loved to laugh (in retrospect, I am wondering if the Wite-Out fumes had anything to do with that?). An enduring friendship began to take root. Eventually, we were making up excuses to work late together, while laughing, and ordering lobster for midnight dinner in the conference room, while laughing, and eating Jelly Bellys for dessert, all while still laughing. Those memories I have of "work dates" with my friend Amy still make me smile, years later.

Besides being wickedly, absurdly funny and super-powered smart, Amy is loyal, thoughtful, and unbelievably generous. After a wrenching week of appointments this spring, I came home to find a Lobstergram package on my doorstep. Are these not the most massive lobster tails you've even seen? I named them Titanic and Gargantuan. That is, before I boiled and ate them with some fava beans and a nice Chianti! [evil laugh here.] All eighteen pounds of lobster were perfect and decadent, but I think the best part of the package was the card, which brightened my day in a way sometimes only her unique, caring words can.

Amy is such an amazing person that she should be karmically exempt from bad things in life. Sadly, it does not work that way, and she lost her dad to a brain tumor after watching him fight for his health for years. That is why she is participating in the Race For Hope this weekend in DC. In Amy's words:

We are racing in memory of Robert W. McGinnis II, a father, son, and brother who we lost on April 3, 2006. Although only 52 when he died, in the short time we had him my dad made a tremendous difference in our lives. Most importantly, he taught us how to laugh even in the darkest times. That sense of humor has brought us closer together and helped us find the joy in being silly. We are racing so that others might live to laugh another day. Knowing this group, it should be pretty damned funny.

The Race for Hope - DC raises funds to support innovative research initiatives and support services for brain tumor patients and their families. Thank you for your support in helping us find a cure for brain tumors!

Please consider supporting my incredible friend Amy's fundraising efforts and make a donation to her webpage below. Amy's page link is here:

http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/site/TR?px=2303305&fr_id=1490&pg=personal

I also wanted to post the page of Carol Welsh. She, too, will be walking tomorrow. I have spoken with Carol on the phone and she is a strong, inspiring survivor of a cruel disease. Please consider supporting her team's walking and fundraising efforts.

Please join Friends and Family of Carol Welsh as we work to find a cure for brain tumors. 2010 is the 10th Anniversary of Carol's fight against her ependymoma brain tumor; she has had 3 surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation, and as a result of her last surgery, now has a trach. We've been participating in the Race since 2004, and, thanks to your support, have raised more than $50,000 for the cause. In addition, friends and family have donated countless volunteer hours, which have made the Race for Hope the success it is. Thank you to Carol's friends from William and Mary, Katherine and Katie, who are spearheading an effort to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of their graduation from business school, by rallying all their classmates for the race. We also welcome the family and friends of Susan Parks Hower, a 12-year survivor of an astrocytoma. The Welsh and the Parks families have a wonderful connection in swimming that goes back 32 years. We're glad to combine forces!

Carol's team website can be found here:

http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/site/TR/Events/RFH-DC?team_id=33510&pg=team&fr_id=1490

Thank you for considering supporting my friends' fundraising efforts. Your donation will help with research costs and perhaps spare a family the pain that this disease has brought to Amy and Carol and someone that I am very close to but who shall remain unnamed. I'll just say she likes lobster and leave it at that.

Squirrels Gone Wild

Ethan is supposed to dress in "brightly colored play clothes" for the Spring Show at school today.

He suggested one of his favorite bright yellow t-shirts.

He did not understand why I vetoed it. I think his teachers may be OK with the picture of the animals, but may not appreciate the "Squirrels Gone Wild ... The Ultimate Party Animals" text on the front.

Just a guess.

A Preview

Only the most astute readers will be able to guess where this was taken.

Stay tuned for Epcot *(Oops! Gave it away, was never very good at secrets!) and tales of a rodent-infested meal, technical difficulties on a roller coaster, and being swallowed by a great white shark ...

It's Not A Party Until Someone Loses Some Clothes

Day Two, Animal Kingdom ...

Sadly, there is no giant, glowing castle at Animal Kingdom for parents to prop children in front of for photo ops, but there is a giant, non-glowing tree with animal faces carved into the trunk. Even better! As you can see, Ethan wanted to be fully cooperative and was thrilled to oblige with more photos. I had to explain to him that the child currency exchange rate for a Disney trip is parental permission to snap 85,000 photos, per hour, and that he'd better work at smiling or otherwise looking happy because we were having fun (!) and the pictures had better look like it so we could make other people jealous about how fabulous our trip was when we got home ...

... there, that's more like it ...



... and, that didn't last very long.

Here is the safari ride. During the safari, each time I saw an animal (every three seconds), I would yell out the animal's name and then nudge Ethan with my arm to be sure he was looking at the animal we were both now staring at. I have no idea why I was doing this. Ethan is not vision or hearing impaired, nor does he suffer from some sort of rare disorder which somehow prevents him from recognizing and naming common zoo creatures. I suppose I was attempting to enhance his experience with my own educational narrative since I was a psychology undergrad major, which everyone knows is practically the same exact thing as being a vet.

"Alligators!" {nudge} "Look Ethan, there are ALLIGATORS! See the alligators?" On second thought, those might be crocodiles, in which case, "Crocodiles!" {nudge} ...

"A giraffe!" {nudge} "Look Ethan, there is a GIRAFFE! See the giraffe?"

"Elephants!" {nudge} "Look Ethan, there are ELEPHANTS! See the big elephant and the baby elephant?"

The Nemo show. They prohibited photos, so I only took this one. My friend claimed the show bothered her because "the actors were dressed like giant breasts." Which confused me, because my breasts do not look like fish or coral reefs, but I am not sure if she has something special going on with her anatomy that I lack. I'll reserve judgement, since she is a close friend.

The bridge to Everest. No giant fish breasts to be seen here.

Expedition Everest. Have I mentioned the screaming? See that hill? This ride went backwards, in the pitch dark AND there was a Yeti (a real one! -- see, told you, practically a vet!). The tiny daredevil did not scream once. So I screamed loud enough for both of us.

I even screamed when other people went down the hill. For them, just in case they were too scared to scream for themselves. I know they were grateful, even though nobody explicitly thanked me for helping them out in that way.

Waiting for the first car on Everest, second time around. Do not send me mean messages about forcing my kid to go on a scary ride. He was begging to ride again and is acting for this shot. One hopes that in the future he can get a lucrative job as a giant fish breast in a Nemo show. Anyhow, this is hands-down the most unflattering photo I have seen of myself, possibly ever. But I WAS scared and apparently, rendered super-homely by fear. That's OK, as previously established, Glamour Shots day ended with socks and sandals. Enough said.

After roller coaster riding, a little afternoon cross-dressing to take the edge off.

So, for real, Jeff and Ethan, are we having a super fun time yet or what?



Meet Spotty, our new resident pet house leopard.



On the prowl for the rental car with Spotty and his mean leopard face impersonation.

After Animal Kingdom park, we headed to the Animal Kingdom Lodge (I do love a theme!) and had an amazing dinner at the African restaurant, Jika. Everyone managed to keep their clothes on throughout the meal. After dessert, however, all bets were off.

That is a night vision giraffe. While yelling out random animal names to Ethan, "Zebras! Another giraffe!" {nudge}, I neglected to notice my son's foot was dangling through the bars ...

... so, here we are waiting for the nice animal lady to fetch what she referred to as the "long cage grabbers." In retrospect, we decided it was a bad idea to let him order that second bottle of wine with dinner. Next time, we'll know better. Seven-year-olds these days just can't hold their liquor like they used to.

Ethan was so upset by his wardrobe malfunction that he was unable to have any fun whatsoever for the rest of the trip. See the face of utter worry and despair.

PS Zebras and giraffes do not digest Crocs very well. Lesson learned.

Fairies And Pixie Dust

Day One! Starting strong at Magic Kingdom. All smiles in front of the park.

Main Street. Do you know it smells like cookies on Main Street? COOKIES! Even the air is happy at Disney.

Please note the absence of socks. This will be important later in the day ...

Cinderella's Castle! Subtitled: And can we ride some stuff now? For real. Enough with the photos and the princess house.

Hanging out at the track with Jeff/Mario/Danica. As I still do not have a license, Ethan was my chauffeur. I lodged a complaint with the car service company about his alarming acceleration and jarring braking, but he seemed to enjoy the trip. PS No license for him til he is forty-one.

This is a duck. Do not let its non-menacing public image fool you, this is an animal of stealth and cunning. While Ethan and Jeff were enjoying a show, I slipped out with the intent of finding a snack. It was still two hours until dinner and we had walked forty-nine-and-a-half miles and I was wobbly. I waited twenty minutes in line for a delicious, fried churro from the super-friendly churro man (**probably not his real name). As I walked away, I took one bite and three-quarters of the churro fell to the ground, right on top of my -- at this point still bare -- toe. Before I could move, an entire PACK of wild Disney ducks sprinted over, and the lead duck snapped the partial churro off of my naked toe with his wild duck beak. Do ducks carry rabies? I think this was The Universe trying to tell me I should not be eating churros.

Dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern. While we waited for our table, Ethan amused himself quietly and respectfully, by hanging from the ceiling and running in circles. Luckily, there were about a dozen families dealing with children who had thrown themselves on the floor and appeared to be in danger of stroke. One of these parents was on their cell phone, speaking intently to someone, and paying zero attention to their screaming children. The Vatican, I will assume, was on the line and he was arranging an emergency exorcism since his two little girls' heads were virtually spinning around in full-on pea soup status. Therefore, I felt free to ignore the fact that my own child was swinging from the rafters above me, and instead, just took a picture.

This is the point at which I abandoned all traces of vanity. Those are indeed socks with open-toed athletic sandals. And Mickey and Minnie socks. Your eyes do not deceive you. Two pair I bought at a stand next to Friendly Churro Man, hence the extra cankle action. It was either this high-fashion situation or blister city. When I bought these, I was three steps away from gnawing off one of my own feet and leaving it behind the fence at Splash Mountain. Desperate times ...

In a feat of spectacularly excellent planning, we enjoyed dinner ... two plates of turkey, ham and stuffing .... and mashed potatoes ... and apple cobbler ... and then more apple cobbler ... at Liberty Tree before heading over to ride Space Mountain. Happy at that juncture I'd only had one bite of churro. It had been awhile since I'd ridden a park ride, so I had forgotten that I am a screamer (get your mind out of the gutter, this is a G-Rated post about Disney!). I will ride anything, but scream -- at the TOP! OF! MY! LUNGS!!!!! -- the entire time. Fun for the people sitting in front of me.

Fireworks over Main Street. I could not take my eyes off the fireworks. Ethan could not take his eyes off the souvenir cart. After several tortured minutes attempting to make his all-important decision, he finally decided on a glowing fan thing on a stick.

I don't even know what he is looking at, probably another kid's souvenir, but I love the expression on his face ...

Midnight. Spectromagic parade down Main Street. I have to say, I am not easily impressed (the lawyer in me likes to reserve expression for truly amazing things) but this show was incredible. The floats were dazzling, pictures from my point-and-click Nikon don't do them justice.

The castle! It's PINK now! Ethan, let's take another picture!

And then BLUE!

Ethan's Most. Favorite. Souvenir. In. The. Entire. World. Until Day Two ...

Last men standing. Twelve hours of Disney later, this is what the Magic Kingdom parking lot looks like at 2 AM. Go hard or go home, people. Yay for Mickey socks with sandals!

Stay tuned for Day Two ... Animal Kingdom ... and photos of when Ethan loses a shoe in the animal cages ...

Me: Where is your other shoe?

E: Hmm?

Me: Your SHOE. You now have on one shoe. I am not very good at math but that is 50% less shoe then you had one minute ago.

E: Oh. It slipped off.

Me: Where?!

E: Down there.

Me: Down where?

E: {Points.} I see a shoe sitting on the ground, surrounded by zebras and giraffes.

Me: IN the cage???! WITH the animals?!

E: {Shrug.} I still have one on ...

Now Who Is Going To Unpack?

We are back from Florida. Trip was fabulous. I loved it. Ethan loved it. We had an amazing time and Ethan cried and cried when we came home, "I want to go back to vacation!" The sign of a good trip.

More photos to come. The one above is my favorite from Magic Kindgom. I only took about 500. And we all know how awesome it is to look at someone else's vacation photos. So stand by for more in coming days ...

All Your Trip Planning Needs Here

Disclaimer: This picture above has nothing to do with either a trip to Florida or anything I am about to write and will offend 99% of my family. Look away, family, look away. I must say I know neither the Lisa, nor the Dick, in question; I know a Lisa and several Dicks, but not the ones congratulated above on their enduring union.

The source of this fine piece of photography is an email forwarded from a friend. I opened this from my phone after hours upon fruitless hours at the MVA (I will spare you those details) and COULD.NOT.STOP.LAUGHING. Because I have the sense of humor of an 11-year-old-boy. I am talking shaking, silent, lunatic laughter. To myself. For minutes. Obviously, I was primed for some humor. The woman next to me actually stood up and switched seats after witnessing my hysterics, and quickly decided to relocate to a safer place across the way, to the only other open seat, next to the guy who smelled vaguely of urine that was muttering to himself about the state licensing conspiracy and how Kennedy was set up ... so, on to Florida ...

I asked for advice and I got it! You are a responsive people and I like that about you. For those who are soon heading to Disney, I wanted to share my compilation of tips from friends to make your planning easier.

1) Epcot is amazing! Do that first, you will love it!

2) Epcot is boring and a waste of time. Avoid at all costs, unless you are a boring person, which I know you are not.

3) The water parks are amazing! Do those first, you will love them!

4) The water parks are boring and a waste of time. Avoid at all costs!

5) Magic Kingdom is INCREDIBLE! Make sure you spend three days there to see it all!

6) Magic Kingdom is small, crowded and silly. Make sure you do not waste your money there!

7) Animal Kingdom is INCREDIBLE! Make sure you spend three days there to see it all!

8) Sea World is the best thing I've ever seen! You will be awed!

9) Sea World is the worst thing I've even seen! You will yawn!

10) Relax, chill out, and have fun.

Yes -- #10 -- agreed. I can do that. And, whatever we end up doing, I know we will have an incredible time and a much needed change of scenery. Thank you, seriously, for all the tips and advice. Thanks to all of you, I have some little-known suggestions for must-visit places . Gatorland anyone? Did you know gators taste like chicken and enjoy snacks of turkey hotdogs? Well now you do.

I must sign off to pack. Currently, the only items residing in my suitcase are my XXXL "Lawyers Have Feelings, Too. Allegedly." t-shirt (Thanks, Uncle Pat!) and some pink knock-off Crocs. All I need now are some opaque black knee socks and I should fit right in with the Florida crowd.

Sunscreen & Coconut Oil & Flip-Flop Hugs, J

Three Days Of Tears And Now Magic Sparkly Magical Magic!

(This is what my house will look like when we finish renovations. I don't think the gilded staircase is too ostentatious, do you?)

Tuesday was the hardest day of my life. The Hopkins appointment (all five hours of it!) was so much worse then I though it would be. I dry-heaved over the hospital wall when it was done, like some Lifetime movie character who's been off her lithium. I am mulling over the possibility of this life and limitations, and cannot process it all, right now. So I have been crying; out of pain, frustration, and sheer exhaustion. And then I'll yell at someone and then I'll cry about yelling. It's been fun around these parts.

So, now Disney, there are no tears allowed in Disney World. We were supposed to leave today, Thursday, but we pushed it back until Saturday so I could get my bearings and scale back the sobbing. I think lunatic crying for hours on a plane might get you flagged by TSA. Certainly it will get you arrested at WDW.

Friends, I need some tips. In true procrastinating fashion, I have not planned an itinerary. We have flights, a car, and a place to stay (Thanks, KC and NT, for generously letting us use your timeshare, the swim-up pool bar and I plan to become close friends!) As for parks, restaurants, and activities (I've read there is nothing much fun to do in Orlando?), we need some guidance.

Has anyone done Discovery Cove? It is about 40 million dollars to swim the dolphins but may be worth it? Unless they riot, like their larger whale counterpart, then not so worth it. (Sorry, SeaWorld trainer, RIP.)

Please hit me up with your best Disney/SeaWorld/Orlando tips/magical sparkly BEST VACATION IN FLORIDA EVER tips, and I will post a picture of Mickey ears for you later as a reward. I need your brilliance and your best Orlando vacation ideas so I don't have to think for myself. Please share!

Love and Mickey Ears and Whale Flippers, J

I Can Do This.