Arone eat Xmas!

The recap: (I've been told some people care about this stuff)

The Christmas holiday was relaxing and fun. It was my parents' turn to host us (we stayed in Calgary last year) and so we kicked it old school at the Le Bray bed and breakfast. It was the type of holiday I really wanted/needed. Here are the highlights:

- snow (it is Edmonton)
- spending the time with the complete Le Bray family (all six of us, give or take a couple of other surnames)
- a decorated home (I'll miss that place when/if mom and dad leave)
- reading by a fire with a twinkling Christmas tree
- a huge crab dinner (no turkey here)
- watching movies with the family (Night at the Museum, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Muppet Family Christmas)
- dinner with friends (I'm glad Kim suggested Louisiana Purchase. Mmm... alligator)
- sleeping in every day (Natalie may argue that)
- seemingly non-stop great food (the gym and I have a date... or five)
- and more, but those are like rides at Disneyland: more notable for me than you.

Of course, there were also the exchanging of gifts as a family with a roaring fire in the background. Last year I made the mistake of suggesting my family didn't follow any traditions at Christmas. This year, I was reminded again and again about the traditions we have and how wonderful it is to share them with the people I care about.

The kids

The parental units

Randomly reminded

You may have heard this one before... but consider it a Christmas story since I suspect the next post will come after the holidays...

In the month leading up to our wedding, I developed a canker sore. Normally, these things last a few days and then disappear, but this time around this canker sore stayed around for a while. In fact, it stayed with me for at least three weeks becoming, eventually, a problem.

As a disgusting aside, I remember seeing my doctor about it at the peak of the affliction. His response upon seeing it:

"ew. That's pretty gross." Yeah, I'm enjoying it too.

So, he prescribed some antibiotics and a simple topical anesthetic gel. The gel is great for quickly making things feel a whole lot better. The only problem is that it needs to be dabbed on form a small tube, and that needs a mirror and a steady hand. Remember these facts, because they will become important.

Two weeks prior to the wedding, I went with a client of mine up to northern Alberta to look at a well site. Not the sexiest in corporate travel destinations, but, hey, at least I get to travel in my job.

Getting to the site requires a flight from Calgary and then a few-hour drive from Fort McMurray. It's a lot of driving but this time I'm not the only other person in the SUB, so I can comfortably sit in the back while the client speaks with some of his colleagues.

Now, a canker sore is normally only a problem when you can feel it. And you can only feel it if it's being irritated by something (IE: food, teeth, tongue). So, typically, a canker sore isn't a problem until after lunch and it's had a half-day of irritation.

It's now late afternoon and I'm in the back of an SUB half an hour into a long ride back to the airport. The gravel road seems bumpier than normal and with every jostle, I'm painfully aware that I have a gross little demon in my mouth intent on making me tear up in front of a client. Fifteen minutes later, the pain is starting to become a serious issue for me. My face has begun to feel sore and the beginnings of a migrain are in play. The three others in the vehicle with me are talking away while I feel like I'd do anything to numb the pain.

And now all I can think about is that I have a tube of topical anesthetic in my pocket. No one's looking. I could easy just palm the tube and subtly open my mouth to dab some relief onto the canker sore. How hard could it be to do this thing blind? I do it fine in front of the mirror. No problem.

Yeah, no problem.

Ever-so-carefully, I reach into my pocket and grab the tube. I look around to make sure I don't have to do any explaining and then quickly unscrew the cap bringing the tube up to my mouth and under my lip toward the offending canker. I have to say, I thought the motion was achieved quite deftly. I then applied a slight pressure to the tube to urge out a bit of gel.

Suddenly, the SUV pitched violently on a pothole. My body tensed to gain some stability.

My hand tensed too--filling my mouth with all the anesthetic gel that had been in the tube.

There's a moment when instinct is all your body knows. And at that point--sitting in the back seat of my client's SUV with my mouth full of numbing chemicals--my body knew that the next step was to simply spit out the junk.

My mind, on the other hand, was quick to override instinct. I mean, how embarrassing would it be to quietly vomit a mouthful of gel onto the client's upholstery? Never mind having to explain the whole canker sore thing and how I'd clearly screwed up applying a simple medical gel.

My lips and tongue were starting to lose feeling. Panic was percolating. Can I spit this into my hand? Should I just let it sit in my mouth and hope no one asks me a question? Neither option seemed preferable.

So I swallowed it.

I have to admit, while that gel tastes awful, it does the job. I could no longer feel my canker sore. Nor my lips, tongue, gums or throat while the chemical gob is sliding toward my stomach. I'd taken decisive action on what to do with the gel and that had made me feel better, but now I was suddenly concerned about what it might to do my innards. I suspect this is not a medicine meant for major ingestion.

But, I'm on company time and panicking the client is on the list of things to avoid, so I sat silently in the back seat--a bit worried but mostly comfortably numb.

The canker sore problem was totally solved by our wedding day. So was the twitch I'd recently developed, but I suspect that's a different story.

A hidden mickey and the Blue Bayou

The rest of our trip at Disneyland was rides, rides, rides, and an occasional clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.

But we discovered two cool things: hidden mickeys and the Blue Bayou.

In the Pirates of the Caribbean, just before you enter the dark tunnel with the talking skull, you pass through a dark and quiet bayou. Did you know there is a restaurant to your right as you pass through the faux bayou? Daorcey mentioned vaguely that there was a restaurant and his family never did eat there because the place was always booked up.

Thanks to our well-earned Disney Dollars, we ate at the Blue Bayou. The food is expensive but that did not deter the family of eight, with six small kids, from eating there. The quality is okay but really its big attraction is you're eating in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Luckily, we did not sit near the ride and did not have to endure inane comments of the riders.

Also of interest was the cookie boat plundering the dessert seas. Most of it was edible... we think.

Yar, even the plastic mast is "edible"

The menus are also a bonus souvenir. Wow, what bang for my buck!

Daorcey says it's blurry because it's dark. Right.

However, the adult menu did not convert to a hat like the kids' menu so naturally we had to clothe ourselves in such high fashion. We also wore them on the ride because if you can't wear a menu/pirate hat on the Pirates of the Caribbean, that's just sad.

If Daorcey had a pirate name, it would be Squinty.

The other excitement was the Hidden Mickey. We were sitting in the front seat/row for Pirates of the Caribbean and usually only two people sit in the front row. These two girls join us just before the boats leave. So the boat was a little front heavy. However, we learned the secret of the Hidden Mickey.

In every ride there is a at least one Mickey Mouse-shaped something. In the Pirates of the Caribbean, in the battle scene between the ship and the fort, the fort has a large Mickey Mouse-shaped hole in it.

So as soon as we got back to the hotel, we popped online to write a quick post and find out more Hidden Mickeys. This is definitely a feature for:

a) Disneyland creators and workers leaving their mark by sneaking in the Mickey ears, and
b) Disneyland guests who have done the rides so many times that they're ready to add on the extra fun of searching for Hidden Mickeys throughout the rides.

A quick Google search found a few sites dedicated to this phenomenon. So we printed out what we could and focused our efforts on finding the mickeys on the Indiana Jones ride (we knew we'd be doing that one a few more times).

The are two easy ones to spot. In the lineup to watch the orientation film (Salah!), there is a large mickey in the lineup on the wall which is made through a trick of the light and the colour of stone. Once you see it, it's hard not to see it all the time--it just jumps out at you.

On the back of the well where you can pull the rope and cause a researcher to drop into a pit, there is a series of symbols on the cover of the tomb/excavation site. Among these symbols is a Hidden Mickey.

Holy Mickey's Head, Batman!

The best Hidden Mickey can be seen on the ride in the first set of skeletons. One of the skeletons is wearing a Mickey Mouse hat with "Bones" written on it! Sadly, I never did see it, but every time we went on the ride Daorcey said he saw it and he kept adding new details:

"Oh wow, it has a pink bow on it! Didn't you see it?"
"Geez, the Bones script really stands out in the black light!"
"How can you not see it? It's a sparkly pink bow!"

After the third time, Daorcey shut up when he realized his observations were not helping.

The Happiest Place on Earth - Monday

Monday was our All-American Day (AAD). Not to make fun of Americans (maybe just a little) but to live their lifestyle, or as we imagine it.

We took a quick shortcut through the empty Timon parking lot. The crowds would eventually materialize but for now there was a tram all for us.

On my tram. Look at how empty it is...

The tram put us much closer to our first destination on our AAD: McDonald's. Where else would you go for breakfast?

I chose a bacon McMuffin and Daorcey an egg McMuffin.

Bring on AAD! Yay, potatoes!

Daorcey told me once that Americans did not know of English Muffins and thus all their McMuffins were on biscuits. He lied. He got an English Muffin and I got, well, something else. Normally, the English muffin does not contribute much taste. It serves as a grease sponge and meat holder. All I could taste of the bacon McMuffin was the immense amount of butter in the biscuit. Even the egg is done incorrectly.

Behold its greasiness

Agreeing we should take it slow on the rides, we wander in to California Adventure. Maybe we'll start with Muppets 3D or A Bug's Land. The park officially opens at 10 a.m. but they allow people in before that time but rope off the paths to the rides. So we walked around, eventually deciding to join the crowd going into the Hollywood Backlot area.

Crowd control is a really interesting phenomenon, especially in Disneyland. It's like waiting in line or standing in an unmoving crowd waiting for something to happen is an established social convention. It takes very little persuasion to keep a crowd behind a crack in the pavement. Interesting too, that once the rides were opened, the crowd remained controlled because the "cast members" employed eager kids to lead the parade. The crowd would police itself because who would knock over an innocent child to be first in line? Brilliant!

So now we find ourselves as part of the throng headed down the Hollywood Backlot toward... well, we've already told you how that story ended. Let's just say, it wasn't the relaxing start we'd intended. It ended with lots of screaming (Natalie) and a bit of maniacal laughter (Daorcey).

The bulk of our AAD was spent exploring California Adventure, doing many a ride and eating with our newly gained 100 Disney dollars. Another requisite for AAD is having our photos taken with various Disney characters. The top of the pyramid would be Mickey and I guess the bottom would be the cars from Cars. We picked characters that were mildly cute and had a short line.

Goofy, Eeyore, Chip and Pluto!

As part of our AAD, we knew we had to conclude things with a trip to a buffet. According to Daorcey, buffets are arguably the American dream--it represents the freedom to choose excess. No one goes hungry in America.

We wanted a Sizzler but strangely there wasn't one in walking distance. The only available buffet was Captain Kidd with the requisite flair on the walls. This was the world's saddest buffet. Everything had a dried out heat shell thanks to the red heat lamps.

Hence my sad face over a plate of pasta and canned corn. Daorcey had fish sticks, french fries and refried beans.

Why must I be so hungry?

If you follow the pictures you can see my excitement at my egg McMuffin and my blues at the buffet. I think AAD was not the success we wanted it to be.

Apart from memories that may come back to us, this is pretty much the end of our trip recap. It was easy, moderately fun and almost relaxing. Not France, but a good bit of travelling together.

Huh.

What happens when you leave mushrooms in the fridge too long?

Do they grow more of themselves?

Diversions

While I think Batman is one of the coolest superheros, I'm pretty sure he and I are different in personality. Apparently, I'm much closer to:

You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Superman 60% Robin 60% Supergirl 45% Green Lantern 35% The Flash 35% Wonder Woman 30% Catwoman 30% Hulk 25% Iron Man 25% Batman 20%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

In other news, my designer friend and I bond over Star Wars and a mutual dislike of a certain circus perfomer (no telling in public). So, today he sent me links to these: