A Week At Dinnyland . . .

is one, maybe two days too long.

Still a great place.  "Pirates" retains its charm while Star Tours has grown hoary with age.  Tower of Terror became the new favorite.  The bus driver is almost certainly right who told us riders that, "If you have a heart condition, you probably won't mind the second drop."  I think we rode it maybe ten times over the week, four times just on the last day.  The roller coaster is my second favorite.  I was able to bring the family dare devil to her knees, begging me to stop, on the interactive ferris wheel.  That was a good ride.  Don't like Mullholland Drive nor the Matterhorn - too rough.

Avoid the Best Western at 7555 Beach.  None of the four rooms we checked in and out of was completely ok.  One had hot, no cold, one the other way, one a/c didn't work, the tv picture was pink, it was a disaster, all the way down to the drunken domestic family fight directly below us.  K got on line and hooked us up with the comparatively marvelous Homewood Suites by Hyatt for only $20/room/night more.

No divorce actions filed, very little blood spilt, sadly, all of it Gabe's.  It's not easy being a five year-old in the body of an eight year-old, but he is just the best kid ever.  And Miss Bella is an entire person, self assured and with a raucus laugh like nobody else's.

The nightly fireworks are amazing - now they do Mickey heads with ears, smiley faces and even cubes i don't know how.  Best synopsis was as we finally separated from Clan Schwoopie at the Phoenix airport, and SB shouted out, "Same time next year, right Pops?"

 

Why Satan's Phone Don't Ring

Archaeologists have struck another blow against the fevered beliefs of Heavy Metal rockers, televangelists and others concerned with Satanism.  Seems they've found scroll fragments for the Book of Revelations that show conclusively that "the number of the Beast" is not 666.  Turns out it's the same as the area code of Ann Arbor Michigan, 616.

Sedona Wedding - or - It's Good To Be A Dane

One of my pain-in-the-balls golf buddies got married Saturday at a pretty little meadow by the creek in Sedona.  Kris and Donna took Donna's convertible up the 17 and Larry and I rode our scooters up the long way, through Wickenburg, up the mountain through Congress and Peeples Valley, the twisties into Prescott, then up and over Mingus Mountain (7300 ft), down to Jerome and Cottonwood, then over to Sedona.

Saturday, the day of the wedding, the girls jumped on the backs of the bikes and we rode up Oak Creek Canyon to Flagstaff for lunch, then back down the Canyon, hopefully, for nappy time.

The wedding itself took all of ten minutes, presided over by the groom's son who had two days earlier been annointed a minister in some internet seminary for $39.95.  About a hundred people and about 200 bottles of wine, champagne and assorted adult beverages. I wouldn't want to be rude by not sampling a bit of each.

Things went really well and I was entertaining as all get out.  It got dark, very dark.  We went back to the parking lot to get into the car.

Now, Mercedes makes a very nice convertible, but its back seat is for really little people, especially when the top is up.  My beloved and I do not qualify.  However, she clambered in with me in hot pursuit. 

It's common knowledge that there exist in Sedona weird vortices, and permutations and ululations of gravity which can diskabibble the balance of the momentarily unobservant.  I'm convinced that that was exactly what caused the arc of my head's trajectory toward the back seat to be thrown off, ever so slightly, as I leapt toward my love.

Larry's contention that the impact caused the vehicle to momentarily rock up onto two wheels is false. The collision did, however, leave a mark - on both of us.

Now, your best friend, gentle reader, would certainly offer solace in the form of gentle words, a band-aid or an unguent of some sort.  HAH!  My friend instead demands recompense for the ever-so-hardly noticeable indentation in the frame of the convertible roof, and for the expense of having the scalp and tissue shards removed from the paint and frame of said vehicle.  I gotta start hanging with a better class of people.  If they'll have me.

Clean Didey Day At The Rub & Tug

Since the Day of the Chest Pains I've been getting one or two theraputic massages per week.  Nice, very serious young women with very strong hands.

The first day I come in, after the requisite paperwork, I'm led to a softly lighted room and invited to "disrobe to [my] comfort level" and she steps out. 

Ok. 

So I took off my shirt and sat on the table.  After a brief interval she calls out - "Ready in there?"  You bet!

Shoes had to go, too, but all else seemed fine.  Until two massages ago.  Margaret had some nerve she wanted at, down low, something she called a pubiculous meticulous ridiculum -  something else, but a lot like that.  "But with all those layers of clothing on, I really can't tell what's going on."

Ok.

So, two days ago, I make sure I've got clean undies on, and when I'm invited to disrobe to my blah blah blah, I disrobe to my best undies.  My second best, actually, but I didn't think the ones with the little red hearts and the "I Love You"s would be appropriate.  At least not yet.

So I'm lying there, and she's pushed and pulled my chest around until it feels like it's all in places other than where it should be, and she says, "Did you want me to show you that pressure point?"  Time stops.  There's no air. 

"Uhhhhhhhhh, yuh." I boldly venture.

She peels back the sheet, exposing the ElastoBand of my skivvies.  She sighs, exasperation finally on the forefront.  "Since you've still got all this on (all this?) I can't tell where everything is.  And I want everything to be out of the way before I show you the pressure point!"

I assured her everything was out of the way.  (Like a frightened turtle, out of the way.)

The point was located, pushed and prodded, and that was that.  Why do I feel as if I escaped something?

Corpsing . . .

. . . is an interesting term indigenous to the theeutuh.  It's when an actor on stage breaks up uncontrollably.  Often happens in Macbeth, according to the fellow on NPR, who said many superstitious actors won't even refer to the play by name, instead calling it "The Scottish Play."

The cited example is a howler:  this fellow's company of players gave a weekly matinee performance of The Scottish Play for the benefit of the elderly in the community.  The performance was in a theater so small that seating for the front row of patrons was practically on the stage itself.

One Wednesday, the teller of this story was within a foot of two sweet elderly ladies as he began the famous soliloquy that starts, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow . . ." at which point one of the aged darlings leaned over to the other and loudly stage-whispered, "That would be Sat uh day!"  Considerable corpsing ensued.