October 27, 2009

Dizzyland




The hearse in front of the Haunted House, 2009.


Himself: Still coughing but a little better. No jobs to apply for. Couldn’t nap, coughed instead. Himself wanted dinner out instead of quiche and salad.

Herself: Acted as if: Went to morning meeting then priced Christmas stuff at the shop. Slept partially sitting up, and when I woke in the night took one of those mucus pills for a, as my old doc used to say, “a more productive cough.” I’m continuing to act as if minus the water exercise and biking. Knee better with the rest.

Reading: Nothing. Oh, shame on me. Cookbooks expanding out into the living room so beginning to think about bringing grandma’s old white bookcase upstairs to the living room which means a major rotation of furniture.

Balance: Better sleep….and any sleep is better than none.

We did it. We took our uncommon cold to Disneyland last week and dragged it through half our favorite rides. We had fun until at Roger Rabbit when the Geeee-zer asked me what I wanted to do next, and I whined, “I wanna to go home.” We headed home.



It had been over two years since we barreled our way through the happiest place. I wanted to do this. He wanted to do that. Who was I to argue when the cold was really winning. We started at the Pirates….twice, then on to the Haunted House….which seemed awfully happy this year with colors instead of wide swathes of black crepe, then on to Finding Nemo via various and sundry other diversions.



Last time we were there, the Submarine Ride was long gone and all that remained was a hole in the ground. This time, the subs had been rehabilitated, and hole in the ground was filled with magic. Who cared about the story line with light and color all around. We didn’t. I delighted in the whole thing including live sea gulls competing with the fake ones sitting on their buoy.







On to “It’s A Small World” of all things.

There inside its Mary Blair inspired façade, we toodled through the refreshed, repainted children smiling all the way. I had always read that Mary Blair, a major Disney designer, did this ride for the 1964 World’s Fair. Instead, it was a group of Disney designers and imagineers that put together this ride with Mary Blair in a short period for Pepsi Co….who didn’t like it. Much of the work was done at the last minute. Wade Sampson writes in “Mouse Planet” that designers Rolly Crump said of the last minute crush to open, “We were living off black coffee in the morning, and martinis for lunch. Mary [Blair] and I were kind of kidding, that if it hadn’t been for gin, we never would have opened Small World on time.”



So we rode and sang, and this time took volumes of photographs. Then after a whirl with Roger Rabbit, we wandered our way back out of the park, back onto the freeway, meandering our way home to tuck our colds into bed at last.

3 comments:

  1. Is it only your choice of photos, or were there not that many people there? Hard to enjoy yourself or bubble with enthusiasm when you are cold. The sailing trips I took in the cold were the most challenging of them all.

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  2. Love the hearse. Almost makes me want to carve pumpkins

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  3. "Small world" is my favorite. It's the first place I headed for when I'm visited Disney World (in Florida) but the lines got so long we gave up Disney a long time ago.

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