design-newyork.com

A coupla things.

August 30th, 2014

1. If I have a low-resolution image but I still want to use it and I want it to look good, I would maybe do this because this is rad:

http://www.photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/special-effects/quick-tip-create-triangle-pixelation-effect-photoshop/

2. Speaking of design, someone okayed a photo of a man diving into a pool for a New York fitness club ad that was on one side of my Facebook screen. Aside from the fact of why this was a targeted ad for me, it was so small and grainy that I thought it was a portrait of Doctor Finkenstein from Nightmare Before Christmas mutating in a pool. Here is the ad:

And here’s who I see every time I see it.

3. In addition, Facebook is sending me this over and over again and I find it off-putting.

What? What Rothman thing wouldn’t you understand? Adult-onset diabetes? An inability to whisper? I hate this shirt.

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I went to a cat fashion show. Yes, you heard me correctly.

August 13th, 2014

Every so often I would see that there had been a cat fashion show in New York where cats were in costumes and looked peeved. Despite my love of kitties I had little or no interest in seeing felines dressed in festive ensembles traipsing down a runway. However, recently I “liked” the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals Facebook feed and therefore I see their posts. One of their posts was this:

Now this is different. My entry fee goes to support beasties in need, I get to go inside the Algonquin Hotel, a national treasure of a building, AND I get to see haute couture kittehs? Well, now I’m totally in. I bought myself a ticket and when I told The Moomins I was going she said, “You got me a ticket too, right?” I was like, “No, do you want to go?” and she was all, “HELL YES I want to go” so off we went. Shortly after we got to the hotel we were greeted by Matilda, the house cat of the Algonquin.

http://www.algonquinhotel.com/algonquin-cat

People went CRAZY. They all ran up to her, begging her to face this way, banging the concierge phone on the counter to get her attention. Here’s a shocker: she would have none of it.

I love how in this picture where The Moomins is talking to her, Matilda looks all, “Do I know you?”

There were a ton of professional photographers there. I just brought my cellphone so all my pictures look like they were taken with a potato. If any of the pictures I show here look good it’s because they were taken by someone with a real camera and I wrote their names in the corners so they would get credit.

The cat show was upstairs and didn’t start for another fifteen or twenty minutes so in the meantime The Moomins and I wandered around the ground floor. Set up were gift bags for the raffle, various foodstuffs like crudites and fancy cheeses and an enormous cake with (I’m sad to say, extremely poor) renditions of Matilda and Tara, the cat that rescued that little boy a few months ago. The LEDs in the base were a nice touch, though. Check out Observer’s list of CBD oils that can be very beneficial for your pets that suffer from pain, anxiety, and improves their mood.

We eventually worked our way upstairs to the actual fashion show. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe a runway or something. It turned out to be various cats perched on pillows wearing costumes inspired by Broadway shows. Their emotions ranged from, “Eh, it could be worse” to “This is WAAAAAAY too many people” to “Please, if you have any compassion in your heart kill me now and end this living nightmare.” First you encountered Vito who was sleeping for most of the time he was on display. He was the chillest cat ever.

Behind him was a cat dressed as the lead from Legally Blonde. The owner informed me that this was totally appropriate because this cat was raised by a chihuahua who adopted him as a kitten when she lost all her pups (Elle, the main character of Legally Blonde has her chihuahua with her all the time). He was also calm, but I think he would have preferred to have slightly less people flashing lightbulbs in his face.

There was the Persian representing Wicked.

There was a black cat who was Roxy Hart from Chicago and he wanted to leave so badly his owner had to keep her hand under the skirt area to keep the little guy from fleeing.

Off to the side was the Rock of Ages cats, Tigger and Cody:

And off in the far corner was two cats representing… something with turquoise and argyle. One was a Savannah and he was sleeping and the other was a wee kitten with yellow eyes and he was full of the frisky.

In the library was Tara, the cat that rescued the little boy from the attacking dog. This cat. As I entered the room Tara stalked across the carpet and hid under the tablecloth.

But he best part for me, without a doubt, was when a woman showed up late all flustered and I realized she was wearing two cats, one on her shoulder and one in a baby sling.

I have a weak spot for gray cats so I immediately fell in love with sling-cat whose name, I found out later, is R2D2 because of the wee beeping noises he makes. In addition both these cats are ancient and really shouldn’t have to go through this stupid and humiliating endeavor. Wearing costumes is a young kitty’s game. These elderly fellas should be playing shuffleboard in Florida. But here they were and it was about to get real rough for them.

R2D2 was then dressed as The Phantom of the Opera and Orange Cat Who’s Name I Never Caught was the Phantom’s Angel of Music. Orange Cat seemed moderately tolerant of this but R2D2 immediately went into some kind of sadness trance and stared at, nay, through, the carpet for the next hour. I think he was willing himself to die. People petted him, cameras went off in his face, he didn’t care. He was convincing the Grim Reaper to drop on by and help him shuffle off this mortal coil. I’m a bad person because I may or may not have laughed until tears rolled down my face at the utter pitifulness of R2D2. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.

OH GOD NOT THE MASK HASN’T HE SUFFERED ENOUGH

I didn’t purchase any raffle tickets so The Moomins and I split after we petted all the cats that would let us and munched some cheese. It was a nice experience and I would go again to give funds to a worthy cause but once you’ve seen a bunch of cats in costumes you’re kind of good with that for a long time.

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The kitchen re-model, part WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING this is why people hire a contractor.

August 12th, 2014

Ugh, the countertop. I’ve been working on my countertop for like three months now. Painting, sanding, trying to get it perfect, etc. A week ago Cricket and I were going to pour the resin. We did everything right. We taped up plastic and put barriers on the edges to prevent overflow and I cleaned all the surfaces of debris, everything was going great.

Until.

I realized that I need some small cups filled with resin to get in between the tiles in the back. I couldn’t use the big gallon bucket we had mixed up the resin in, it was too big and clumsy and the stuff would splash. So Cricket gets the bright idea for me to put three cups down on the area of the countertop we’re going to pour next so when he puts the resin in the little cups if he overflows it won’t be a problem. So I lay the cups down and when I pick them up THE ENTIRE COUNTERTOP COMES UP WITH THEM. The resin on the bottoms of the cups pulled up all the paint, the spackle, everything down to the plywood. I had an epic meltdown like a overtired two-year-old in the supermarket. I screamed, I cried, I called Cricket a six-foot-three bag of garbage, it was not a good time. I had to take some pills and lay down for a while, I got myself all riled up. If I had been a little kid I would have puked. It was a big bummer.

After I pulled myself into some semblance of togetherness (it took about an hour), I realized that I would pour the resin on the parts of the countertop that did not look like it had been hit by a grenade, repair the damaged area, do a separate pour and then sand and polish the seam so it looked cohesive. This is not what I was hoping for. I was hoping to get a plumber in this week to hook up my sink and dishwasher, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset. Here’s what the affected area looked like after I spackled what looked like a big open plywood wound.

I sanded and fussed and painted carefully and got it to look pretty perfect. Then I prepped it and did the second pour. Everything went fine except now there is a 1/8″ lip of difference between the two pours.

Sigh. I would leave it with the seam but it will gather dirt and nothing will lay level on it so I decided to bite down and sand the countertop into some state of flatness. I’m using about seven different grades of sandpaper from 60 to 2000. (Did you know they make 2000 grit sandpaper? What is that, a piece of terrycloth towel? Does it have any scrape to it at all? We shall find out.) After that I’m borrowing Cricket’s oscillating multi-tool and polishing the afflicted areas to (hopefully) its original shiny patina. Pray for me. I will need it.

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Saw two shows, read a book.

August 5th, 2014

1. Shows! I saw Breaking the Code and Violet. I went to the Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts to see Breaking the Code. It’s the story of Alan Turing, the British genius who broke the German enigma code during WWII and pretty much invented the computer as we know it. That’s all I knew when I bought the ticket. Interestingly enough, that’s not really what the show was about. You would think that would be enough plot, but there’s so much more to this man’s life. Turing was a homosexual when it was illegal to be one. When he went to the police after he was robbed Turing let it slip that the man who robbed him had slept with him the night before. Turing was accused of “gross indecency” even though the dalliance happened between two consenting adults behind closed doors (this makes me SO ANGEEE) and the court gave Turing one year of probation and estrogen to render him impotent. It also made him grow breasts. The whole thing is messed up. At 41 Turing was found dead from cyanide poisoning. It is assumed that it was suicide, but there is another theory, From Wikipedia:

Philosophy professor Jack Copeland has questioned various aspects of the coroner’s historical verdict, suggesting the alternative explanation of the accidental inhalation of cyanide fumes from an apparatus for gold electroplating spoons, using potassium cyanide to dissolve the gold, which Turing had set up in his tiny spare room.

Breaking the Code was really engrossing. I wouldn’t call it “fun” but it was definitely informative.

The other show I saw was Violet. I had no interest in checking it out until I saw their performance at the Tony Awards. I am a sucker for good gospel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kVaDl1MsYs

Violet, when she was about thirteen, was whacked in the face with an axe blade while chopping wood and her father was scared she was going to bleed out from the wound so he went to the nearest place and had it stitched up quickly and not very well, so she has a big ole lumpy scar across her nose-bridge and cheek, not unlike Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones.

(Interesting directing choice: the actress doesn’t have anything on her face. You have to imagine it. It makes the third act better.) Violet is about this young woman’s journey via Greyhound bus to a faith healer who she is convinced will fix her scar and make her beautiful. It takes place in the 1960s so there’s some race stuff in there as well. It’s a good show with good music, but the talent of the stars is what makes it great. I would recommend Violet except it’s closing in four days, so chances are you will not have a chance to check it out. If by some strange fluke of nature you are in the city before August 10th and you are going to see a Broadway show, this is a good one to see.

2. Book! I read Gone Girl and THAT BOOK CAN SUCK IT. It is the worst because it started so well! I loved the writing at the beginning, it was engrossing and the adjectives were well-chosen, I was hooked. I stayed up until 1:30 on a work-night because I couldn’t put it down. So thrilling! So many twists and turns! And then… garbagepants. It goes right off the edge of anything reasonable and straight into Housewives-of-New-Jersey-throwing-wine-in-each-other’s-faces level stupidity. And the ending BLOWS. It just ends. Crappily. You hate every single character and your face is in a permanent grimace for two days after. I hear they’re making it into a movie. A MOVIE I WILL NOT BE SEEING.

Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOBr8lOTZ6I

Addendum 8/12/14: I forgot to mention that one of the people starring in Violet is the silent character Norma on Orange is the New Black, Annie Golden. She plays a bunch of different people in the show Violet and while I was waiting outside for the will-call counter to open, who should show up but Lea Delaria, another actress from Orange is the New Black! Lea plays Big Boo. People were asking her for photos and telling her how much they loved her and I didn’t want to bother her, but it was so nice to see fellow actors supporting each other in different performance mediums.

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Thoughts.

July 25th, 2014

1. There’s a trend right now to have multicolored polygons in advertising and I just want to put it out there that I like it. Every time I see a Samsung Galaxy or pass a Starbucks it brightens my day a little bit. It’s so cheerful and festive. Keep it up, everyone. I WANT HAPPY RAINBOW TRIANGLES EVERYWHERE. IT’S FRIKKIN’ JOYOUS, Y’ALL.

2. For the last three weeks I’ve been avoiding sugar and packaged foods, really just eating fresh vegetables and meat for protein. My body is running like a beautifully oiled machine. My entrails aren’t fighting with me like they usually do, my skin is clear, I lost some weight, all good stuff. And then the universe decided things were going too smoothly and I needed to struggle more, using 7-11 as a conduit for this temptation.

Oh my gosh, that looks delicious. And like it would hurt me from the minute I put it in my mouth until it left my body angrily twenty minutes later. I still want it though. It’s so… orange. There’s crunchy crumbles! And runny cheesy goo! I must have it. Lord, give me strength to avoid the siren call of the loaded Dorito. It’s the work of the devil, I know, but I am weak. I’m only a person!*

3. Occasionally I walk on Broadway to get to and from work. There’s a building that is covered in scaffolding and the scaffolding has different artists’ interpretations of eyes over it. Fine, good, whatever. It’s better than raw nakey scaffolding. However, one of the eyes is clearly that of Michelangelo’s David. I never realized that Michelangelo left a small point of stone in the pupil to give the impression of light hitting the surface of the eye. When seen in situ it’s a brilliant move, but when the eye is seen all on its lonesome it looks like a goat eyeball.

4. Also on Broadway, a pop-up shoe store. It’s selling the usual high heels and boots and the like, so the first few times I walked by I didn’t even notice the freaky shoes.

You see the iridescent and checkerboard shoes? I thought those were sandals on a plastic foot form, but look closer: the laces are on the plastic part. It’s a combination house shoe and clear plastic men’s shoe. Why? Why is this a thing? I can’t imagine your foot would look good in there, all your toes mooshed together and sweaty. Have we run out of ideas for footwear? Has it come to this? I want to speak to the person in charge.

5. Unrelated to my walks around town: this is a phenomenal costume I saw on the internet and I love it. In case you don’t recognize it, it’s Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show.

*BTW, I figured out a solution: I take a different route to work so I don’t see the storefront. Problem solved.

Addendum 9/15/14: Cheer is on the rainbow polygon bandwagon and I could not be happier about it.

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Time for charts!

July 16th, 2014

I got me some charts. Let’s look at them.

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Looking a gift horse DIRECTLY in the mouth.

July 9th, 2014

The Moomins recently returned from a trip to Africa where she spent a month hanging out with relatives and friends. One of those relatives, my Auntie Bo, works for WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization. It was created mainly to help women in Israel and according to the WIZO Wikipedia page:

Today, WIZO runs 180 day care centers in Israel, caring for 14,000 children of working mothers, new immigrants and needy families. The organization also runs summer camps, courses for single-parent families and therapeutic frameworks for children removed from their homes by court order.

That’s nice. Anyway, my aunt runs a chapter in Johannesburg and they have auctions to raise money. A woman in Africa passed away and left the contents of her home for WIZO to auction off. The Moomins was assisting Auntie Bo, organizing the stuff into piles when another lady came over with a puzzled expression on her face. “What are these?” she asked. The Moomins said, “Oh, those are penis shields.” Indigenous men in Africa would wear penis shields to prevent irritation from the rough animal skin pelt skirts. You don’t want to chafe. Now that Western clothing with underpants is more common penis shields have fallen out of popularity, but these were vintage ones from the 60s. “Who would want them?” the woman asked. “You know, my daughter would*,” The Moomins responded. So, when she came back and I said, “Hey, didja bring me anything cool?” thinking I would get something made out of wire or a piece of pottery, she presented me with not one, but two penis shields. A plethora of penis shields! Hooray! You can’t have just one! I didn’t know what to do. Despite what you may think my entire apartment is tastefully appointed, no art with any sexuality of any kind. I do not want these in my home. I cannot decide which drawer I will shove them in to try to forget about them. I insisted my father hold a shield in each hand so I could take a photo. He’s trying to smile but he’s actually saying, “What am I holding right now and why?”

In keeping with this vaguely sub-gartelian theme, I was asked by a gay co-worker for some signs to hold when he walked in the Gay Pride Parade. He is part of a gay outdoor adventure group. He gave me some witty and naughty catchphrases that he wrote (puns abound, y’all) and I designed a variety of posters based on them. I went to their Facebook page and researched all the places the group had traveled to (one was called Gaylordsville which is ridiculous, c’mon now) and used them as background images for the signs. I think they turned out great. Head’s up: some of these are a bit rough-and-tumble so don’t look at them if your workplace is uncool.

*NO I WOULD NOT.

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Kitchen countertop is painted!

July 1st, 2014

I hunkered down and got some work done this weekend because I am running out of patience. I want to stop washing my dishes in the bathtub. It’s been months. I’m 100% over it. So I spent all weekend painting five fish (below is an example, first the stencil and then with highlights and lowlights added):

And highlights on any part of the circles intersecting.

I also laid out where all the pebble tiles are going to go. Now I need to glue down all the tiles, grout them and then finally – FINALLY!! – I can pour the resin and then call in plumbers in winnipeg to attach the sink and dishwasher. And then everything in my apartment will be washed and I shall rejoice. Call Rare Breed Plumbing for professional plumbing services in Bountiful & Sandy, Utah. If you want to be a plumber, then there are many plumbing certification programs you can take.

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Empire State Tattoo Expo.

June 30th, 2014

A weekend ago there was a tattoo expo a block from my house. Now, I don’t have any tattoos but I love every kind of art and did I mention it was a block from my house? I called up Snorth and off we went to the tattoo expo.

I didn’t take any pictures while I was there because I really wanted to focus on looking at all the displays and I took the risk that everything I saw would be on the internet. Luckily I was right, so all the pictures you see here were pulled off of the artist’s/company’s Facebook pages. We’ve all seen a great many tattoos in our lives and I was bracing myself for some unfortunate artwork. This guy I saw once comes to mind. I don’t think I saw any sub-par work. Every single artist I saw was above-average to out-of-this-world amazing. I could not believe the level of skill I was witnessing. I’m going to talk about three artists in particular, but here’s a quick glance at some of the other artists.

The talent, it was awe-inspiring. The first artist I walked past that knocked me out of my socks was Nathan Mould. He hails from Pittsburgh and his work is mostly black and white geometric using pointillism to create gradations.

He was selling a t-shirt and he could have charged fifty bucks for it, I would have bought it anyway.

Then the next two artists were focusing mainly on the vibrantly colored watercolor technique incorporating a computerized collage feel. I saw Ivana Belakova, originally from Slovakia, now working in L.A. She’s on the right.

I loved that she could tattoo any subject, but always in her very distinct style. You want a car? She does a car.

You want a portrait of your dog? You got it.

Or your kid? No problem.

How about a beet? Now everyone will want a beet. I sure do.

I loved her bird and animal work most, though.

And the last artist I encountered was Justin Nordine (on the left). His studio is presently in Massachusetts. Snorth and I ended up talking to him while he prepared to tattoo a rainbow chameleon on a man’s thigh.

Later when I went to his Facebook page, I saw the drawing of the rainbow chameleon and the finished piece! (No surprise, it came out brilliantly.)

Here are the websites of all these artists. If you want to get something done by them, be prepared to wait several months. They have a long list.

http://www.justinnordine.net/

http://www.ivanatattooart.com/

http://artisanpittsburgh.com/tattoo/nathan-mould/bioportfolio/

While weaving up and down the aisles, I noticed an enormous inflatable something-or-other in the middle area. When we circled back around I realized it was a booth with giant jelly jar of moonshine on top from the Ole Smoky Tennessee Moonshine Company. I found a picture of the booth elsewhere, you’ll need to imagine it in a big open convention hall.

I asked if I could buy a jar and they said no, the law prohibits them from selling the jar. What I could have was a shot. A shot of moonshine. I don’t really drink ever and it was 11:30 in the morning, but when an opportunity presents itself you take it. I was given the choice of original, lemon drop, cherry or charred.

I voted for cherry, hoping that the fruit would mellow the inevitable burn of the 100-proof moonshine.

I said I just wanted a taste, but the nice man poured me about two shots worth and then threw four cherries in. Hoo boy. I sniffed it. It smelled like something you would clean a hospital with.

I took a sip. Have you ever drank poison? I imagine what happened is what would happen if you drank poison. First, my chest got all warm on the inside and my left eyelid decided to close. It was done for the day. Then I ate a cherry. My nose-bridge began sweating and my tongue went numb. All I could taste was metal. I am not exaggerating. Snorth was watching me, she can attest to all of this. I politely handed my still-full cup back to the nice man, said thank you as best as I could with my tongue (“thakkoo”) and tried to continue on my way. I turned to talk to Snorth and she said, “Yeah, you reek of rubbing alcohol.” Fumes were coming off of me. But now I can say I’ve tried moonshine. Another thing on my list of things to impress youngsters. “Gather ’round children, lemme tell you about the time I tried NyQuil-flavored-propane.”

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I went to Disney’s Realm of Thaumaturgy! Part 2 of 2.

June 26th, 2014

Parades! I love parades. For a lazy person such as myself they are a thing of beauty. YOU sit still, and THEY walk past you. I always feel like a debauched Roman lord when I watch a parade. “Yes, yes, go by with your instruments and dancers and entertain me en route. I shall sit here and wave if so inclined.” Since the Disney people have all the money ever in the world they put on a helluva parade, I can tell you. The first one I saw was the 3:00 Festival of Fantasy parade. I got there early and staked out a good spot on the curb. First the Grand Marshalls went by. It was a family and a newlywed couple riding in an oldey-timey car.

And then there were dancers with Belle and the Beast behind them. I have to say, the picking of the floats and what’s on them got weirder and more arbitrary as they went on, almost as if the parade organizers had walked into an enormous warehouse and cobbled together floats from pre-existing bits of other floats. You’ll see what I mean. So first, Beauty and the Beast.

On the same float was Cinderella, the sisters from Frozen and the two main characters from The Princess and The Frog.

Following that was an elaborate float for Tangled, the Rapunzel movie. Which doesn’t make any sense. Tangled came out four years ago and earned $600 million. Frozen came out last year and brought in 1.2 BILLION. People are obsessed with it. I hear that damn “Let It Go” song everywhere I go (really, Korean Grocery Store? Twice? Is that necessary?). Frozen is just a part of a float shared by four movies and Tangled gets its own entire float. And to make a float for Frozen is easy as hell. It’s all about snow and ice which is nice and non-specific. Take a pre-existing float, paint it blue with snowflakes, hang icicles from every horizontal surface and have it blow powdery stuff that resembles snow. I mean, I’m not implying that any float Disney would build would be easy, but that is infinitely less complicated than most.

So, the Tangled float. Loved it. Men were riding giant swinging axes:

And on the back was an animatronic goat chewing its cud and turning its head from side to side. He was my favorite.

Right behind that was The Little Mermaid float which was unbelievable. Each float was preceded by dancing people in costumes and the ones for The Little Mermaid looked like they came directly from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (a movie about Australian drag queens). I loved these costumes.

And then the float itself. Wowsers. Everything on it moved – the fish doing conga lines, the starfish, the guy at top, Sebastian. The rear of the float blew bubbles. I was so impressed.

After that came the Peter Pan float which I was not too blown away by, but I’ve never seen the movie so I imagine it was more impactful to someone who has reference. Loved the glittery rainbow though. I want that in my house. Riding behind Tinkerbell was a huge mechanized crocodile making a loud ticking noise. I thought that was due to faulty construction, but Snorth informed me when I got home that the crocodile swallows a clock in the movie and it’s supposed to tick. Good to know.

I saw the float coming up next and was like, why is the girl from Brave riding a giant plaid cannon? I was wrong. She’s riding a giant plaid BAGPIPE. New goal in life: ride a giant plaid bagpipe. But not while wearing a full-length crushed velvet dress and twenty pound wig in 90-degree weather. Skip that part. Keep the riding-the-bagpipe part only.

Then there was the Sleeping Beauty float. Wisely, since the movie with Angelina Jolie just came into theaters, the focus was on Maleficent. I didn’t even see the woman dressed at Sleeping Beauty walk by. It was led by the three fairies. Here’s something I can’t figure out. They were wearing hoop skirts and gliding along on some kind of wheeled platform hidden under their skirts, but you could see their hands, so how did they control it? Was it like a Segway and they used their feet? Or was it being remote-controlled by someone off-site? If you know the answer to this I would greatly appreciate it. Chasing the fairies were men dressed like extras from a Cirque du Soleil production walking on stilts and flapping big purple wings.

The Maleficient float was actually a giant fire-breathing dragon. It looked like something directly from Burning Man. You could see the man controlling it (he’s sitting in the neck area) and there were all these visible cogs and cranks. It definitely was a (pleasant) departure from the other, more polished floats.

Here’s where things start to get weird. The Pinocchio float comes by with the bubble ribbon dancers. Okay. Haven’t seen that film in over twenty years so maybe bubbles and ribbons play a big role.

The finish to the parade is Mickey and Minnie being led by the Katy Perry Dancers! That’s what I called them anyway.

Seriously. Look at these pictures of Katy Perry. Its spot-on.

The Mouse Couple was riding on a float covered in the ballet-dancing hippos from Fantasia. But no other references to Fantasia, just the hippos (and maybe an ostrich from the same scene). This was the float that felt especially like “Quick, make a float for Mickey! Hippos! Great! That’ll work!”

Since I figured I would most likely never return to the Magic Kingdom I wanted to stick around for the Electric Parade and the fireworks, but I didn’t know what to do with myself for most of the day. I went to Belle’s castle and did the interactive tour which was clearly meant for little kids, but I tried to not resemble a creeper as much as is possible when you’re in the midst of a group of five-year-olds alone with no children in tow. I stood in line for what I thought was a boat ride through Ariel the mermaid’s cave dwelling but it ended up being for pictures with Ariel, so I quickly snuck out of there, but not before getting some pics of the glass nudibranch light fixtures.

I eventually wandered back in Adventureland and opted to go to The Enchanted Tiki Room. Holy Moses. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live in the 1960s, fret no more, it can be achieved in The Enchanted Tiki Room. The second it ended I walked back around to the front to go again. The second time around I imagined myself holding a sweaty glass filled with Midori and pineapple juice and dressed like a character in Mad Men. It totally worked. It really does transport you. I highly recommend it but a warning: this was the least culturally-sensitive thing I saw while I was there. I flinched numerous times during the experience. Just something to be aware of. RAY. CIST.

As I sauntered back through Frontierland to get to Main Street where the Electric Parade happened, I saw the moochie egret again. It was like four hours later and he was still there, moochin’.

The Electric Parade was super-cool. Not only did I feel like a Roman emperor, because of all the cool lights I felt like a futuristic Roman emperor. The kids around me went absolutely crazy, screaming and pointing and dancing wildly. Normally I’m quite the curmudgeon and I would have been all GET OFF MY LAWN about it, but it was so sweet to see and this is their special place, not mine, so I let them accidentally kick and step on my fingers. This was the only remotely good picture I got because darkness and movement is not my camera’s strong suit, but there are a million and one videos of the actual parade for you to watch on youtube if you want to see the whole thing.

The fireworks were meh. I realized that they can’t have a fourth of July-style show every night, but I left about five minutes in and headed back to the hotel. I craved the embrace of air conditioning. I feel like I got a sense of the place. If I go back to Orlando I will go to Epcot or the Kennedy Space Center. Momma needs more mental stimulation in her theme parks.

Other cool stuff I saw at the Magic Kingdom:

A lampworked clear glass model of Cinderella’s castle.