Not Putting the Best Foot Forward

When this is the first review of a pair of boots you're considering at Zappos, it is time to re-think your fashion sense:

When it is the second time you've posted about bunions, it is time to re-think your life...

Happiest Place on Earth May be Overstating it Slightly. Although it is one of the happier places in central Florida that's sorta mid-way between Tampa and Jacksonville...

Recently, I spent about a week at Disney World with my family. I had two back-to- back work conferences at the same hotel in Orlando so I arranged for my husband and daughter to come down in between. After we got it all planned, my company cancelled our participation in the conferences and as it is easier to swallow the cost of a last minute plane ticket and paying for a hotel room while my husband was on furlough from his government contracting job than tell my 8-year-old that our Disney trip was not going to happen – we found ourselves on vacation.

In addition to seeing some of my favorite things that Disney has to offer including but not limited to adults wearing Crocs adorned with jibbitz!, grown men dressed unironically and soberly as Piglet at the Disney Halloween celebration and the restaurant named Tubby’s Buffeteria, I had forgotten that probably my very favorite thing about Disney World is just how dirty sounding so much of it is. Which is how I came up with my latest Top Ten list. That being: 

My favorite Disney-related words and phrases that sound dirty but aren't:

10.   That's the rear entrance to Fantasyland.

  9.   Take that monorail into the Magic Kingdom.

  8.   That wand sure makes me feel like a princess.

  7.   I love it when you go to Downtown Disney. 

  6.   I know you're excited about Cinderella's ball...but I'm not feeling it.

  5.   Look! He's got his hand in the hunny pot!

  4.   "Now I'm the king of the swingers, boy..."
  3.   You are tall enough to ride.
  2.   You've got a fastpass to the Magical express.
  1.    Fantasmic.

P.S. While doing research for this post, I learned that Disney Cast Members actually use abbreviations and euphemisms so as not to disturb guests with unpleasantness at the happiest place on earth. For instance, "AFR" stands for "accidental fecal release" (as opposed to an intentional, malicious fecal release, one suspects). And a "protein spill"? Vomit-palooza. Apparently, there is also an underground grid of corridors that cast members use to get from one place to another throughout the park. They call this the "utilidor", a word that causes me to have a little protein spill in my mouth, if you know what I mean.

P.P.S. Blogger spell check erroneously concluded that jibbitz, unironically, Buffeteria, Fantasyland, hunny, fantasmic and palooza are not words. On the upside, they also concluded that neither are utilidor or imagineer.

P.P.P.S. The powers that be at Disney also summarily rejected my brilliant money-making scheme of brewing and distributing their own beer: Walt Liquor. Imagineers, my ass. 

It's a Maximum Security Sausage, Too

Are you familiar with the game "Sausage"?

The rules are simple. You ask questions and another person HAS to answer them all with the word "sausage" and whoever laughs first loses.

As you may imagine, it is my favorite game and I lose every single time.

I was playing the game with my 8-year-old daughter tonight and she asked, "What does Daddy comb his hair with?" In a strategic move to try and throw her, I did not answer "sausage" and instead asked the clarifying question,"Daddy who lives here or your real, prison Daddy?"

And without missing a beat, she totally deadpanned, "my prison Daddy." 

Well played, grasshopper sausage.

Prancing in the Dark

Recently, I spent a little time with one of my idols. Someone who has gone head to (camel) toe with the other competition in the health and fitness industry and really made a name for herself. I'm talking, of course, about Joanna Rorhback, the founder of Prancercise.


Dear God! I look terrified.

She came through DC to offer classes and prancercise her way through the streets of Chinatown. (Can you imagine looking up from your Scorpion bowl to see that moving down the street?) About one millisecond after the classes were announced, my neighbor e-mailed me telling me to pick a time to go with her. This past Saturday was that day.

As a nod to the prancercise style, I coiffed my hair and wore a statement necklace. Others in the class of eleven people were not quite as subtle. There was a mother-and-daughter team all decked out in nonsense (meaning head to toe leopard gear and skintight gold lame shorts) and another couple of friends who looked as though they had been styled by Richard Simmons.

Which all would have made for an extremely fun class if  only someone had let Joanna in on the joke.

From the moment we met her, we realized that this woman is 100% sincere about her exercise program and does not realize that she is first and foremost a personality, and secondly an exercise guru.

This realization made the mother decked out in a leopard leotard dissolve into giggles, at one point completely turning her back to her gold-lame-shorts-bedecked daughter because looking at her would make her laugh even harder. Joanna's response to this? Asking the mother to come to the front of the class and stand next to her, as though she was a first grader being scolded. (This same woman was scolded again later in class for suggesting that we "dance" some more. Joanna gave her a look of disdain then corrected her, saying, "we can PRANCERCISE" some more.")

(Aside: When I temped during college breaks, I worked in one office where I asked a co-worker where I could find a manila folder. She also corrected me with about the same level of disdain, saying, "the VANILLA folders are in the cabinet over there.) Live and learn, I say.

Perhaps the biggest disappointments were that the 90 minute class lasted just 60, that Joanna had merch on display BUT NOT FOR SALE, and that even though I ran a half marathon a few weeks prior to this and felt great after, I limped away from Prancercise with shin splints and a sore calf. I would be completely humiliated, but thankfully our classmates took the focus completely away from my prancercise injuries: