Other things that I had forgotten to include in the post about Friday:
At The Grove, we stopped in to look at one of the two Quiksilver stores (directly facing each other). One of the shops used to be a Tony Hawk store, but now has turned into a Quik store and the others always has been a 'board riders club' store. I was tickled to see that some of Ryan's original art, which was installed before the stores were open, is still there. Even the Tony Hawk display, which is now incongruous to the rest of the surf apparel in the shop. In one store, most of the detail stuff that Ryan did had been replaced, but the lava lamp head is still there.
He made several of these at the time, and the one candid photo that I have of him painting them is the exact one that is still in the shop at The Grove.
One of our dinner conversations was about "I Am Legend" and how it was not as bad as everyone said it was. So later that night, we had a living room slumber party and watched it [I can neither confirm nor deny where the DVD came from]. It was much better than I had expected, and while not exactly scary per se, after watching Cloverfield and then seeing IAL, I felt entirely frazzled and immediately regretted my decision to watch either of those. I didn't have nightmares, but just felt kind of raw. Like you do after a nightmare. So, moral of the story: don't invite me to your scary movie/slasher pic weekend.
On Sunday, I was able to meet up with Dan and his family, along with Pea for a little while at Disneyland. Dan & Co. were in town visiting and decided to brave the rain and hit up the House of Mouse. Due to my vampire-like schedule and an array of regularly scheduled chores and errands, I wasn't able to make it for the meet up until late in the afternoon. At the exact moment that everyone had decided that they were pooped and couldn't drag their corpses around any longer. So I met them basically to walk out of the park and see them on their way. Which was still nice. Dan's tiny neice who was snoozing (she'd already been on a bunch of rides AND met Ariel, which in my book, means that you can rest happy) in her stroller is like an angel made of marzipan that you can't eat or else the Precious Moments police would come after you. Her red hair alone had me reeling. She was such a doll. Good thing she was asleep under her parents' careful watch, or else I would have pocketed her and runnoft. Dan's own little Z Man was an idyllic picture of adoration unto himself. I love teeny people, and this one was no exception. He was so perfectly content to eat his popcorn, piece by piece, while turning the popcorn box around and around to look at Mickey's picture. It was really very sweet. And I sincerely loved that the entire time that we were in the Emporium looking at souveniers, the only thing that he was even vaguely interested in pulling off the shelf for a closer look was some scrapbooking paper covered with Disney characters. Surrounded by porcelain statues and fragile coffee mugs, the boy wanted to look at some paper. Now THAT is a refreshing change. And if it was dropped (which it wasn't), no broom would be necessary.
The whole group stopped to watch the Flag Retreat ceremony, which is pretty involved and has a full band playing the Star Spangled Banner and audio clips from great moments in American history (think 'one small step for man'). Zach was content to tap his feet in his stroller and hug his Mickey tight, which was so cute and chock full of American Spirit. Dan's sister, who is a total hoot BTW, said "Ooh! Let's sing along!" and Dan happily obliged. I love people that are so real and comfortable that they can just bust out in song. And that they know all the words. And that they wanted to continue to sing every nation's anthem, because... why not? No one remembered any of the lyrics past "Oh, Canada" so we had to move on. Next time, I will come prepared.
The last stop was, of course, to the potties and near City Hall on Main Street the Fire House had its doors open, which meant that the kids could crawl all over the antique fire cart (pulled by horses) and amuse themselves. It took some coaxing, but we got Zach up on the buckboard and everyone whipped out the cameras. I'm fairly certain that you could assemble all of our pics into a 3D representation of the moment.
It was sad that our time together was so short lived, but it was nice to see everyone and finally meet Dan's wife Kelly. After all these years! She is even cuter in person and it took EVERY LAST OUNCE OF MY STRENGTH not to turn into a social retard and gush about how freaking adorable her glasses are and how I really want glasses like that but my face is too wide and hers are so pretty and fit her face perfectly, it's like they were made for each other and oh man you're so pretty to boot and... See? I come unraveled pretty easy. And once I start down that slippery slope, I am on the fast track to Never Being Invited Back.
So instead I headed home, still totally unaware of who was playing in the Super Bowl (until I saw Choppa's cupcake pictures, I sincerely had no idea). Ryan and I went out to dinner because everywhere was a Ghost Town. Normal people were eating chips and dips and screaming at their television sets. In the restaurant, I swear it was us, a gay couple, and an old Chinese guy. The only people on earth not in-the-know about Super Bowl. But we got excellent service. And after that, we came home and watched The Princess Bride which I had never seen all the way through. Very cute. And now I am off to find my copy of the book (which, as always, is even better than the film).
