oh, inverted land
Here we are on the outskirts of the Magic Kingdom. Call it the Mildly Enchanting Suburbs.
Another day of California driving, and another day of beautiful, broad, bodily highway turns that you can lean into and delight in the way your chest muscles feel under the illusion of extra gravity. Even on the interstate. Even in a rented Ford Taurus.
blueberry and dum’ass
Ah, yes, the Taurus. Promptly christened “Blueberry” when we picked ‘er up from the lot a few days ago (the kiddo has a knack for names sometimes), I had to summon every cell of my inner soccer mom to climb behind that wheel. You know, it’s all too… sensible.
As an aside, I don’t usually like to shill for specific companies, but after last year’s E-Z Rent-a-Car debacle, Hertz was a breath of fresh air. They avoided the hard sell on the you-don’t-need-it insurance, and they smoothed over a screwup in Priceline’s booking system.
Anyway, Blueberry had a so-called “NeverLost” GPS unit built in. Following Neil Peart’s example of naming his pair of clumsy electronic navigators “Doofus” and “Dingus,” we ended up calling this one “Dum’ass.”
Dum’ass usually got the basic idea right, but on the way to Chico, apropos of nothing, it suddenly announced, “Turn left now.” “Now?!?” I asked, knowing for a fact that we had to go straight on Highway 32 for several miles. “Yes, really, now!” it responded (well, okay, it just chimed, but that’s what the chime sounded like).
Knowing I’d regret it, I dutifully turned left. The unit immediately said, “Recalculating route; turn right now.” That’s machine-talk for “Psyche!” I got myself back on course, and eventually Dum’ass figured out where we were. Its other accomplishments during the day included announcing, “You have arrived,” a good half a block before our destination.
The next day, Dum’ass only fared slightly better. It didn’t make any gigantic mistakes, but it presented us with several intractable user interface puzzles. Like finding out how many miles to the next turn. Or deciphering the meanings of the readouts at the bottom of the screen.
Most irritating of all, Dum’ass saw fit to remind us at every freeway crossing that we needed to stay on I-5. Do you have any idea how many freeway crossings there are in L.A.?!? “Go straight in 0.5 miles. Go straight now. Keep going straight in 1.1 miles. Go straight now. Still going straight? Good. Now, I want you to drop everything you’re doing and go straight some more….” AAAAAAAAAIGH!
arrival
But after a soul-emptyingly long drive, we arrived on our almost-a-Disney hotel. Quite adequate, actually. Salt water pool, free upgrade to a suite, and sort-of-WiFi. Go-get-it-yourself food at room-service prices. And precious, precious sleep.
So there we were today, out among the many-headed—“many-headed” being a phrase for us ordinary folk from P.G. Wodehouse via Bertie Wooster, his upper-class twit character. Me, I’m strictly a middle-class twit.
What is there to write about Disneyland? The rides were exhilarating and the food edible, but the best part was watching the little one’s reactions.
I was worried that the real thing wouldn’t stand up to the expectations created by that idiotic travel-club DVD (the one where park employees look like they’re being extorted as they say things like, “The best part of this job is, um, making the precious little dreams of darling little children come true,” when they really mean, “The best part of this job is the ten bucks an hour, and the worst part is that I have to stand in one spot all day and press the green button over and over again until I go cross-eyed.”).
Not to worry. The kiddo was enraptured. Just open-mouthed and wild-armed about everything. It was awesome. Even It’s a Small World was bearable with her around.
small world
Ah, yes. Small World. Not too bad of a ride, but a little eerie. I half expected the little redheaded London Beefeater doll to spin toward me and say, “Hi, I’m Chucky, wanna play?” As I tried to remember how those folks in the movie had fended off the homicidal toy, we passed by more gnomes from foreign countries. The little Japanese trolls bowed and sang in a particularly racist sing-song voice.
I don’t know why that particular display was uniquely bothersome. All of those dolls were racial or cultural stereotypes. That was kind of the point—that all these different plastic kids from different cultures are, after all, made of the same polymer resin underneath.
As I reflected on whether or not I was just being touchy about the whole thing, we passed Small World Egypt. There’s just something creepy about a one-foot-tall come-hither Cleopatra sprawled sideways across a couch.
they paved a parking lot
After a gorge-raising spin through the Mad Hatter’s teacups, we walked to the giant letters spelling out “CALIFORNIA” between the two parks. We were there to meet Melissa, on the second stop in the Tour of Familiar Faces. Handshakes and hugs all round for friends and spouses and babies.
Lynn recalled that the palm-tree lined spelling bee where we now stood used to be a sea of parking spaces. “They paved a parking lot, and put up a paradise,” I quipped. Har, har.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in California Adventure, the quieter half of the acreage. You can probably fill in the blanks with the requisite squealing on rides, sluicing cool slushies down parched throats, bathing in sunblock, getting autographs from officially licensed characters, and clapping along with parades.
After a few hours of this, we saw that the pixie was getting tired. When she’s winding down, there’s often a sudden burst of energy and insouciance before the inevitable crash. “The storm before the calm,” if you will. Har, har.