As you may have read previously, we had an addition to our family about two years ago. After a few local trips, and Christmas in Texas, our little Ollie came along for his first real vacation. Of course, it included a Disney park visit.
We arose early again on Wednesday, but had a more relaxed morning before heading out for the day. The only remaining scheduled item wasn’t until early afternoon, about an hour’s drive away, but we figured we could make some stops along the way.
We’re gearing up for our first trip this year, with another in the planning phase. Preparing to write this post, I realized the Dar Williams song I titled it after seemed a good fit (though I’m covering both Traveling I and Traveling II). Or at least its name did. Turns out it’s not really about actual traveling at all. But, I digress. We are, literally, traveling again (or will be soon enough, anyway)!
Last night, I stayed up to watch The Late Show with David Letterman. It’s the first time I’ve been up that late on a weeknight in quite a while, but it was an important event for me to witness in real time. Today, I am tired, and I feel a little empty inside. David Letterman has been a lot of things to me over the years, and while I changed from a daily watcher into someone who only occasionally caught clips on the Internet, there was a certain comfort to knowing he was always there for me when I needed him. And that comfort is now gone. Most people probably have very little idea quite how important David Letterman was to me in my life. I’m going to take a few moments to attempt to rectify that.
Today, I was greatly saddened to learn of the passing of actor, director, photographer, (etc.), Leonard Nimoy. Due to his ongoing battle with COPD, I was not entirely surprised, but expectation does not make the loss any easier. This was a man whose signature role had an early and lasting influence on my life.
Three years ago, I wrote a long note on Facebook explaining I was going to be taking an extended absence from directing community theatre. I returned about a year ago to direct Boeing Boeing, which went up in September of 2013. This past weekend, I attended the theatre’s annual banquet, at which Boeing Boeing won the “Best Production” award.
The week was winding down, but there was another birthday left to celebrate: our friend Camara’s! The plan for the day was Animal Kingdom, with a full day of FastPass+ rides wherein we actually were interested in 2/3, lunch reservations, and a fancy dinner at Jiko in Animal Kingdom Lodge. Gina and I headed out fairly early (well, as early as we seemed to be able to on this trip), though it was an exceptionally long bus ride down to Animal Kingdom. By the time we finally got there, Camara had already been on Expedition Everest once or twice, to prepare herself for our first FastPass+… on Expedition Everest. Well hey, it’s a pretty damn good ride, right? I mean at least I’ve enjoyed it when I’ve been on it before. Unfortunately, the spill I took the day before was beginning to take its toll.
Regular life continues betwixt vacation posts. Last weekend, we managed to get out for our second round of test driving vehicles to replace my 2003 Acura RSX. We’re looking for something a bit bigger and more practical, and things are starting to narrow down a bit.
Anyone who’s read much of this blog knows we’ve had a difficult time with our feline family over the last couple of years. We lost our kitten Calypso in February of 2010 to a rare blood disease, acute kidney failure (by way of brain cancer) took away our Sage unexpectedly this past July, and Madeleine lost her long battle with squamous cell carcinoma last week. We miss them all, but this is about the new kitten we added to our family over the weekend.
Given that this is NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), I’m going to try to get a few extra postings out this month (there’s no way I’ll even attempt the post-a-day thing, though). This means several posts that are not travel-centric. Today, I offer some thoughts and philosophies whilst relating how my cats and I came together.
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