Potterization, Phase I

First, let me just say that people my age shouldn't even take vacations. Why? Because. (And is it embarrassing that one of my kids sent her parents the link to this article? Although I had already seen it myself.)

Okay, so, Potter, Phase I. K and I saw the movie (HP and the Order of the Phoenix) this afternoon. Did I like yet? Yes and no. It looks great, parts of it look incredible. The acting, very good. It's the same with any book that you know really well that gets made into a movie: you tend to notice what's missing almost more than what's there. I need to see the movie again, which no doubt I will, before I'm truly comfortable with it. In the meantime, now I feel like picking up The Half-Blood Prince before the new book comes out on Friday, even though I just read it again a few weeks ago. I'm just wild about Harry.

So it seems that I am making these plans to go to DisneyWorld with the Other Chai, right? Which I mentioned in an email to the Chum, who lives in Maine for the summer. I mentioned it in passing (as in my surprise that the Other Chai appears to be going through with it), although I had mentioned to her before that we were talking about going. She says, maybe she'll join us there.

Now, tell me: should I be pleased or annoyed? Who is the one person outside of my family I have been trying to get to DisneyWorld with for years? The Chum. It's come up several times over the years we've known each other. Finally, maybe five years ago, after her husband had bypass surgery, she said that she could never go, because she would never leave him for that long. Seemed pretty much a closed case to me.

But now, and for the last year, maybe year and a half, she goes to Florida every six to eight weeks because her mother lives there and has been having health issues. So she goes. She's even going once in the middle of the summer from Maine. Anyway, she figures she's going to Florida in November anyway, so she would join us in Orlando from wherever it is she goes to her mother. (Not far from Miami, I think.)

Well. I would have preferred going with just the Chum, since the Other Chai can be a challenge, but I'm not sure how it will be with the three of us. (Although the two of them go way back as well, but not as far as I go with either one of them.) I can't book the trip for three when we book, but I don't know if they'll let us add another person to our room at a later time. And if three of us are going, I think we need to get a better (i.e., bigger) room so that it's not just two double beds. Oy. Complications. Can't anything ever be easy?

Speaking of which, R is all embroiled with complicated friend plans for the weekend, the upshot of which is that she's coming here after work and staying over for the night. I just paused to discuss this with K and got another detail or two, but neither one of us knows what's going on, it turns out. At some point, R will be here. She will show up in her car or we will pick her up at the train. She will have dinner with us or she will have eaten before she arrives, or she and K will go out for sushi.

Boo is on the new food and is getting his medicine more or less, and seems pretty much exactly the way he was before. Which is okay, actually, since he didn't seem sick before, he just needed to be checked out. Whatever.

I need to pack tomorrow. Or at least sometime before we leave in Sunday, I think. I have no idea what the weather is supposed to be there, although I imagine I could look that up pretty easily. You know, most trips I go on, I plan obsessively before I go. (See all references to DisneyWorld, for example.) But other than making the hotel reservation, I'm not planning anything here. The Hubs will figure out how to get there, and pretty much, what to do there. He has a friend who is a Lincoln impersonator -- I kid you not -- who's giving him all kinds of tips and advice. Hey, he oughta know, right?

WATCHING MASH :: ENTRY #1523