Blogging Awards! And, NIAW Preview

We returned from our trip to Disneyland mostly intact.  One of my favorite parts was meeting up with CookedHeads. She’s like the wisest, coolest sister I never had.  She had so many helpful pieces of advice, but I think my favorite was (and I’m paraphrasing): Life is Princess Borghese bath salts and the South Coast Plaza, but it’s also cheerios on the ground and dirty houses.  In other words, life is a beautiful mess.  I just love that.  She lives life joyfully every day, and she inspires me to let go of the negative voices that sometimes surround me and live life imperfectly, beautifully.

While I was gone, another one of my blogging heroes, Keiko from Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed awarded me a Stylish Blogger Award!  I think she has a rare gift with words, and she’s also a scrappy fighter for all of us IFers, so I am truly honored.  As part of the the “award ceremony”, I should share seven things about myself and pass on the award to fifteen other bloggers.  So prepare to be dazzled by some crazy Jjiraffe knowledge.

1. My dad was supposed to be with the press junket of reporters and government officials who went to Jonestown to investigate what was going on down there.  It was his tenth wedding anniversary, so he didn’t go.  Bad stuff happened.
2. In college I sold flowers in restaurants for one terrible night.  After going to three consecutive restaurants and being approached by the same creepy guy, I realized he was following me and I quit.  Please be nice to the ladies who approach you at your favorite cafes and ask you if you want to buy a flower. That’s a tough gig.
3. Also in college, I worked at a fancy Mexican restaurant.  They recycled the salsa.  Meaning, when your plate of partially finished salsa was taken away from your table, it was emptied into the big pot of salsa in the kitchen and served again to others.  And yes, I still eat chips and salsa in restaurants.
4. My favorite Winnie the Pooh character is Eeyore.
5. I love eating breakfast for dinner.
6. On my honeymoon, we went to Tanzania for a safari.  A leopard ate a gazelle outside our tent.
7. I once was the designated driver for a movie star’s wild night out, before he was a star.  It involved The Roxbury, the star acted like a total dorkus, and I was very unimpressed.  Now, he’s one of our very best actors.  Go figure.

In no particular order, here’s my Order of the Stylish Bloggers:

Bodega Bliss
Stumbling Gracefully
Second Hand Happiness
CookedHeads
Invisible Mother
As Good As It Gets
Somewhat Lower
Mommy Odyssey
Colours of Cattitz
Adventures of a Dam Engineer
Things Get If’fy
Chasing Rainbows
Write Mind, Open Heart
Fertility Challenged in Florida
Bloodsigns

Finally, I am trying to prepare something special for NIAW, and it’s going to be a big push.  I’ll give you the hint: I will be exercising skills I formerly used in my pre-children career.

Unoriginal Thoughts on Disney, Part One

So, Disneyland. The last time I was here I drove from my college on a free day, on a whim. I was twenty. Things have changed…

It really is a magical place. The level of detail is astounding. We took a train ride around the place to chill out from the rides, and one of the tunnels re-enacts the land of the dinosaurs! You can’t escape the magic.

The cast members were straight out of diva-land. I loved them. They had their own shuttle, hang-out areas and were in their element. Overheard phone conversation: “Did he not like the bird? I can lose the bird.”

It does seem to be the land of the fertile. One woman at the Best Western asked me, “Do you want four kids?” Her kids were misbehaving, you see. Can we ban that joke, like, forever?

I read “Cinderella Ate My Daughter” and agreed with so many of Peggy Orenstein’s points. I don’t encourage the princess phase, in fact, my daughter has never heard of Cinderella. (She kept asking me who she was, she’s quite prominent in the land of Walt.) I do like “Alice in Wonderland” and she wore her Alice costume to the park. She’s never been so noticed and many adults and children approached and told her she was beautiful, which made me both anxious and proud.

There is something so wholesome about Disneyland. You see these guys with shaved heads, fully tattooed, gently lifting their sons into the Dumbo flying ride, and I witnessed a hard-faced, downtrodden- looking teen smile with pure joy as she got into the Indiana Jones jeep. The park appeals to our better angels. I love that.

Are you a fan of the Disney resorts? What do you like and dislike about them?