After kind of forgetting to make plans, Matt and I rallied and celebrated our third anniversary (the wedding one, not the together one, which was in May) at the Pixiu Mala Hongtang restaurant.
We chose our ingredients and chose to have them stir fried (the other choice was soup) and had delicious customized meals. It was quite fun and filling.
Then we stopped by the Pix-o-Matic machines to get some anniversary dessert. I got the Shazam and Matt got the Royale, which didn’t make it into the picture.
Matt, Greg, Renee, and I attended the 10-Year Anniversary Movie Quiz. We were excited to go because to celebrate the quiz’s long run, every team was guaranteed a prize.
As we are middling movie quizzees, this was our chance to win a prize.
I was hoping to score a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. Mark the Quizmaster gives at least one of them away during every quiz. He jokes that they will probably be used as currency when the world ends.
We also had to identify Divergent from a film clip. I overthought it and guessed it was one of the later movies, so we even missed the Divergent question. (!)
We had a slow first round, and rallied a bit in the second round, but we were nowhere near the top three. Those winners got movie passes to the Hollywood Theatre and free movie rentals at Movie Madness. They also got first pick of the winning prizes. The prizes were stacked in the front of the theater, of various sizes, and all wrapped.
Mark told us that the theater asked us to open our prizes outside, so that we wouldn’t overburden the theater staff with extra cleaning duties.
Matt picked our prize, and it was book sized and squishy. It clearly wasn’t a Hallmark Keepsake Beatrice “Tris” Pior Divergent ornament. We guessed it might be a t-shirt as we exited the theater.
There, under the marquee lights, we unwrapped our prize in the company of other Movie Quiz prizewinners.
And we won a copy of Divergent!
Looking around at the other teams, we found that everyone, no matter the size of their prize, had also won a copy of the movie Divergent. “But some people got a Blu-ray,” a woman helpfully observed.
We all laughed, and I laughed more at the thought of Mark setting up this elaborate joke and also not being able to witness the payoff because he was still upstairs in the theater distributing prizes.
My frugal self loves the JAW festival because the readings are free. But I also love plays and have enjoyed our previous outing.
Fires, Ohio was another good night at the theater. Trapped by poor air quality from a nearby fire, a family has a dinner together to celebrate an old friend’s visit. And then so many other things happen.
As the play progressed, each character searched the internet for information. I thought this was a particularly brilliant way to get insight about the characters.
I’m on the mend from Covid, but still out of commission. Matt has also come down with some fatigue-based sickness that is not Covid. Here’s what we did.
Waited around for the excessive heat to kick in.
Played 10 Days in the USA.
Watched a an American Playhouse production of The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters.
It was written by Jean Shepard, author of A Christmas Story, and so the characters are familiar. It’s an older Ralphie.
The production values are so-so, and it could use a restoration (or an official home on YouTube) but it made us laugh hard twice, so it was a good use of our time.
I like to watch Hamilton on the Fourth, but had just watched it when Sara was here. So I watched La La Land instead.
The Reser Center for the Arts hosted Friends of Dorothy: A Queer Cabaret, and the Rosetown Ramblers got to square dance as part of the performance. It was Matt’s birthday, so I made cupcakes and we sang Happy Birthday after we practiced our routines.
In the Green Room, Matt poses in front of one of the dressing rooms.
Here’s the show list:
It was fun to hang out backstage. I think the last time I had that experience was the 1989 recital for the Kathy Lee School of Dance. I got to see drag queens in various stages of undress.
However, it’s entirely possible that hanging out in the Green Room might have had a consequence. More on that later.
The first round of the movie quiz tonight made me feel very smart. Mark, the quizmaster, played the beginning of 10 movie musicals and we had to identify them. The first one was Annie, so I knew I was going to do well.
The ninth one was super tricky. It was from On the Town, which I’ve seen. But it starts with one guy singing and he doesn’t show up again for the rest of the film. Actually, it’s the guy standing above Gene Kelly in that thumbnail. Check out his part:
I’m curious how many teams got that one.
Things went downhill from there, but it’s always nice to have a start strong.
We’ve eaten at República before. It used to be in a smaller space in the Ecotrust Building. It’s moved into a space near Powell’s that once housed that mediocre pasta chain restaurant. This is a huge upgrade. As we like to do, we had the tasting menu.
I can no longer recall what this course was, but it was delicious, as were all our courses.
The bill was delivered in a book along with a card, and we got to take home a little treat for the next morning with our coffee (amended to tea when we told him we didn’t drink coffee).
It was a delicious sweet that melted well with the tea.
Disneyland, The Unofficial Guide. While this super-planned approach won’t work for everyone, I was a huge fan. It aims to get you what you want out of Disneyland/DCA by planning and prioritizing. It’s also quite amusing in places. The book provides many different touring plans (Two-day with small children, one day without children, etc.) and offers an app to help you plan. The app, alas, is only for IOS right now, so we used the website version in the parks.
Things this book did well: Encouraged walking back and forth across the park to hit rides at the best time rather than a close-by geographical approach. Provided reviews and rankings of all rides so that we could rank the rides into categories of must, maybe, and probably when planning. Provided reviews of every restaurant and recommendations of favorites at those restaurants. Explained how policies like rider switch or single rider could improve your trip. Talked through strategies for best viewing of the light shows and whether one should buy a dining package that guaranteed seats.
Things that didn’t quite hit: Despite the book’s attempt, I didn’t understand how Lightning Lanes worked until my Fairyweather Travel agent walked me through it (and gave me a handout). Having now been there with Lightning Lane access, I also would take a slightly different approach than they recommended (at least at the time we visited).
I would prioritize must-visit (and then maybe-visit) attractions without Lightning Lane access from rope drop to about 11:00 and then start the Lightning Lane process after that time. We waited a very long time for the Peter Pan ride (a maybe-visit) and used our Lightning Lane for the Matterhorn (a must-visit) at 8:30 in the morning when there was basically no line. We should have reversed those. While some attractions did “sell out” their Lightning Lane availability before the day was done, most did not. And we were planning to be there All. Day. Long. so we could have better used the Lightning Lanes beginning in the late morning rather than first thing.
Overall, though, this is a great book and well worth both the money and buying a year’s subscription to the app to view their extended content. At less than $50 total, this book and the paid website will add value to your trip.
The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland. Somewhat out of date, this small book provides behind-the-scenes information and fun facts about how exhibits at Disneyland were created. I read it before we left and envisioned paging through it while waiting in line, but never actually did that.
The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney California Adventure. This is very out of date; things have changed a lot since this was published. Still, there was some good information including the relationship between Grizzly River Run and the water at Pixar Pier.
Mouse-Tales: A Behind-the-Ears Look at Disneyland. This book was published in 1994 and contains the experiences of former cast members. There are some fun stories like the one where so many people at the local naval base moonlighted at Disneyland that one Friday when there was a navel emergency, and they were called back to the base, and Disneyland had to close due to lack of workers. Given the era, there were some tales of “funny” mild sexual harassment. The author also discussed the difficulties Black people and all women had getting promoted, which is important perspective. That said, it wasn’t especially gripping, and I didn’t finish it.
I put all four of these books in a Little Free Library. The guidebooks were gone the next day, and the Mouse Tales book lingered for about a week.
My plan to get many pictures taken by Disneyland photographers on this day was thwarted by the rain. Turns out, the photographers disappear when the rain appears. But when it was still sunny, we got a few photos in front of the Millennium Falcon.
With BB-8
And with this little fellow.
We rode Space Mountain twice, once each day. It’s still just as great as it was when I rode it when I was six. The first time we weren’t ready for the photo, but the second time we were.
Still coming down off that mountain high.
Ready for our closeup. As were the people behind us.
And thus ends the chronical of our Disney vacation. We had a great time.
