OK… so here’s the thing. Yes, it’s common for me to go ‘this sucks’.. but then I turn it over in my head and either sigh and accept that it had to go that way ‘for reasons’ even if I don’t like those reasons…

Or I see another way it could have been done just as easily and stay flaming pissed.

GoT writers, I’m still pissed. Readers and followers, I’m sorry that you have to put up with it when you were probably expecting something fun or uplifting. I’d remind you you always have the option to skip the post.

 

OK.. darkness and spoilers to follow.

I can forgive a lot of things in storytelling… ’cause the script said so’ for unreasonable plot twists, ’cause sciency stuff’ for tech that just doesn’t work that way within reason… and ’cause budget’ when we don’t see dragons for a season or two.

But you gotta stay true to your characters.

Whatever HBO execs may think, we don’t watch the shows for tits and gore and dragons and zombies.. we watch because of these characters that were so carefully crafted to be real to us. We worry for them, we wish we were as glib and clever, we see people in whole new lights that open vast wells of empathy.. and sometimes, yeah, we just love to hate them.

And you just shit on them.

The entire track of Daenerys’s story was to protect innocents. From the time she kept the women from being raped by Khal Drogo’s men to the slave children to her own dragons. And the reason you gave for her internal switch flipping to burn the innocents of King’s Landing for seriously weak and unnecessary.

Let her and Jon have mended their fences and gone into the siege in concord, with the mild disagreement about resting the troops still in the air. Then let it appear from Daenerys’s perspective that Jon and her Dothraki and her Unsullied were in mortal danger, overtired, outmaneuvered and it’s her fault… and she takes the SAME ACTION. So you still get all your horrible gore death and destruction shots.

Then she finds out that wasn’t the case… that she has inadvertently become everything she swore to defeat, always with the best of intentions. Switch flipped.

But you know, that also takes some kind of ability to write realistic female characters and give a shit about truly developing them as three dimensional. And we already know (re: Sansa and Hound conversation this season, random pointless Arya sex scene) that they don’t give a flying fuck about doing that.

I’ll be honest.. if it wasn’t all over tomorrow, I’d be done. As it is.. what I was looking forward to with great anticipation is now covered in shit.

Thanks, guys. You suck.

 

 

A couple flights and bad Ubers and we’re home again- spent most of last night passed out on the couch with pups all over me, reminding me that I should never ever leave them. There was one sticky moment… Rick got me a Stitch huggie/clingy thing that was hanging onto my bag when I parked it on the floor by the couch. Bree apparently thought we’d gotten it for her and had the little guy in her mouth, ready to take him somewhere for slow painful death by disembowelment.

I’m glad to report that Stitch was rescued and is safely parked on my desk at this time.

Because Albuquerque, the weather’s drizzly and in the 40s today, so after sleeping in, we went out to see Detective Pikachu, did some shopping that needed doing, holed back up to play video games and watch old TV. (This wasn’t really by my choice, Bree the Corg told me that I needed to be lap accessible so she could spend a lot of time snuggling. I don’t really say no to Bree if I can help it.)

In short, it’s good to be home and it’s nice to know we were missed by our little beasties. I’d had a spate of gardening planned, but the weather seems to be telling me not to mess around with all that, and really, who am I to argue with the weather and the corg?

New adventures on the horizon- heading to Brwyn Mawr in July for our first LARP experience… vending events in June, August, and September.. a new book to write come November… back to Orlando next February for a week of Star Warsy exploration. When I think about how busy the coming months are going to be, I’m a little extra glad that we got to take this breather with just the two of us now.

If for no other reason than I got to do a Spock eyebrow lift at the guy who briefly attempted to sell me on ‘getting to stay at this hotel in Venice where kings and queens have stayed’.  Not saying it’s not a nice place, I’m sure it’s lovely (for a city that has always looked to me like a slowly rotting sinking sewer). But it’s not an adventure on this purple haired girl’s bucket list.

So what’s my point?

Go find an adventure every now and again. YOUR adventure, not someone else’s… you’ll find it rejuvenates the spirit.

 

Today is rest day. We had some business to take care of, so we didn’t plan any side trips today. We got up at the crack of dawn and watched the sun sparkle in over the water before I drug Rick out to the pool.

Thanks to the super early hour, we had it to ourselves while we did laps and pretended to be like healthy people. It would have been a lot more impressive statistically if I’d thought to wear my Fitbit, but of course I didn’t. To offset the evils of wholesome healthy exercise, we got Krispy Kremes for breakfast and showered up before heading off to the vacation club offices.

Here came the sales pitch. Little secret about me- I don’t like salespeople. Give it to me straight and I’ll tell you if what you’re selling is something I’m buying- but only on my terms. You don’t call me, you don’t come to my home or intrude on my time and tell me I need something. Idiots who do this get to experience the full range of my extensively foul vocabulary… and I don’t think they find it even a tenth as entertaining as I do.

In any case, as soon as today’s guy heard that my ‘bucket list dream vacation’ is to go to Tunisia and had to ask what continent it was on, he knew he was overmatched and was content to chat about landscaping and motion sickness cures for the rest of the time we had to hang out.

Someday these guys are going to learn how to sell to geeks and then I’m screeeeeeeeeewed. I’m aware I’m enjoying a temporary free ride.

Back to home base for a day of laundry, loafing, and TV.

Now, we don’t have TV at home, and I’d forgotten how completely batcrap mfing crazy commecials are. A new drug to stop copious sweating? Side effects include no longer being able to regulate you own body temperature, who the hell saw that coming?!

Oh, and drinking. Last day means taking stock of the pantry… and there was a full magnum of chardonnay this morning. Apparently I’d been a little too generous with the mixer for my spritzers.

Y’all know that I took care of that, right?

Let’s be real… I probably won’t actually kill the whole bottle today, but I will give it a yeoman’s effort.

One Game of Thrones rewatch and three episodes of South Park, and we get the not so welcome news that our flight has already been delayed. Screw it, I’m not changing our Uber booking- more time to look for patches that I haven’t found this whole damn trip.

Watching the water now at dusk out here on our little balcony and listening to a local band do wrong things to Beatles songs… I know this has been the break that I needed. I won’t lie and say I never peeked in on things, but I didn’t eat/sleep/breathe them. Even only checked pup cam once a day, knowing my girls are in good hands. Work hasn’t reached out and I haven’t reached in. Ditto chainmail- it’ll all be there when I get home, and I don’t want to break the spell of peace and calm.

The one promise I really want to make to myself, and keep, is to hold little pockets of time to enjoy the things I found/rediscovered I enjoyed on this trip- Spiderman/Deadpool comic books, Breath of the Wild, Dungeon Mayhem, and most of all, Rick.

He’s an amazingly funny, insightful, sweet guy. And when we’re not both working 10-12 hour days it gets easier to see and remember that. When we got in, he flipped the channel to the Fast and the Furious, and knew that was the right spot. We got back to saying the exact same thing at the exact same time, but he still knows that when I crack my knuckles and sit down to my little minikeyboard, that he’s best off being quiet if not elsewhere.

I realized how much I miss him and how much I miss the me I am when I’m with him. I’m not saying every moment we share is sparkling with wit and verve, but we enjoy them nonetheless.

Before this gets overly sentimental and another Carly Simon standard gets wrecked by the band, I’m packing up this little keyboard and heading in.

I’m not kidding, it’s really really bad. Really.

Watching TV.. which we never do at home. Eggo commercial with husband shoving a forkfull of disgusting, although presumably Eleven approved waffles into wife’s mouth while she’s asleep in the name of breakfast in bed comes on.

Rick: You would kill me if I shoved food in your mouth while you were asleep!

Me: Yes, yes I would. With one exception.

Rick raises an eyebrow Vulcan style.

Me: Alcoholic cheesecake. Otherwise that fork will end up up your nose, sir.

We shouldn’t watch TV.

Reading a reddit article in which a vegan asks a random guy in the food court to stop eating the pepperoni pizza because it’s murder. “I’m not a vegan,” they reasonably reply. “But my child and I are! It’s offensive!” the vegan (supposedly) wailed.

I mentioned it to Rick under the heading of some people’s children.

Rick: I’d pick off every single pepperoni and eat it slowly, with eye contact, then tell the vegan I was OK to eat the rest since it wasn’t a murder pizza anymore.

Now we’re laughing like loons at every pizza commercial that comes on TV. At this hour, that’s a lot.

We shouldn’t read reddit.

A couple things to finish up on Day 2 before we start the fun of today-

Last night Rick and I went down to play Adult Pub Trivia.. and won! There’s nothing like drinking a strawberry daquari and paying for it by knowing a bunch of useless stuff. Our team name was The Bearfu Master is wise, cause we always have a tip of the hat towards our Draz, and I had had four glasses of white wine and couldn’t think of anything both short and witty that Bearfu Master would have said.

Then it was a soak in the jacuzzi in room tub while watching Fast and the Furious 7 (cause I never get tired of watching Roman wuss out on the parachute plan), and bed.

Slept in til 7 local time (so amazing that down everything in there), and lazed in bed reading the second book in the Bobverse series (if you like space opera, you really gotta check it out) and eventually got up to go hit Animal Kingdom. I may or may not have had a custard filled Krispy Kreme for breakfast. Reports vary.

Lucky us- worst. Lyft driver. ever. Picked up a call on his cell phone and proceeded to carry on a conversation in Spanish while acting as though he was allergic to both speed limits and turn signals. Yes, I took the survey, and somehow managed NOT to exit the car while asking him sweetly, “Como se dice asshole en Espanol?”

Cause I’m nice. Sometimes.

Animal Kingdom was amazing. There’s been so much care taken with the park, and how not, considering it’s Disney? However, even on a random Tuesday morning, it was still completely jammed with people.

And they weren’t happy people.

It was almost surreal.. we didn’t see anyone, not even the kids who looked remotely happy. The surroundings were magically beautiful, with some new view around every turn, and everyone was downright pissy. “I thought this was the happiest place on Earth,” Rick muttered to me.

“Maybe that’s just the Magic Kingdom,” I replied, sotto voce.

We shrugged and went on being enchanted, cause screw them. Got in line for the safari ride in which I was run over by a drunk guy with a baby stroller twice before Rick very pointedly moved me in front of him and put himself between me and drunk driver. Apparently that was enough of a statement for a sober member of the party to assume the driving responsibilities… and all was well, til another half hour in line when Drunky McStaggerson decided my butt was the guiderail a couple times.

Between the Ren Faire situation last week (I wore a dragon tail that required constant modelling and attracted much commentary) and this, I swear there hasn’t been so much interest in my ass in years, though Rick assures me it’s always been interesting.

At the end of things (no pun intended), the safari ride was well worth the wait. We saw all kinds of animals neither of us has seen before, including a baby hippo that kind of looked like he was pouting in the corner. Rick pointed out to me later that he was actually riding on mom’s back. I still like my interpretation.

From there we headed to Pandora, found some interesting take on Pandoran cuisine (chow mein with pho cuts of meat on the side) and I’m pretty sure we both accidently ingested cabbage.

We were about halfway through our plates when an older couple sat down next to us. Now look, I know it’s hot and muggy, and tempers were pretty frayed. But from the minute they sat down, Rick and I locked eyes and knew our biggest struggle would be to keep straight faces.

First it was, “Get me a coke.” Husband committed the cardinal sin of getting her diet coke, and he had to keep hearing about it. Then it was, “I don’t understand why we’re making ourselves sick in this heat. We’re not going to get our money’s worth anyway.”

And on, and on. And ON. I texted Rick, “I hope we never end up like these two, omg.”

Again we’re stifling giggles. Rick starts to get up for a refill, I cut my eyes to my cup and tilt my head towards it, he nods and grabs it to fill it too. A whole conversation in gestures. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone could do that?

But no, now the conversation has gone to how if Husband wants to stay, he needs to pick a show INDOORS cause she’s not gonna make herself sick to make her happy.

Best moment- she’s still chewing on the scar tissue that was this poor man’s ass while he was staring at his cell phone to find an answer to one of her many questions. He held up one finger with a look that said, “Bitch, one more word….”

She obligingly shut up and we enjoyed the two minutes of peace.

A little later we went to leave at the same time the gentleman was looking to ditch his tray, and we helped him find the bins. Somehow we conveyed, “Courage, good sir!” in that oh so brief exchange of smiles and nods and he seemed to go back to his harpy somewhat refreshed. Poor guy.

We found Pandora was essentially closed, so we sighed, shrugged with smiles, and made our way back to the entrance, still noticing how many people were just… angry. Parents, kids, men, women… Rick pointed out once interaction in which the chica had fallen behind her companion and asked for just two seconds.

He sighed as though the weight of the world had landed on his shoulders and counted to two. “See? Not two seconds!!!”

People, man.

So we checked out, came back to home base. Took a swim to cool off, got my first glass of wine, and sat down to catch up my journal entry for today.

Apologies to my mom and stepdad, who got 50,000 pictures of random animals, sometimes with no context.

The rest of the evening is set up to be wine and card games on the balcony, random reading (I got Spiderman and Deadpool vol 2 Side Pieces!), and relaxation.

Cheers, yall!

 

So today had a waaaaaay better start. For one, I slept in til nearly ten in a comfy king sized bed unshared by pooches with more down involved that I should really feel okay with, until I remember that geese are assholes.

No, seriously, haul a cage full of them inside a VW van just once and you’ll find out. True story, they are assholes.

We decided to hit Disney Springs today- we had such a good time with Secrets of the Empire at the Void that we wanted to do it again… and we wanted to wander around some more. And Rick may have told my mother there were Grumpy shirts that I bypassed last year. Thanks, Rick, got to hear about that all year long and it NEVER got old.

With breakfast being the most important meal of the day, we headed to the House of Blues. Great music and ambience- and they make sangria that definitely isn’t screwing around. I had the voodoo shrimp, and instantly felt so guilty for how amazing they were that I looked up the recipe so I could make them for my mom. (https://mermaidsandmojitos.com/house-of-blues-voodoo-shrimp-copycat-recipe/ if you happen to be curious).

I mean, seriously… you know you want some. And yeah, a dinner invite may be available.

We meandered around Disney Springs to walk off all the tasty and ended up in an area filled with designer names in which we very clearly did not belong. I twitch at the price of Loungefly bags, Coach is not a name I need on my gear. Eventually, we made our way to Ghiradelli. Yes, I had a sundae, I’m on bloody vacation.

From there, to the Void, where we got the thrill of completing a mission for the Rebellion once again… still just as damn fun, though I made a serious mistake by looking up while we were on the lift. Hello, vertigo! And yes, I did grab my blaster the first time this time, too.

A little more meandering and we decided to grab a Lyft back to the resort… and got a real character for our driver. She’s a fairly recent transplant to Florida, and not exactly thrilled about the wildlife factor. After we discussed the current lovebug infestation, she told us about how she’d called animal control over a racer snake that stretched itself across her doorway, trapping her inside. Her logic being that it’s an animal and someone clearly needed to be controlling it. When they refused to do so, she called 911.

Yup, we’re in Florida now.

Sadly, I missed the reservation timeframe for the wine and cheese pairing class that I’d planned to attend. Bad me… but wine did seem like an awfully good idea. And the balcony was a’beckoning.

And so, it was to the balcony with my white wine spritzer that I repaired, accompanied by some fine literature.

The literature in question? Spiderman and Deadpool- Isn’t it Bromantic. What, you were expecting Proust or Hemingway or some crap?

BTW, if you’ve ever been tempted to get into Deadpool, this is a fantastic way to start. I laughed all the way through this, and I may have alarmed some people by how unhinged I sounded.

Now, I accept that we’re probably the few that do this… but Rick and I picked up a new game from Twin Suns on Saturday specifically for this trip.

Dungeon Mayhem… really good game for 2-4 players.

It’s a quick to learn, quick to play through Magic lite.. we played a good 3 or 4 games before Rick reminded me that food is like a thing that he wants to eat every now and again and that breakfast was awhile ago. Sure, honey, I said, I’ll get right on that after I write up today’s journal entry.

Summation- It’s been a super relaxing day of not really worrying about anything and doing just the random things we feel like doing in beautiful surroundings. And we may have accidentally eaten avocado. Shhh don’t tell Rick.

So… this particular Adventure de Wellman did not exactly get off to a glowing start.

I’m kind of a planning type person, especially when it comes to trips. I like my trains, planes, and automobiles to run on time. I also don’t like to put anyone out- and both of those things equaled up to me ordering an Uber for 4.30am. Our flight was at 6.40, and in Albuquerque on Sundays, security doesn’t open til 5. It’ll all good, I tell myself, we’ll get in right at opening, plenty of time for a nice, relaxed mimosa type breakfast.

And hey, ok, even if the mimosa breakfast place won’t serve, I paid for the complimentary booze seats on the plane. We’re in great shape here.

That is- until Mr. Uber Driver decides to kind of not bother to show up til 4.50.

Maybe I’m a completely unreasonable cow bitch, but in my book, if you’re a driver and you have a pick up to the mfin airport and you’re twenty gd minutes late, the first thing I wanna hear out of your late late McLaterson’s mouth is a gd apology.

No apology. Not even an acknowledgement that we weren’t exactly on schedule. However, my clipped, short responses did manage to do one thing I’ve never been able to do before.

I got an Uber driver to STFU. Not even kidding, it was like magic.

We get to the airport and get through security fairly reasonably (except for hearing a TSA agent scream at some poor lady cause she gave her daughter her purse to hold while she put her shoes on or something) and went and found a breakfast burrito.

Except Rick, that cad, fixed his ever roving eye on a little cutie and just haaaaaad to chat her up.

 

The little hottie in question, who did in fact, turn out to be a boy puppy.

Being the ever patient wifey that I am, I turned a blind eye to his dalliance and picked up our breakfast. The things I do for that man, I swear.

We made the plane on time, and the second snag in my perfectly laid plans snagged.

No sparkling wine on the flight. No mimosas for me.

Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. We had an hour in DFW, surely I can find a mimosa there.

Big old negatory ghost rider. I didn’t account for the time change, so we didn’t have an hour. Throw in a gate change, and we didn’t have time to pause. Throw in that flight #2 did NOT come with the spiffy seats with free booze, and I sighed and said, you know what, it’s okay. It’s fine, it’s not that long a flight, by 4pm I’ll be having a pina coloda in the chaise lounge by the pool. No problem.

I popped my uber mcspiffy fu random strangers, I am not feeling conversational today headphones on. They were touted as noise cancelling pieces of magic that would transport me into another dimesion.

Well, they work. I didn’t hear a single one of the announcements about weather turbulence. It’s okay though, I felt it juuuuuuuuust fine in my perfectly sober headspace. Lucky me, now I know exactly how much I hate turbulence without all that nice cushioning chardonnay clouding me.

Cue the plane diverting to Fort Myers. Where we sat on the tarmac for about an hour and a half, I think. I kept my headphones on and hung out with Simon and Garfunkle, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, and Nirvana rather than listen to my fellow passengers bitch and moan. I was doing enough of that in my own head.

Finally, we hit dirt in the right Floridian city, got checked into our space, got to sit and eat dinner watching… what else? Star Wars. And as soon as my grocery order gets here, I will be ajourning to the jacuzzi tub in my bedroom. I may or may not have perched on the edge of it for a few moments and told it how much I missed it and how it’s really been too long and we shouldn’t let so much time pass between visits.

And watch Game of Thrones, of course!

Side note- Rick, perhaps out of guilt for his dalliance or because he really feels bad for the fact that my two huge bottles of Woodbridge Chardonnay showed up warm, has fetched me a pina coloda from the bar.

He’s a keeper.

 

On our way to run our #Maythe4thbewithyou errands, Rick and I got to talking about the differences between selling chainmail versus selling my books.

Rick: I’m still amazed that so many people just out of nowhere picked up your books and bought them.

Me (eyes narrowing dangerously): Oh really?

Rick: And, unlike chainmail, it costs nothing to make, all the effort is already done!

Me: Oh do go on, sir.

Rick (still oblivious): Yeah, it’s like… we don’t have to put out anything for the books, they are just there! And everyone was just snaggin ’em up.

Me: You know how this sounds, right? The books kinda take a WHOLE LOT OF EFFORT.

Rick (waving a hand): Yeah, yeah, but it’s like all already done. We sell a piece of chainmail, and we have to order parts and then put it back together.. the books are just, like, there. Even though they are by like a total unknown, no name author!

Right about here is when I realized the bloody man was messing with me.

Me: You do realize that every word you’re saying right now is going to (mimes typing) get out there? And do you hear yourself right now?!

Rick: Meh, that doesn’t worry me anymore.

Cue the evil grin and the laughs.

And that might be what I value most about my Rick- he can laugh at himself, at me, at the whole damn world and reminds me to do the same. We went on to have a good conversation about how thankful we are that there are folks that enjoy supporting local art, whether it’s in their choices in medieval wearables or literature.

I may have mentioned my severely overactive imagination from time to time. It’s one of the many factors that can make it very difficult for me to turn off my mind and go. to. sleep.

Well, one of the fixes I stumbled onto within the past few months was watching Star Wars Clone Wars. Because I’ve seen the episodes several times (for the most part), it’s just kind of background noise that fixes my mind, but doesn’t hold my attention enough to keep me awake. Good mix, right?

There were a few sweet, blissful weeks of being able to fall asleep when I felt like it.

Til Netflix did the evil, evil thing.

No more Clone Wars.

Until the Disney streaming service goes live, no more sweet, harmonious cacophony of blasters, lightsabers, and spaceship engines that I had come to count on to let me slip softly into the gentle arms of Morpheus.

Cue grinding of teeth as I try to find a replacement.

Star Wars movies are no good, I stay awake to try and watch. Rebels is no good for the same reason.

I finally started working on Marvel movies… much to Rick’s amusement. You see, for one reason or another, my first viewing of Endgame is going to be a solo run.

Rick: You know, I don’t even want to watch Endgame with you, you’re just going to fall asleep in the middle of it!

Me, rolling my eyes: Would not!

Cue long, viscerally real nightmare in which I fall asleep watching Endgame, get abducted from my car by a weirdo family of serial killers who decides to initiate their six year old daughter into the clan by having her shoot me in the damn head.

Rick denies having any responsibility for my dreams… I maintain that he planted the seed.

A helpful friend of ours, when told of the debate, rubbed his chin thoughtfully and asked Rick what the logistics would be behind packing the theater for my showing of Endgame with six year olds.

You guys see what I have to put up with?

Target on Saturday evening.. omg.. crowded with slowly ambling people everywhere.

Rick, in a rare move, stepped away, telling me he’d meet me over near the dog treats. I wandered a bit on my own (always dangerous), threw at least three things I don’t need the cart (this is why we use Shipt) and lo and behold, run into a friend of mine!

We lollygag for a bit, chit chatting about this, that, and the other, when she pointed out that my husband had come… and walked right by in search of me, without even noticing I was standing there.

I sighed. “There he goes.”

THAT got Rick’s attention. “What,” I said as he walked back over, “You said that woman is standing and talking to someone else, can’t possibly be my wife?”

Rick grinned. “Yup, pretty much.”

I sighed, and am still sighing.

 

When we got home, Rick started opening the mail, including the envelope from his union.

Rick: Oh wow, they really want to get my attention about attending this picnic thing.

Me, typing away: Oh? Why’s that?

Rick: All you can eat Fuddruckers. And a cash beer and wine bar.

Me, going back to typing: Ok, I’m a little more interested now. Are you sure you want me drinking and meeting your union brothers, though?

Rick, after a long, long moment of silence: Oh that wasn’t the best way to show that!

He points to the page, and in a truly unfortunate word wrap snafu, face painting was split onto two lines. No biggie, right? Except what painting was now coupled with was ‘Cornhole Competition’. So ‘Painting Cornhole Competition’. Yeah, let that sink in a sec.

We looked at eat other.

Rick: You see why I did a double take!

Me: That’s a horrible thing to do to me… now you know I’m sitting here, picturing all these judge people standing around and staring solemnly at these carefully painted buttholes before they hold up numbers for each entry. AND ITS NOT GOING TO GO AWAY!

Rick walks away, still laughing.

I’m glad I entertain him.