I’ve seen ads on TV for Dave & Buster’s since moving down here, but for the last 4 years there hasn’t been one nearby. I think the nearest one was Miami. Anyhoo, it looked like a fascinating idea — a restaurant full of standard American fare, attached to a video game arcade. It made me think of GameWorks, but maybe a little less indie-hipster-gastropub. (I don’t know if all GameWorks locations were like that, but the Seattle one was definitely trying for the fancier side in their restaurant.)

Finally, last week, Orlando got its own Dave & Buster’s. So we got together with some friends and friends-of-friends, and headed on over.

At first glance, it gave me a surprising Las Vegas vibe. Except there was a lot more natural light, and no thick layer of cigarette smoke hanging over everything. But the flashing lights, the clanging sounds, the layout of the gaming machines — it was all very casino-like.

First we had lunch, which was surprisingly good. And cheap, considering. We got the “Eat and Play” deal, where you pay $16.99 for an entree and a $10 game card. So my fried shrimp was $6.99, and let me tell you, you’re not going to get fried shrimp for that price anywhere.

I’d also joined the D&B e-club beforehand, so I had a coupon for an additional $10 in gameplay. After eating, armed with our gaming cards, we hit the arcade.

They have their own weird pricing structures at D&B, ones that I don’t quite understand. It’s even more convoluted than trying to convert dollars to Xbox points. For $10 you appear to get 48 D&B credits, and the games range in price from 2.6 credits to 10.5 credits. There may have been cheaper or more expensive games, but that was the top and bottom of the range that I saw. So a little game of Skee-Ball was a mere 2.6:

With real wood balls, no less. Or you could pay 9.9 credits to play this ginormous claw machine:

So big that several children could climb up inside and get stuck!

To add to the confusion, some games give tickets, while others don’t. There’s a bunch of plain old arcade-style games, in which you can shoot stuff or drive stuff, and those are just for the playing. Like this shoot-em-up Rambo game:

But then there are also games of chance, like the Skee-Ball or even more crazy stuff like Ginormous Operation:

Where you win tickets for playing well. And of course, there’s a shop in the corner where you can trade your tickets (each one is, bafflingly enough, worth “2 coupons”) for a variety of prizes. My eye was caught by the plush Angry Birds, but they’re 600 coupons each. I’d have to play quite a bit of Skee-Ball to earn that.

The skill games ranged from actual bona-fide skills to the classic sham game where you drop a token into a pile, and a little bulldozer pushes the token pile forward, so that you get tickets for all of the tokens that drop. There were several of those games, including this oddly-themed one:

We had a good time overall. There was one shooter game that really stood out — you sit in a pirate ship and shoot machine guns at sea monsters and skeleton pirates and such. Because pirates totally had machine guns.

There was also a Price is Right game, and a Deal or No Deal game, and even a huge Fruit Ninja game. Also a Guitar Hero game, but I didn’t get a chance to play it. Quite popular, that.

Of course, we all ended up with tiny bits of gaming credit on our cards — one of them has 1.6, another 2.5 — and you can’t swipe more than one card to make up the difference. Hopefully next time I go, they’ll have a way to consolidate all of the little amounts onto one card. Because we’ll totally go again. I have all of these tickets (and a very Vegas-like cup to carry them in) and more credits to play.

So as you already know, I’m one of those four-eyed types. And I loves me some variety in my glasses. But at work we have this thing called “The Disney Look”, which is a set of guidelines to make sure that everyone falls into the general realm of presentability, and nobody goes too crazy. You won’t find any orange mohawks in the look book, that’s for sure.

Since moving from the role of quirky game show host to actual front-line person working under her own name, I’ve been wearing my most plain pair of glasses. Which wasn’t that plain. Black front, white arms. I figured I should invest in some new glasses in solid, unobtrusive colors.

See, in my collection, my usual ones are on the left. There’s another pair of black, but they have hot pink highlights. And the far right pair are actually two shades of blue. At least I have more cleaning cloths than I’ll ever possibly need. They’re great for glasses, and also for my cellphone screen.

Normally I’d order new glasses from Zenni Optical. Most of these pairs are from there — the zebra, the orange, the red, the clear. But their glasses take a long time to arrive, due to being made overseas and sent via ultra-slow post. A couple of other pairs are from Glasses Unlimited, which are also good specs but start at $9.99 per pair. (Zenni starts at $6.95.) This time I decided to branch out and try a new place.

I got two pair from Eye Buy Direct — same $6.95 price as Zenni, but made in the USA with faster shipping. I did check out a few other sites, but Eye Buy had the best selection. I got two pair, one in black and one in brown. With shipping, it came out to $19.85. Add in that they accept Paypal, and I was a happy camper.

As you can see, they arrived well-packaged. Each pair was wrapped in a cleaning cloth (with the company name on it), packed inside a hard case (with the company name on it), and packed in a good-fitting box (with the company name on it). These guys do a great job of keeping their name in front of you. The website address is even printed on the inside of the arms of the glasses.

As for the turnaround, it was way faster than Zenni. I placed my order on the 6th, and they arrived on the 16th. Ten calendar days is a pretty good time.

Each pair needed some adjustments. My glasses always do — I think I have one ear a little lower than the other. Everything is slightly cattywampus fresh out of the box, even glasses I get from the actual optician. Fortunately, adjusting plastic framed glasses is pretty easy if you have a hair dryer. I set the dryer down on its side, turned it on high, and warmed the bridge and arms in front of the hot air. They can be gently (GENTLY!) adjusted a bit at a time until they fit. Of course, if you’re nervous about your own gentleness, you can go to an optical shop and they should adjust them for free using the hot sand. Although they may give you grief for buying glasses online.

I’ve found that the key to buying good glasses online is paying close attention to the size of the glasses. I have a couple of pair (the orange-fronted ones in particular) that are cool-looking, but way too wide for my little child-sized head. Those took quite a bit of hot-air adjustment.

I’d advise taking a look at the arms of a pair that fit you really well. There should be some numbers there:

These, by the way, are glasses that cost around $300. Thank goodness for vision insurance. Anyhoo, there’s a set of three numbers, like an IP address for your specs. The numbers are: lens width, bridge width, arm length. So each lens in this pair is 50mm wide, the bridge over the nose is 15mm wide, and the arms are 135mm long. These are pretty small glasses overall — the bridge is especially little, and 15mm is about as small as you get with adult glasses. Still, there are a lot of choices for small heads like mine.

Here’s a sample of the measurements most glasses places will give you (this is from Eye Buy Direct):

Yes, they’re cool glasses. But the bridge is 18mm, which means they’d be sliding down my dinky nose. And the arms are 150mm long, so they’d practically wrap around the backside of my head. So despite the fact that they’re not all that wide overall, these glasses would be ill-fitting in a lot of ways. Although they’d probably fit Scott’s giant melon really well. If only he needed glasses. The lucky dog.

I wore the black pair to work yesterday, and they were just fine. Even driving home at night. Now I don’t have to worry about my specs violating the Disney Look.

A great fit, plain enough for work … and of course, a cat in the background. Or else it just wouldn’t be a photo taken in my house.

The test results are in!

Small Bowel X-Ray: NORMAL
DEXA Bone Density Scan: NORMAL

This means that I have no active disease in my small intestines. Likewise, there’s no visible damage from any previous Crohn’s flares. My small bowel is in good shape. Also, I have no permanent bone damage from any of the medications I’ve taken. Hooray!

I also have the blessing of my new doctor to stop taking Cimzia, as long as I keep taking the other immunosuppressant, azathioprine. Which I’m totally cool with. It’s not going totally meds-free, but at least it’s backing down to just one medication (and one that’s worked well for me for years, with few issues).

No need for a follow-up visit at this time. As long as I stay in remission, I’ll have my blood tested every 6 months and call it good.

I couldn’t be happier about this! With any luck, my face will start to clear up in the near future as this crap makes it way out of my system. Although it looks like the scarring could take a year or more to fade. If I can go a few weeks without an acne explosion, I’ll try putting contact lenses in again. With luck, the skin and eye inflammations were hand-in-hand.

In other medical news, Scott’s healing up great. At the two-week point post-tonsillectomy, he still has a bit of a sore throat, but the stabbing horrible torture is done. We even went out for lunch yesterday so he could get some fish and chips, something he’d been jonesing for since the day after surgery. He’s back to work in a couple of days, and has already written some fresh comics.

It’s been a very medical week here at the House of Meyer.

Scott had his tonsils out last Friday. He was the oldest patient that day (although not their oldest overall — apparently they once had a 62-year-old get his tonsils out). The doctor said it was quick and easy, with very little blood loss.

He’s following what appears to be a standard adult healing schedule. Days 1 and 2 were painful, but then day 3 was way worse. Days 4, 5, and 6, a lot of pain — especially in the ears. I took a peek in his mouth, and the scabs on his throat are weirdly white. Apparently sometime between days 7 and 10, the scabs will fall off, and the pain will ease up enormously. Fingers crossed that it’s more day 7 and less day 10. Poor guy.

I myself went into the hospital this past Tuesday for a couple of tests. I got the standard three vials of blood drawn, since when you take multiple dangerous black-box medications, you have to check various levels and kidney/liver functions on a tight schedule. Then I got to experience a couple of first-time procedures.

The woman who prepped me asked why I was having the tests done. I told her that I’d had Crohn’s for 14 years, but never had these things done, and since I just changed doctors (because the old one was a dick), the new guy wanted these essential tests performed. She asked who Doctor #1 was. I told her, and she smiled and said, “I won’t say anything.” A moment later, she said, “Not a good bedside manner with that one.” And a little later, “I totally understand why you changed doctors. But I shouldn’t say anything.” Vague, but perfectly clear.

First up was a DEXA bone density scan. DEXA stands for Dual Energy X-ray Absorptiometry, and it’s basically a specialized x-ray that’s aimed at the spine and hips, checking for osteoporosis. This is one of the tests my new gastroenterologist was amazed I’d never had, since I took steroids for a couple of years. Also, the two medications I’m on now can also erode your bones away. I’ll be interested to find out how my hips look, since I’m plagued with arthritis in them even when my Crohn’s is in remission.

After that, I got to have a small-bowel x-ray done. In this test, you drink a bunch of chalky barium, then take x-rays every 30 minutes until the barium has made its way through the entire small intestine. It can take anywhere from a half-hour to four hours or more, depending on the speed of your guts.

They told me I’d have to drink two cups of barium. Being a cooking type, I pictured two actual cups. Turns out they meant two 16-ounce plastic tumblers, so it was actually four cups of barium. The first swallow tasted a little like the candy stick in a Lik-M-Aid Fun Dip packet, but then it just became chalky sludge. It wasn’t quite as nasty as the various colonoscopy preps I’ve done, but I had to drink it a lot faster. Times like that, I wish I’d learned how to chug.

Fortunately, they let me walk around and play with my phone in between the x-rays. I made quite a bit of progress on Angry Birds. It took me a little over two hours to get the barium all the way through. Then I moved into a different room, where the radiologist pressed on my guts with a weird paddle thingy, and took close-up x-rays of a few specific areas.

He commented that everything looked normal, but he’d go over all of the films and send the results to my gastroenterologist. If my small bowel is normal, that’ll be awesome. Apparently around 70-80% of Crohn’s cases have some level of small bowel involvement (which makes it even more perplexing that I’ve only ever had colonoscopies, which only look at the large intestine). If I don’t, then I’m one of the lucky ones. And also if there’s nothing going on in the small bowels, that means I can stop taking the Cimzia. Which is good; I’m getting really tired of the hideous pizza face acne.

Gut Doctor

I visisted my brand-new gastroenterologist yesterday.

A recap: I was originally diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in 1997, and had been in medication-free remission since 2003. I had a Crohn’s flare in 2009, and hadn’t found a new gastroenterologist in Floriday yet, so my HMO referred me to Doctor #1. Had a colonoscopy and started on the meds that I know put me in remission (immune-suppressors), although they started me at a lower level. After 3 months, Doc#1 opted to put me on a second medication, Cimzia (one of the new “biologic” drugs that specifically targets something called Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha) as well. He said after 6 months, I’d stop with the immunosuppessants.

Two years later, Doc#1 never did stop one of the medications. I’m still on both. I had to go in for a visit every three months because he enrolled me in a 10-year clinical study for the Cimzia. Every visit, I complained of dry, grainy eyes (I can’t wear contacts anymore)and horrible cystic acne, among other issues (occasional fatigue and arthritis). All of those things started when I started the Cimzia. He’d always wave them off, or tell me to see a dermatologist and an ophthamologist for additional creams or drops or pills to deal with the side effects. When I said that I still had occasional joint pain (because I probably have permanent joint damage from all the steroids I took when initially diagnosed with Crohn’s). He’d also wave that off, saying things like, “Well, that shouldn’t be happening.” Sometimes he’d act like I was lying. Sometimes he’d even roll his eyes.

I knew he had a terrible bedside manner, but my last visit took the cake. Once again I complained about the side effects of the Cimzia, and also expressed concern about the long-term possible side effects: cancers, brain injury, even death. He looked me square in the eye and said, “If you can’t stop worrying about these things, I recommend you seek therapy.”

After making me cry (not for the first time), he left the room. And while I was standing at the counter making my next grueling follow-up appointment with the receptionist, I got to overhear him complaining about me to his staff. Because I’m in remission, and other people aren’t, and I just don’t appreciate the great doctoring he’s done to get me healthy.

Awesome, right?

Finally I’d had enough. I went to my HMO to get a new referral to a new gastroenterologist. First they gave me a referral to Doctor #2, but then I got a call from one of the ladies at Doctor #1′s office. Doctor #2, it turns out, is in a different branch of the same practice that Doc#1 is in. She warned me that Doc#1 would most likely discuss my case with Doc#2, since they’d just be handing my records over inside the same practice. So I called the referral folks and asked for someone completely separate.

Got an appointment set with Doctor #3. Then I went to get a copy of my records from Doc#1. The ladies in his office were very understanding, and didn’t charge me for the big stack of paper. (They’ve always been lovely.) It was an interesting read, to be sure — nowhere in two years’ worth of records is there a single mention of the side effects I’ve had. There’s also no mention of any joint pain, nor of when I reported that I had a stubborn inner ear infection (when on immune-suppressing drugs, you have to keep a close eye on any infections). There were no mentions of anything — according to these records, on every visit I was healthy and free of symptoms or side effects, with no problems at all. After reading through everything, I was horrified and angry, but so happy I was going to get another doctor’s opinion.

I just hoped he’d have a different opinion. I was very nervous to see Doc#3, because for all I knew, he’d agree with everything Doc#1 said, and he’d keep me on what all my research told me was too much unnecessary medication.

I went over my 14-year Crohn’s history with Doc#3. He asked if I’d ever had a small bowel x-ray, and I told him no, never. He seemed perplexed, and asked again to be sure. Nope, doc, never even heard of a small bowel x-ray. I’ve only ever had colonoscopies.

I told him about the two medications I’m on. He asked what others I’d tried before taking the Cimzia. I asked, what do you mean? He listed other biologics — Remicade and Humira — that apparently people are supposed to start with, because Cimzia is a medication that people move to after others stop working. I told him no, I started with Cimzia.

Then I told him about the side effects I’ve had ever since starting Cimzia, the horrible embarassing cysts on my face, the gravelly dry eyes, and when I told him that my old doctor advised me to see a shrink, I started to cry.

I apologized for crying. And Doc#3 quietly put his hand on my arm and said, “You have nothing to be sorry about.”

He told me that the eye problems are absolutely due to the Cimzia. And that he hadn’t heard about cystic acne, but it’s absolutely possible because of the Cimzia, or perhaps the combination of drugs. He told me that for Crohn’s disease, which affects the entire digestive tract (as opposed to ulcerative colitis, which is only in the large intestine), a small bowel x-ray is essential to see if there’s any damage in the small intestine. And he said that if my small intestine looks good, then there’s absolutely no reason I should ever be taking the Cimzia.

Then he asked if I’d been put in a clinical study for the Cimzia. Yes, I told him — some 10-year thing. He asked if it was the Secure study. Yeah, that’s the one.

“THAT,” he said, “is the reason you’re taking the Cimzia.”

And I burst out crying. Because all of the studies on Crohn’s I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot) made me think that because I respond beautifully to a less dangerous medication, I should never have been put on the Cimzia. That it’s the next step for people who aren’t helped by other medications. But Doc#1 insisted that he knew best, both meds were essential, and that I should remain on the combination of meds “until a cure comes along.”

I dried my face and left with orders for some blood tests and a small bowel x-ray, which I’m doing next week. It’s a 4-hour procedure where you drink barium and then wait for it to make its way down into your innards, then they take snappies of your barium-coated guts. If all that comes back looking good, I’ll be able to go from two dangerous medications down to one, and potentially down to zero at some point in the future. I might be able to wear contact lenses again. And hopefully the acne scars should fade … in a year or two. I also left feeling like I have a doctor who listens, and who cares about what I think and what I want.

Car Doctor

In less my-innards news, Scott’s car died in a clanking, clattering, puff-of-smoke way the other day. He knew his clutch was getting squishy, and had just called around to see what it would cost to get a new clutch put in. He was planning on dropping his car off before his tonsillectomy, so they could take their time. But last Thursday, the clutch decided to give up the ghost.

He had something like a 3-hour wait for AAA to send a tow truck, and then had some crappy service from the rental car company. But on the plus side, we dropped the rental car off yesterday, and the guy who helped us was the branch manager. He asked how the rental process was, and we both smiled and made “ehhh” sounds. Told him about the rental guy who tried to charge us more than we’d reserved for, among other things, and the manager took forty bucks off the bill. Nice!

Scott has his car back, and he says the clutch feels great, but now it’s idling rough. They had to replace a couple of hoses and gaskets and such that were underneath the engine, so we figure something just didn’t get tightened down the right way. I think he’s going to take the car back tomorrow to see if they can get it smoothed out.

Throat Doctor

Friday, Scott’s going in for his tonsillectomy. I had my tonsils out when I was five, so I have no real memories of the pain or how long it took to recover. All I remember is that I got an injection in my butt, and that really hurt.

We’ve heard a wide variety of stories, but for the most part it sounds like recovery takes longer for adults, becaust they have more nerve endings and blood vessels connecting to the tonsils than kids do. So he’s going to be out on medical leave for 10 days, and we’ll play it by ear if he’s still feeling bad after that. Meanwhile, he has bottles of hydrocodone at the ready, and we’re going out tomorrow to get ice cream, popsicles, protein shakes, and any other cold, soothing thngs we can find.

I can’t wait to see what kind of writing he gets done. I’ve told him he should write a diary. Neither of us knows how loopy the hydrocodone will make him.

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve posted. Ack! It’s been a hustle-bustle fortnight here at the House of Meyer.

Workwise, I’ve just finished a week of training for my actual job. If you’ll recall, I’ve been doing some basic greeting and luggage-hefting until they had a classroom session available. I only had to wait a month and a half to start my actual training, which is apparently fairly fast. The five days of training consisted of one day of learning the two software programs, then four days of doing the job while under supervision. I’m sure I’ll still have lots of little questions here and there, but I have the gist down. I start doing the actual job tonight, although I don’t get to do the classroom learning until tomorrow, so I may only have half of the software I need available tonight. We’ll see. Three people do the job at the same time, so at least I’m not being thrown in all alone.

Since I have no seniority, it looks like I’ll be mostly working nights. I don’t mind it so much, except that Scott works mornings. We get to re-bid for schedules every 6 months, and I just missed the bids when I started, so hopefully in 4 months or so we’ll be able to figure out a way to see more of each other and maybe share a day off.

Medically, I’ve been down with a cough and some stuffiness. I’m also going next week to a brand-new gastroenterologist, hopefully one who actually listens to me and doesn’t treat me like an idiot. With any luck, he’ll agree to let me stop the double-dose of immunosuppresants, and go down to one for maintenance. Also with luck, he won’t make me wait two hours to be seen or make me cry or tell his staff what a pain in the ass I am when I’m standing right around the corner, like the old guy.

Scott’s getting ready for some medical whatnot of his own, although I don’t know for sure if he’s said anything to the general public yet. I’ll just say that he’s going to have a procedure done soon that I had done when I was five, and after he has it done, he’ll be able to eat all the ice cream and popsicles he wants.

Commie’s eye is doing great. A little weepy now and then, but for the most part back to normal. Here he is on top of the safety and side-effects sheet for Cimzia, one of the medications I take for Crohn’s. Mind you, it’s also printed on the back side. In fairly small type. This stuff packs some serious yuck.

In the world of little animals, we’re seeing a ton of baby frogs lately. When a friend was over visiting, she just had to pick one up. You can see how totally tiny they are.

Believe it or not, this was one of the larger tiny frogs. Later that week I saw some that were less than half this guy’s size. I’m making sure to step gently when I see them.

Here’s a question for you Oregonians and Portlanders. I saw this car in our apartment complex lot, and while I understand the two Oregon-related stickers, I don’t quite get how the “TURD” sticker fits in.

Perhaps it’s just another of this Portland-loving person’s fixations. Portland and poop, two great tastes that taste great together.

Lastly, we met up with some friends for dinner and mini-golf last week. First we went to Putting Edge, which is an indoor glow-in-the-dark place located at Festival Bay. For those of you who don’t know, Festival Bay is a relatively new-ish but spookily deserted mall. Over half of the stores are vacant, and the occupied spots are filled with weird stores like Black Market Minerals or the several memorabilia stores. When your mall’s biggest stores are Bass Pro Shop and Shepler’s Western Wear, you know you’re in trouble.

We peeked in at Putting Edge and decided that it looked cheap and cruddy, like a traveling carnival’s spooky dark ride. Everything looked like badly-painted plywood. Their price was the same as all of the other area mini-golf joints, so we just toodled over to the nearest Congo River Golf location. Same price, but far less creepy.

See? Much more civilized. The course was good, but it was mostly creative greens. I prefer a mini-golf course with stuff like windmills and buildings and other weirdness. I may be spoiled, since I grew up really close to a Putt-Putt that I loved.

It appears that Universal is building a pair of ’50s B-movie themed mini-golf courses, set to open in early 2012. Fingers crossed that they’re awesome, because the theme is right up my alley.

I now have three weeks of resort work under my belt. And I’ll have a bit more before my real job begins — they’ve pushed back my classroom learning another month, so I’ll be toting luggage for a little while more. No worries, friends. I’m okay with it.

I’ve acquired more bruises on my legs, and a nice spot of rug-burn on my knee from one particularly well-upholstered suitcase. I asked the nurse at my gastroenterologist’s office if my easy bruising was due to the combination of medications I’m taking, and she said, “Probably, I guess.” I looked at the safety info sheet that came with one of the drugs, and it reads: “Contact your doctor at once if you develop easy bruising or bleeding.” Awesome!

In the same doctoring vein, I’ve made an appointment with my HMO to get a new referral to a new gastroenterologist. Hopefully I can find someone who’s willing to discuss things instead of demand things, and who knows that after you make your patient cry, you should save complaining to your staff about what a whiner she is until you know she’s left the building.

I have a few books on my to-review list, although my reading speed has gone down dramatically this month. I’ll blame that on the one-two punch of a physically tiring job and the acquisition of Portal 2. I watched Scott play the single-player game, and now I’m over halfway through my own run. Plus we’re also tackling the co-op game. As I suspected, it’s going to earn a place on my top 7 games list. I’d also rearrange the bottom two, so The Saboteur stays at #7 and The Neverhood falls to #8.

If you’ve played any Portal, you’ll know what I was thinking about when I used the back stairway to visit the doctor’s office:

We’re excited to have a Seattle friend visiting this afternoon — he’s a stand-up comedian, doing a corporate gig in Tampa this morning, then driving out to see us. We’ll most likely take him out to the Magic Kingdom, then find a place with some good key lime pie.

He’ll have to head out before the night gets too late, because I think he flies out of Tampa tomorrow morning around 7. So we should also be able to see the finale of The Biggest Loser tonight. I’m delighted that my first-day favorite, Olivia, is still in it to win. In other reality news, however, I’m not even recording the American Idol finale. I have no interest in either of those country kids, and have fast-forwarded past their performances all season long. I also think that little Chelsea Kane deserves to win Dancing with the Stars, but I’m conflicted because I have a feeling that I couldn’t stand her partner, Mark Ballas, in person.

I just finished working seven out of the last eight days at the new job, and boy are my legs tired.

For those who don’t know, I’ve moved over to the resorts arm of the Disney empire. My eventual job will be “Bell Dispatch”, in which I’ll work in a little booth with a computer, telling the bellmen (I keep wanting to call them bellhops) where to pick up guests and their luggage, and where to take them.

Thing is, I’m not scheduled for my classroom sessions at Disney University for two more weeks. So until I’ve learned the software used to dispatch bellmen, I’ll be doing other work. I’ve shadowed a few people, and I’ve been trained to do an easy temp job (more on that below).

So how was my week? Busy. Tiring. And unfashionable.

The first day was orientation for the resort. It was actually a combined orientation for two resorts, then at one point we split apart and did separate tours. There were a dozen or so of us, headed to many different jobs: dispatch, front desk, housekeeping, food & beverage, and a couple of managers. We had to do some getting-to-know-you exercises, we learned about the Disney service basics, we got overviews of our resorts, we took our tour, and we went to costuming to get our outfits.

I’d heard about Disney costumes from Scott, but this was my first time trying them on. The bottoms are like something out of 1983 — a high and tight waist, several pleats, and tapered ankles. The sizes are also from the past, which is apparently standard for uniform companies. The blouse is a boxy camp-shirt style, with poofy shoulders. It’s as if they decided that since they can’t make everyone look great, they’ll make everyone look equally odd.

All right, fine. I had Scott take a picture of the trousers:

There’s also a pocket on the right side. It adds to the weird saggybaggyness. On the plus side, there’s also an option for shorts. On the minus side, they also have the high and tight waist. Oh well, it could be worse. There are some seriously awful costumes out there. Dinoland USA, I’m looking at you.

Anyhoo, after Monday’s orientation, I got Tuesday off, then headed into a 6-day workweek. Wednesday was spent shadowing the job of “Greeter”, which will be my job for the next two weeks. Basically I hang out in front of the check-in building, under the porte-cochère, greeting guests. I answer their questions, direct them to places, and help with their luggage. If their flight leaves at 7pm but they had to check out at 11am, I can take their bags and put them in storage so the guests can go frolic in the parks. I hold doors for people, and just generally smile and stand around, being available for any guests. It’s not hard work, and it’s not mentally taxing, but it’s standing for 8 hours, which I’m not used to.

Thursday I got to go out with a bellman for the first half of the day, and I learned how they do their work. Which is basically getting calls from the dispatchers, and fetching/delivering guests and their luggage. Then I spent the rest of the day in the Disney’s Magical Express luggage office. It’s a system where you check your luggage into the airline with special tags on them, then at your destination the bags are loaded up and brought to your resort. There, they’re sorted and sent out to the rooms with bellmen, so you don’t have to fuss with the bags. You can just check in, then head off to the theme parks.

So for half of Thursday, and again all day Friday and Sunday, I was slinging luggage. It came in stacked in big locked cages, which we laser-scanned and sorted onto shelves for later retrieval. I learned that I’m stronger than I thought! Although I did bruise the heck out of my knees and legs, what with all the bumping against suitcases and using my knees to help heft bags up to the upper shelves.

My knee is pretty much capped with bruises. But they’re no big deal — I bruise if you look at me wrong. You can also see the mole-removal scar down there on my calf. They’re all healing nicely.

Saturday and Monday, I was a Greeter all on my own. No tranier, not shadowing anyone. Actually doing the job! I answered questions, sent people to places, stored luggage, opened lots of doors, and did it all hanging out in the shade on a warm spring day, with a breeze rustling through the palm trees. Seriously, you could do a lot worse.

Most of the people have been lovely so far. The bellmen are extra nice to me, but I suspect they’re sucking up a little because they know I’ll be dispatching jobs to them eventually. Many of the people in my area have been with the company lots of years, and they’re all well older than I. There are also a number of kids here on the college program, but quite a few of them are leaving this Wednesday, so I only barely got to know them. However, a new batch of fresh faces should show up in the next few weeks. It’s one of the strange things here at Disney — everyone seems to be either 20-something or 60-something. I’m in a weird middle ground.

This next workweek I’ll get a taste of some evening shifts (everything I’ve done so far has started in the morning). I hear it’s a lot less busy in the evenings. Then on the 23rd, I get to hit the classroom. I believe it’s 2 weeks of on-the-job training after that, and I should be a full-fledged dispatcher by mid-June. Since I’ve changed unions, I’m coming into this job at the bottom of the seniority ladder, so I may be working nights again. Time will tell, and we shall see.

Heard a bunch of sirens this morning, and peeked out the window to see several fire trucks heading to the other side of the apartment complex. A while later I looked outside, and then had to go over to the pond to take this picture:

It appears that some residents set fire to their deck.

This is actually a very impressive feat.

See, the deck planks are nice, solid 2x4s. And I watched these dozen-or-so firemen pry out planks and pass them over to the guy on the ladder, who passed them to some other guys who ran them over to the pond for a dunking. And most of those planks were burnt straight through. They looked like sharpened charcoal pencils.

There wasn’t much smoke at all. Just an occasional puff on the breeze.

Eventually, a couple of firefighters showed up on the 2nd floor balcony too. By then, I hopped in my car and took off on my errands. I guess they were checking to see if any embers made their way down and burned anything below.

I’ll make one guess as to what set this deck on fire: cigarettes. I had no idea when we moved to a building with balconies that everyone but us smoked. Some people even have elaborate smoking lounges set up on their balconies, with big squashy office chairs. Our neighbors both above and below are smokers, and sometimes we’ll find a butt that’s been dropped down to our deck. And in fact, looking across the pond a couple of hours after the big hullabaloo, there’s a guy standing up on the non-burnt part of the deck, having a smoke.

I love having the deck. It’s nice to sit out and enjoy the great outdoors, and our scaredy-cat Trouble will always come out and try to grab whatever sliver of sunlight she can.

But I’m making a concerted effort to not burn it down.

At least it gave everyone in the complex a little excitement on an otherwise boring Sunday.

SCARS: My stitches are out! Of course, the wounds still look kind of angry. But I did get hearty kudos at the dermatologist’s office — they said I’d done a great job with my wound care, and had kept everything (everyone’s favorite word) moist. The stitches came right out, smooth as silk.

All that for a little mole. Seems a bit drastic!

The good dermatological news is that on all three things that were excised, the margins are clear — they got the whole mole out on all of them. I go back in three months for another lookie-loo, then settle into an every-six-months visiting schedule. Most people go once a year, but because I’m so massively freckled, I get to be part of the more frequent group.

Please note that the dermatologist’s office won’t “except” bills larger than a $20. With picture, in case you’re not sure which one is the $20. I was excited to find an except/accept gaffe, because they’re one of the more rare homophone mixups. (Are they really homophones, though? I pronounce them slightly differently.)

JOBS: It’s still kind of amazing to me how many places I applied to that haven’t said one peep to me. I’m sure they get tons of applicants, but even a quick e-mailed “Thanks but no thanks” (like I just got from Best Buy, to whom I applied 3 months ago) would be nice. I mentioned earlier a “working interview” I did at a vet clinic, wherein a woman brought in her deceased pet and called us all motherflippin’ beaches. Only she wasn’t that coy with the cusswords. Anyhoo, they never called me back with a yea or nay. Seriously, there were probably only a scant few people who went in for their half-day interview process; why not a word back?

This is my last glorious weekend of unemployment. On Monday I go in for orientation at my new Disney job. I’m scared and excited at the same time. This is going to be very different from the rest of my Disney experience — entertainment is such a separate beast from everything else. But I can’t wait to get into the front lines, actually talking with guests directly, going by my own name (And wearing my name tag for the first time!), and helping make the guests’ vacations better.

The hardest thing is finding shoes. Disney is very strict about footwear — my job requires “dress shoes”, black, polishable (no suede or stretch), no contrasting or decorative stitching, and no decorations (buckles, buttons, bows). You try to find shoes that meet those requirements. Not that easy! Every pair of plain flat mary-janes seems to have white stitching, or a big button or buckle on the side. I did find a pair that I think will work; they’re a little pricier than I’d hoped, but I have to remember that when you’re on your feet all day, good shoes are an investment.

UNDERPANTS: Those cold-hearted jerks at Victoria’s Secret have stopped carrying the hipsters I liked. Besides which, their entire underpant focus these days seems to be on being “cheeky”, which appears to mean showing the bottom edges of your butt. Which strikes me as damned uncomfortable. Exhibit A:

In what universe is that full coverage? Look at how much cheekbottom is showing! Even on that model, with her model-sized butt! That thing would practically be a thong on me.

So on a whim, and because they were having the same 7-for-$25 deal that VS often has on their underdrawers, I stopped in at Aerie. It’s part of the American Eagle family, and I used to think it was just for the young people. BUT NO! Not only do they have a great selection of undershorts with great ass-coverage, but they also are my new brassiere purveyor of choice.

Usually at VS, there are two models of bra that come in my “weird” size. Which is 32C (if you’re a 32 band, they expect you to only have size A or B boobs). That’s two models out of the what, 40 or 50 in the store. But at Aerie, they had eight models of non-pushup for me to choose from in my size. Add in pushup and other styles, and I could have chosen from 15 brassieres. They fit great, and cost less than VS.

Aerie is, right now, doing their 7 for $25.50 sale both online and in-store. So if you’re blessed with a junk-rich trunk, check out their boyshorts and boybriefs. Although I can’t imagine any boy or man I’ve ever met wearing underthings the shape of any “boyshort” I’ve ever seen.