Friday, July 9, 2010

Feel Good Friday – My Happy Place

This week has been a rough week. As much as I’d love to delve into detail, I decided to focus on the good. One of the prompts for Feel Good Friday is to write about my happy place. This is my happy place:



                         Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

This is the place of happy memories. With the lulling sound of waves crashing into the shore, I feel peace and tranquility, more than anywhere else on this earth. This is where I go in my head when I need to practice positive visualization, my happy place, if you will. Some people feel the need to go to church to feel the presence of a higher power; but this is my church, where I come to feel more spiritual.

And today, there is no place I’d rather be than here.

Have a great weekend, Friends!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Observations From My Family Vacation: Part 2

If you read my last post, you will know that I didn’t expect to walk away from an amusement park vacation with such deep insight into my upbringing and family dynamics. I did expect the post about my amusement park vacation would be a bit lighter. I thought the best way to express my observations would be in a letter to the CEO of Cedar Point.

Dear CEO of Cedar Point:
My family and I recently visited your amusement park. Although we had a great time, I do have some suggestions that may further maximize your patrons’ experience:

1. I was hoping that perhaps you could change the wording on the signs throughout the park to say, “No shirt No shoes No bra No service.” Let’s just say there were a whole lot of bubbies in tank tops and/or halter tops that needed a bit of assistance to be hoisted back up above the waist. Maybe you can sell some in your gift shops for emergencies, like you do with your emergency ponchos. It could be that these women were so excited to get to the park that they forgot to put on a bra. Who knows – stranger things have happened.

Also, many of these women really liked to wear super short shorts. You know, the kind that, if you do not have the legs of a 10 year old boy, they just don’t’ seem to lay quite right. So as the shorts are creeping further and further up, quite a lot of skin is exposed while seated on the rides. Do you think you can wipe down the seats with a cleaning solution like they have at the gym? I feel that if gyms find wiping off ass-crack sweat a necessary step in ensuring a sanitized environment, perhaps you can do it, too.

2. After watching the ice show “Everyone Loves Snoopy,” I felt that the title was misleading. I expected to see a show that was cute and fluffy and sweet. After watching that soft core porn production with brief appearances made by the Peanuts Gang, perhaps a more accurate title would be “Snoopy and His Strippers on Ice”. This title encapsulates the essence of the show: Girls Next Door-like outfits and sexy routines with Charlie Brown randomly skating across the stage (as if to remind you that this REALLY is a kids production). When Sally is day-dreaming of Linus, I am not sure that Charles Schultz would feel there is no better song to capture the innocence of that moment than Prince’s “I Want Your Kiss.” And when Linus says, “Happiness is a thumb and a warm blanket” Mr. Schultz may question why the natural choice would be Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” I sense the choreographer is probably a frustrated former Vegas producer that hasn’t truly embraced his lot in life as a kiddie ice show choreographer.


3. Please make sure that all lifeguards have these four words in their vocabulary: Stop. Go. No. Help.

4. On another note about Soak City, the life guard watching the kiddie pool was a bad ass. He was a take no prisoners kind of guy. If he saw a kid walking up the water slide, he was on that whistle, sounding like a frantic sparrow. If he saw an adult try and go down the 4 foot choo-choo train slide with her infant, he would come over there and tweet his life-saving whistle right at her. It then dawned on me that he is on the perpetual play date from hell. You know, the one when the parents (or maybe in your case, nannies) let their kids run wild and do whatever they want. Except the stakes are much higher – like drowning and death. I bet the correlation of kiddie pool life guards and over indulging in Jack Daniels is extremely high. Are extra drink tickets for the saloons in the frontier portion of the park an added benefit for these life guards? I do believe it would be in everyone’s best interest to make sure these lifeguards are happy and generously compensated for their live-saving skills.

Again, I truly enjoyed my experience at Cedar Point, but I think these points may make the park-going experience even better.

Ride On,
Mommy on the Spot