Closer and Closer

It is just about 2:30pm on Friday January 17th. One week from today I will be post-lunch on the last work day before vacation. How am I going to focus on the real world over the intervening week? The Vacation is becoming an all consuming obsession. Partly because I really want to go, but also because it stops me from stressing about the end of American society on Monday next week.

The first full day of vacation is eight days away. The Florida/Disney World return is nine days away. I can’t wait to go. I can do without the upcoming shit hitting the fan on Monday the 20th though.

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Nine Days

Vacation starts in nine days. Florida trip starts in 10 days. Getting close enough to fog my brain with vacationitis.

Not many people know this, but the Tomorrowland People Mover is THE BEST ride in all of Disney World. By far. Nothing even comes close (other than Rise of the Resistance and Smuggler’s Run). The People Mover RULES.

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10 Days

10 days until vacation. 11 days until the return to Florida. Here in Massachusetts it is very cold outside. In Florida… we’re hoping it won’t be cold at all. A boy can dream, right?

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Note, this trip will probably be our last chance to take blurry film photos of the Muppets at Hollywood Studios. Changes are coming and the Muppet neighborhood is getting the axe. sadface.

13 Days

12 days until we’re on vacation. 13 days until we travel back to Orlando for another Disney World trip. Expect me to use this countdown as an excuse to post lots of Disney-on-Film pics, and expect me to use the next visit as another excuse to shoot a butt-tonne of film. You’ve been warned.

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First Time in Ages

I just did something that I don’t think I have done since before Covid came along and mussed everything up.

As previously mentioned, it’s snowing today. Not a lot. We have about an inch on the ground. We might get another inch on top of that, but by no means is today’s storm anything to be worried or upset about, other than the fact that snow is always a pain in the ass. We are New Englanders. This is nuttin’.

However, I needed to go out and do the grocery shopping. My wife has been eating super healthy lately and she was out of all of the healthy things she needed for lunch. I had to go out and restock so that she could have a good lunch. That means I had to go out to the store before the snow stopped. Not only that, I had to go out before the snow removal crews started working. In other words, I had to drive in the fresh, untreated snow.

As previously stated, that was not a big deal. There was enough snow to make the roads a little slippery, but not enough to cause any real troubles for an experienced snow-driver. It made me think though… when was the last time I went out before the plowing started? I can’t remember. It’s been a long, long time. The last time had to have been pre-Covid lockdown. There hasn’t been a time since then that I had to be somewhere bad enough that I couldn’t wait for at least the plows getting one whack in. The only thing I could think of that would have made me go out right away was if one of my parents were in the hospital. If that happened I must have blocked it out of my memory. There was the drive home from Vermont a few weeks ago… does that count? I think the side roads might not have been hit yet, but the main roads had. I don’t know.

So I guess all I did today was spiritually renew my New England Winter Driver ID card. Yeah. I can still drive in the snow. Yippee for me, babie.

18 Days Away

It feels a little silly to be hyping up for a vacation on the first week back after the holidays, but here we are. 18 days until we leave for Florida where the temperatures hopefully will be a ton higher than the frosty 25 degrees we’re dealing with right now.

18 days is a long way off still, but I am starting to get psyched for it. Disney 2025 part one of two.

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Now I Have to Go

There is going to be a ton of back story to this one. You’ve been warned.

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Bridget Murphy. Her friends called her Bride, or Bridie. She had a bunch of kids (five, but one passed as an infant) and those kids all had kids of their own and two of those kids had a lot of kids of their own. That means I have roughly 25,000 first cousins (I exaggerate of course, but only a little). Many of us are on a Facebook Messenger chat thread together.

One of my zillion first cousins’ daughter got married this weekend. It was a destination wedding. The destination was in Ireland. Glorious! Some of my cousins have been sending photos from the trip to the Messenger thread. One of them just sent something that changed my personal mindset about visiting Ireland. How so?

I have always wanted to visit Ireland but now… now I HAVE TO VISIT IRELAND!

The photo was of a store front. The name of the store:

Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery.

Yes, I now have to go to Ireland. I have to go to the land where Bridie Murphy’s Home Bakery exists. It is a must. It is a moral imperative. It has to happen.