In Which Cinderannie Has a Lovely Time, Works Too Much, and Has a Lovely Time Again

Well, now, it's been awhile, as usual, but I have a good excuse this time, which is that I have worked 60 hours for the past two weeks. This is because it was spring break, when everyone comes to Disney. I really don't know what possesses people to come during peak times. Why would you want to come and have to fight all the crowds and wait forever in lines and not be able to get into any restaurants, when you could come in the fall and have almost no one there? It's ridiculous. But of course, people do it anyway, and then they are mad at me when I'm on door checking people in because they can't get into any restaurants. So that is the bad part of it being crowded. (And for goodness sake, the food at the quick-service restaurants really is quite good. I am sick of people saying it's "cardboard" or "fried junk" and being mad that there is no table service availability. If you're going to turn up your nose at the quick-service food, you should have made reservations. I have patience for a lot of things - mismade reservations, being late for reservations because you were caught in traffic, needing to add people to your party - but not that.)

The good part is that we open up the Diamond Horseshoe, the restaurant next door. It's basically an extension of our restaurant - it's the same cast members and the same food, with a makeshift kitchen area set up in the hallway. But the characters don't go over there. I like that restaurant because it's so beautiful inside. I only worked over there two days but they were so much fun.

There is a sort of bar area in the Diamond Horseshoe - just a long counter, with space behind it with a refrigerator built into the counter and more counter and cupboard space behind. This is where we set up the drink-making station (non-alcoholic, of course, just our usual drinks) and since the portable drink machine wasn't working, we had to use two-litres, and fetch pitchers of the drinks we didn't have two-litres of from Liberty Tree. There is not nearly enough space in that bar area for all the servers to be coming in and out getting drinks for their guests, so instead we have one of the seaters back there, and the servers write what drinks they need on a slip of paper and that person makes them and puts them on the counter for the server to pick up. They work with the stocker, who keeps the pitchers and the ice container full as well as getting glasses and coffee mugs. Now Brandy was the drink-maker for four days straight, because she was very good at it. And some days William was her stocker, and he is rather distractible and was always leaving her with no glasses left or no ice, so she was running around like a maniac. But then I was her stocker and she was glad to have me, and we had an excellent time working together - the time absolutely flew by. The five hours felt the way two hours does usually. And since she was going to be off the next day, and she had now taught me the system for the drinks, I was assigned to do drinks the next day. I had such a nice time. And Rob was my stocker, and he did a good job and we worked well together, and he joked that we would have our own bar, Rob and Joanna's, and I thought that this name actually had rather a nice ring to it, although of course I wouldn't really want to open a bar. But I had so much fun making the drinks that I thought that if it weren't for the sleazy drunk people I would probably enjoy being a bartender. If people always just went to have a nice time, and always only had one or two drinks apiece, it would be really fun. It's a pity that alcohol is abused so thoroughly.

I wouldn't want to leave Liberty Tree now, since I'm quite attached to the people over there, but if I could from the beginning have picked what shift and where I'd like to be, ideally, I would choose the opening shift at Cinderella's Royal Table. The reason for this requires me to skip back a bit and describe my morning there. I started work at 6am, as I told you before. But the opening work there is so pleasant. Everyone is still quiet and blinking themselves awake. You bring up the syrup and milk from downstairs, and then you fill up all the adorable little cream pitchers, and use this cool machine that you push the handle and it pumps syrup into the little syrup containers. (The little containers are called ramekins. I didn't know that until about a month ago - I always called them "syrup jiggies.") We also set up the soda machines for the day. And then when we were done with that we went out into the dining room for the pre-meal meeting. I was standing at the back of the dining room, with the big windows in front of me. I looked out, and I could see all the roofs and empty streets of fantasyland, and the sky was just starting to brighten to pink and gold. It was so beautiful I got tears in my eyes. And then, having started so early, we were done with the shift at 2:15. I like this arrangement.

Since I was done at 2:15 and I had a change of clothes up in my Liberty Tree locker, I went up to get them, changed, and went out into the park. I had not been wandering long when I got a call from Dory, wondering where I was because she was off of work and wanted to get together. "I'm in the Magic Kingdom," I said. "Where are you?" "At the Ticket and Transportation Center," she said. "Well, for goodness sake, get on the monorail and come over here!" I exclaimed cheerfully. "You'll be just in time for the parade!" And she was in time, and we went to Town Square where we found a place to sit and watch, and we had the loveliest time - we went on Jungle Cruise and Buzz Lightyear's space ranger spin and we got to ride the double decker trolley down and up main street! We decided to be seven years old for the day and we skipped and sang and had a sword fight with our knife and spoon from the pineapple ice cream and pineapple wedge we ate. So yes, this is the advantage of having to get up very early - then you have more day left.

Yesterday was so nice too, because Kari and I spent most of the day at the Magic Kingdom, and I convinced her to come on Big Thunder Mountain even though she doesn't like roller coasters, and it turned out she liked it after all. While we were waiting for our fast pass for that we went to Tom Sawyer Island and roamed around, and sat up at the top of the hill on a bench and ate our lunch and reminiced about our childhoods for about an hour - this is the beauty of being a cast member and not in a rush. And we had the most excellent ice cream from Enchanted Grove, which is a swirl of strawberry sherbet - made with real strawberries - and soft serve vanilla ice cream. Now that is deliciousness. And we ate it while we listened to a saxaphone quartet, and then we went on the teacups (I am so glad that I don't get dizzy so easily anymore like I did when I was younger, because I really like that ride now) and on Goofy's Barnstormer. We wanted to visit Minnie but she was busy spring cleaning. All this was while we waited for our FastPasses from Peter Pan's Flight to be ready because it was hours and hours. Oh and we went on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, too.

Speaking of that, that makes me think of Mr. Owl, and I wanted to tell you that I was going to say that Liberty Tree was like hobbits and dwarves and Cinderella's Royal Table was like Elves, but I tend to be a Lord of the Rings geek and I didn't want to overdo it. So I was glad that you thought of it.

Something I like about Liberty Tree is that there is no skim milk to be found in it from one end to the other. Also our honey butter we make ourselves, from real butter and real honey, blended together in a giant mixer.

Oh here is something else I keep forgetting to tell you! One day when I was on the bus to work, the one that goes from the WestClock parking lot where the CP bus drops us off to the main tunnel entrance, I noticed a big building, and there were monorail tracks going into it. I had seen that before, and I knew it was where the monorails sleep, but then I noticed something else about it - through the windows on the lower floor, I saw a train! And there are train tracks going into it! So the monorails and the trains sleep in the same building, with the monorails on the top bunk, as it were, and the trains on the bottom. I thought that this was most delightful.

Well, Dory has just brought me a salmon, rice, and brocolli dish for lunch that she made herself, and as it smells and tastes wonderful, I am going to leave this entry as it is, with a last note:

44 Days until I come home!