Check, Check is this thing on?

I have been meaning to get here for over a month, amazing how life keeps a person busy despite their efforts to be lazy.  Work is going well.  I can’t even believe it but Toy Story Midway Mania will be turning 2 in May.  How time has flown by! 

Today I gave the park tour for my On With The Show Class.  This has to be my most favorite thing to do.  Today was one of the best, I had a good friend as my partner, lets just say even though he portrays someone from the Dark Side of the Force, the force was strong with us both.  It really seemed that the new cast members were enjoying their time with us.  I think they really did feel that they were now part of a family!  The family of cast members at Disneys Hollywood Studios.

One of my favorite things to tell them is “You know when someone says you are soooo Disney!”  you know exactly what that person is like.  And I told them I am very, very proud to be “Disney”.  And there really can’t be anything better in this world then having a job where the only thing I have to do is make people happy.

I have a new goal that hopefully I will get the opportunity to audition for this spring, and that would to be a Traditions Facilitator.  Traditions is a class taught at Disney University , and it is the class that every cast member must attend before they start work  anywhere on property.  I had tried out for it years and years ago, long before Dream Squad, and it was pretty clear that I had no business trying out for it with what little experience I had.  But now I have so many stories, and so much to say to all these new cast members.  Not sure if I will be able to get this or not but it will be well worth the adventure trying.

My family are all well, can not even believe it but my son will be going to Japan in just a few months for his long overdue honeymoon with the Princess.  I am beyond excited for them.  How wonderful that they will get to do something that I dare not even dream about for myself.  This will be be a trip of a lifetime for sure!

I miss my Mom just about every single day.  Even though my pet peeve was her saturday 6 am calls that never failed to wake us up.  I wish I could hear her voice once more.   The only good thing that has come out of this is that my sister and I are getting closer.  That is long overdue.

So my friends I promise for those of you still brave enough to come to this site, I will try to visit more often.

Just checking in.

I have always tried to make sure to post at least once a month.  Not sure if I have missed any yet!  This year seems to have flown by in some ways, and in other ways been one of the most heart wrenching years of my life.

We learn things as we go along, hard lessons, bumps in the road, hills to climb.  And no I am not going to start channeling Miley Cyrus and break into song.  That is not my style.  No I come here to my little blog.

December has always made me emotional.  This one won’t be any different.  I miss my Dad, he loved Christmas so much.  He would always have his tree up as early as he could get it up.  And then call and tell me how beautiful it looked.  It was a soft side that I did not know that my Dad had until later in his life.  We would always time our yearly watching of  National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and we would laugh about all the lines and characters that we knew by heart.  Funny how that movie in itself became the “Gift That Keeps on Giving” like the jelly of the month club.  It will give me memories of my dad always.

This year has been amazing at work.  Mostly just the fact that Toy Story Midway Mania is still so very popular.  I never get tired of seeing how happy it makes people.  I am very proud to work there.

I still do the Park tour for the new cast members, I still am amazed at how lucky I am to have been chosen to do that.  When I am there telling the stories and talking about the magic that we make working for Disney, again it makes me very proud.  I have this one spot in One Man’s Dream that I tell all of the new cast members to share with me their favorite Disney memory.  And then I tell them Congratulations you are now a part of your favorite memory.

I am going to try to get my act together this year and get this weight off that I gained when I lost my mom and I was in Ohio.    Seems like my body has decided to hold on to every pound now, and now its a matter of doing battle with what the years are doing to me.  I need something to work on to keep me focused, sometimes I feel depression trying to creep into my life.  And I think if I do this it might help.  If anything it keeps me busy.  And a goal to look forward to.

Must be just me.

 I still love my job so much.  Even when I am exhausted, even when I have had a awful day with one issue after the other, when all is said and done I still love it.  My issue is that I work with wonderful people, but there are a few of them there that hate their jobs so much, and hate the attraction so much that it bothers me.

And I guess its just more than I can fathom.  Because I look at the smiles on the faces of the kids and their parents and I can’t believe how lucky I am that I am a part of their happiness.  It is so perplexing.  I guess its one of those things with the cast members that it always looks greener on the other side of the mountain.  And they don’t realize how lucky they are.

I guess my time when the parks were taken away from me and I was stuck backstage  stays in my head.  That was the worst torture of all.  Its hard for me because I know I can’t change the way they think.  And I can’t change the way I am.  So I seem to have hit a brick wall.  But there are days that I just want to yell at them all and tell them to snap out of it.  And today was one of those days.  sigh.

This Year.

This year will go down as one of the worst for me.  The things I dreaded in my life have come to pass.  The worries of getting older, and losing family members always was in the back of my mind.  And this year I lost my mother, and my father-in-law, and this week I lost my aunt.

It is beyond what I could have imagined to be in this phase of my life.  You spend all of your youth never thinking about it.  The years raising a family, too busy to give it a second thought.  And then day by day it sneaks up on you.

I am trying to give myself the attention I never got for most of my life.  Exercising, career opportunities, new friendships.  If I have to go I want to go out smiling.  Life truly is too short.

So for now I am taking a deep breath.  Tomorrow will be another day.  And I need to add this one thing on the eve of my aunt’s funeral tomorrow.  The last time I talked to her it was after my mom’s funeral.  And it was so good to hear my Aunt Terry’s voice.  She had been fighting cancer for quite some time so she sounded frail.  But she still had that beautiful voice that I remembered.  Her voice sounding just like my grandmother’s.

We talked about how sad it was that we had not been able to spend much time together during her life time.  The time we had was special.  I remember her saying this to me, “Just remember that I have always loved you no matter what.”  And I told her that I loved her too.

The economy being what it is, and our finances beyond repair, I will not be able to go to Virginia to say goodbye to her.  But its ok, because I did when I was on the phone to her in June.  And that goodbye was the one I want to remember.

My love to my cousins, Jamie, Michael and Chris.  Believe me I know your hearts are breaking.  I have traveled this road you are on now, just a few short months ago.  I love you.  I thought when Aunt Terry passed that that was it the end of my dad’s family.  There was only the three of them.  But a good friend reminded me that was not the case at all, that there was me, and my sister and the three of you.

I Survived another Summer!

I realized I have not been keeping up to date with tales from Pixar Place so here I am.   I survived another grueling year in the tourist mines.  Long, long hours and sweltering heat.  We had peak waiting times up to 3 hours, and with every happy guest there were a few that were not.  After so many years now I realize we can never please them all.

The first part of august was my 4 year anniversary working for the company.  Its hard to believe it.  I still remember the day I went to casting and was hired.  It was on my birthday.  Next year I will receive my 5 year pin.  Something we all look forward to.

Its funny that one day you go to work and its crazy, and then you go back the next and as if someone turned a switch, the crowds are gone.    The guests are happy even though a few complain about the 30 minute wait.  The cast members just roll our eyes at them.  They have no idea.

I am still in love with ToyStory Midway Mania.  It is such an amazing attraction.  I adore the cast members that I have worked side by side with since it opened.  Its amazing to be able to be a part of that magic.

I love working at One Man’s Dream when I am lucky enough to get scheduled there.  When I sit there and watch the bit of the movie about Walt’s life I realize what a privilege it is to be a part of his dream.

The Affair of the Sun and the Moon

In the morning when the moon is still out.

There is a time when the sun begins to rise.

It is like catching two lovers finding time to be together.

The morning clouds hiding their faces as they try to catch a glimpse of each other from opposite corners of the room.

The moon staying as long as she can before she has to go back to her life guarding over the night sky.

The Sun reaching out in the sky with rays of light, turning the clouds pink and purple.

As if making the sky itself blush at being witness to the two lovers in the sky.

And here I am witnessing the timeless act of  the Sun and the moon, and their lover’s dance in the sky overhead.

My Head Above Water.

I am not a strong swimmer.

Barely able to swim from one spot to another.

Not sure that I could even save my own life if the need be.

Its like my life.  I am not that good at living it.

I keep just treading water.  Grabbing hold of anything to keep me afloat.

But it seems that I just keep slipping further and further out to sea.

And the waves keep getting higher and higher.

Not sure where the current will take me.

Or if my head will stay above the water.

All I can do is keep trying to swim.

A Rose Returns.

 Her funeral was on Wednesday, July 1st.  My mother Martha.  A loss I knew would eventually come, but even knowing still so hard to accept.  She was born in 1938 in Richwood, West Virginia.

 One of 9 girls and 1 brother, daughter of Euva and Daniel.  Raised on Fenwick Mountain.  Their home on the end of a rocky road, through mountain meadows. A home I remember as a child, as being a magical place.  Where my grandmother always had Ivory soap on the wash stand, and was usually in the kitchen cooking for us.  Cooking something wonderful, maybe blackberry cobbler, or frying up fish that the grownups had caught on the Greenbriar River.

A place where cousins ran barefoot in the front yard, or just swinging on the huge front porch swing that seemed to be the center of some peaceful universe, because it never failed to keep us occupied for hours.

 My mom grew up with the values that would keep with her, her entire life. Her faith in God, her love of her family, and pride in her work, she was loved by many and touched the lives of many through her devotion to God and to doing good work in His name. She was a good woman, a devoted wife and a loving mother.  I was blessed to have her the time that I did.

 When her funeral was over and the last person stepped up to her coffin.  I went to her and said good-bye.  I took one single pink rose from one of the arrangements, I just wanted the one rose.  Took it to my room and put in some water. As we moved from place to place the rose opened a bit more every single day, until it was opened as much as it could be.  It never wilted, as we left Ohio I began to get sad dreading when the petals would start to fall from the rose, and then what would I do with it?  Not wanting to just dispose of such a beautiful flower and the memory attached to it.

And then it came into my head what I needed to do with it, I knew that on my way home to Florida I would be close to where she grew up.  I needed to take it there.  I had not been back to Fenwick Mountain for many, many years.  At first we drove past it.  But then the memories flooded back.  We pulled onto the street.   Now a gravel road, instead of a rocky dirt road.  Now adorned with a street sign.  I did not remember there ever being one there, I just remember it was “Grandma’s Road” .

It was there we stopped and I looked at the beautiful mountain meadow filled with clover.  I took the rose and put it in that field, and once again said good-bye to my mom.  I figured it was only fitting to return a rose to the mountain where once my mom spent her childhood.  My mom who was herself a beautiful rose.  She bloomed, and blossomed, and she was loved in this world.  And now she is a bloom in a much more beautiful garden where her beauty will never fade.

Good-bye.

  I was able to make it home to say good-bye to my Mom.  Cancer is a horrible beast, it had her in pain and the mom I knew left to battle, her body worn and bruised from the war waging within her.  A war I knew she could not win.  But in these final hours my sister, and my cousin and myself were able to comfort her and care for her.  Talking to her, not knowing if she could hear us, but praying that the last stage of her journey would finally give her peace and take the pain away. 

It was not until 3 a.m. saturday morning that she finally began to rest easy, but unfortunately other things began to happen as well.  Things that none of us were prepared for, but we handled them as best we could.  All of us so worried about hurting her even further, it was the proverbial rock and a hard place.  But God gives us strength when we need it if we ask, and trust in Him.

Mom was being read her bible scriptures by my cousin.  And she told my mom that her daily devotions were done now, and my mom took her last breath. She passed away at 10:30 am, June 27.  Through our tears we held her hand and knew that her journey was finally over, and her new journey ahead of her.  It was a relief to know that now she would no longer suffer, and there was no more worries for her.  And I am very thankful that I was able to say good-bye.

Getting ready to say Good-bye.

 It seems that as I age the things I feared are coming to pass.  Saying goodbye to loved ones as they age.  I lost my Dad several years ago, and now it is just a matter of time before my Mom leaves me.  She was told that it could be a matter of a few weeks.

Unfortunately my life is on end here, and can not get to her right away.  My greatest fear is I will not be in time to say good bye.  And that is painful since I was not able to say goodbye to my Dad.  He just passed in the night.

I will be driving home to Ohio in a few short weeks,  so afraid of what I will see.  Not knowing how I will face seeing my once strong mother in her last days.  I wonder how much my heart can take.   It is a huge comfort knowing how much faith she has, I know she is ready to go.  Its just hard to say goodbye.

Andy’s Room!

 Just thought I would post a story that happened today at Toy Story Midway Mania.  A family was exiting the ride, all of them talking about their scores, and I overheard them talk about their identical twin sons.  They had decided to split the boys up into two different cars, and it ends up that both of the boys got the very same score!  I asked them if what I had overheard was true and they said it was.  Just love stories like that!

Happy Anniversary Toy Story Midway Mania!

  May 31st we will be celebrating a year in Andy’s Room.  Just a few short months after opening we had our millionth guest.  I really can’t imagine how many have been on it since. 

  I have been fortunate to go to the rope drop ceremony the last couple mornings.  Facing down a few thousand people as they prepare to come into the park for the day.   And my favorite thing to do is shout out , “How many are going to Toy Story Midway Mania first thing?”  and just about everyone raises their hands.  And I always laugh and joke with them about the fact so many toys are coming to visit!

 The ride is still as popular if not more so then it was when we first opened.  We still have kids crying when they have to leave the vehicle, and we still have guest lined up for hours.  But even better we still have guests getting off of the vehicle and they still have smiles on their faces!

 Of course there are those guests that are so frustrated with the wait in the long line, or the fact they missed out on fastpasses.  But they are outnumbered by the guests that are having a great time.

  I am not sure how long I will stay there.  But until I can make a decision I will remain forever a toy in Andy’s room.

From Hurt to Hugs.

 Yesterday was tough on me at work.  I had a guest go to a manager and complain about me.  This has not happened to me in my Disney Career.  Or at least this was the first I heard of it. 

 A mom with her baby got to the merge point of our attraction and asked for a rider switch.  This means she was going to hold the baby while the rest of her family rode the ride, and then she would go on.  First the mistake was if she wanted this she should have asked at the very front of the attraction.  Because for me to give her the rider switch it would mean making her leave the attraction with the baby, and go back through the line she just had waited in.

 When she asked for the rider switch, I just told her that she did not really need one that everyone could ride, including babies.  The baby would be safe on her lap and then told her how they should do the seating, her and her baby and husband, and their two boys (about 10 and 11) right behind them.  She did not say anything else to me but went up the stairs and rode the ride.

Little did I know that she rode the ride but then searched out a manager to complain about the fact that I refused to give her a rider switch.  GRRRRR! had she really wanted one it would have been no problem and I would have given it and sent her back out the door.  But nooooooo I was the bad cast member making their family miserable by my actions!    It was completely soul wrenching to me that someone left that park thinking of me in a bad light. sigh.

But to make it a bit better the manager did tell me that when the guest had said my name he knew right away that I had not done anything inappropriate.  But still he had to talk to me about the issue.  Its his job.

Today was a day that made up for the day before.  I had found a family outside of the attraction with a lovely woman in a wheelchair wearing a birthday button.  Ends up she was celebrating her 89th birthday.  Well I could not let that pass, got her and her family some fastpasses.  But also made sure that everyone on Pixar Place knew there was a celebrity  in their presence in this dear lady. 

I was lucky enough to see her get off of the ride and she gave me such a hug.  And that made the day for me. 

As I was driving home it hit home how lucky I am to work someplace where I can get a hug from someone that I have made happy.  I don’t know how many cast members get hugs.  I know there are probably quite a few.  And we are so very lucky, we may not get paid the big bucks, but we get magic!

What will I celebrate?

The new Celebration this year at the Disney Parks is “What will you Celebrate?”  at first it was very hard for us Dream Squad people to get over our mourning the loss of our beloved Years of a Million Dreams.  It was hard to see it go.

 But the other day the new celebration really showed me that indeed it is a great promotion, and as much as what Disney does is always money driven, this new celebration has great personal meaning to our guests.

We give away buttons at our guest relations locations at all our Disney parks, they range from Birthday, to Anniversary, Just married,  First Visit, and a new button that just says ” I am Celebrating” and then with a marker it is written in what they are celebrating.  I have seen many things, from “celebrating Spring Break”  “Celebrating Girls Night Out”, but the other day there was nothing marked on this guests button.  I asked her “What are we celebrating?” and she said, “I am in remission”,  I stopped and gave her a huge hug and said ” I will celebrate that with you every single day from now on!”. 

And then it was if the entire promotion came to focus in my eyes.  That there are so many things in the lives of our guests that are indeed celebrations.  And they come to the Disney Parks to make it that much more special.  And I am very lucky to be a part of that.

Not the Greatest of days.

  Most of you know how much I love my work, and generally never have a bad day.  But today was a challenge to keep my spirits up.   It really was not going to bad until I had to deal with a party of 13 at the grouper point.   I asked how many in their party got the number 13, and then apologized to them and told them that because of the size they would be split up.  And I needed them to break up into twos and go on the ride.   Well like chickens with their heads cut off suddenly nobody knew who they wanted to ride with.  LOL.  The adults were trying to pair up kids and the kids were refusing to ride with whoever it was they were being paired with.  And it was a huge mess.  Meanwhile I know that with my limited time if I did not get this settled an entire vehicle was going to leave empty!  I just told them I really don’t care who rides with who I just need two at a time and started pairing them off as fast as I could and told them which direction to go in.  I got them settled as much as I could.  And then moved on to the next party.  I look and the so called leader of the 13 is looking at me and shaking his head, I excuse myself from my line and go to him “sir, is their a problem?” and he says how awful I was  that I had said “I don’t care and that I was not very Disney”,  I just shook my head and walked away.    I was not going to argue with him.

I love my job, sometimes it is so impossibly hard to bite my tongue.  But yet I do.  There is no way that I can begin to tell a guest how important it is to me for them to leave happy.  So knowing that this family thinks I was some kind of horrible person eats at me.  It is hard for me to let that go.  I guess it is why I am here blogging it out.  A way to vent a bit.  I just have to realize no matter what I will never be able to make them all happy, all the time!  I can only do the very best I can.   sigh

Partners.

  The other day at work I was called into the manager’s office.  I could not imagine what it was for, or what I had done!  ends up it was all good news.  I have been nominated for the Disney Partners in Excellence Award.   This is one of the highest awards that a Disney Cast member can receive.

  This will be my third time being nominated, but it will be the first time that I eligible to win.  I had to be with the company at least 3 years.   Just to be nominated is such an amazing thing for me.  I can’t even allow myself to dream of winning it, because if I did I really think I would faint.  It means more to me than I can possibly find words to say.  Almost more than a heart can dream for.

  If I do win I would find out by the end of April.  I will keep you informed,  just know that even if I don’t win.  All of you inspire me to always be at my best.  When the naysayers say that there is no such thing as magic, I know that to be a lie.  Magic exists every day in the place that Walt built.

Still making magic.

 The years of a Million Dreams are now past, and now we are into the “What will you Celebrate?” campaign.  I miss seeing the Dream Squad out in the parks.  It seems to be like a bit of the magic is gone for sure.  There was something about knowing there were cast members out there that would randomly encounter guests and make amazing dreams come true.  Now that it is gone, it really is missed.

  The few hundred of us have now all returned back to our former roles or some have gone on to Guest Relations or any number of roles in the parks.  One dreamer went on to be the Disney Embassador for the Walt Disney Resorts.  I am not surprised at all. 

  As many of you know I love my job at Toy Story Midway Mania.  As tired as I get I never tire of the gift it is to all of our guests.  I never get tired of seeing the smiles, or hearing the excited conversations as the guests leave the vehicles.  How could I ever get tired of hearing “This ride is Awesome!!!”  ?

  Today was a particularly wonderful day.  I was in the role of grouper, the one that asks how many in your party and then sends the guests to the rows to be loaded into the vehicle.  There was a delay in sending the cars out and I had a few extra minutes to spend with a little girl.  Who was telling me how old she was.  We had a wonderful conversation, and then she went on her way to have fun out on the Midway.  I was rotated to another position, unload assist.  And who should come walking up to me but the little girl.  Her arms open wide.  She wanted to give me a hug.  My day was made right then.  And to top it off she came back later and wanted yet another hug!  LOL, this time I asked mom if I could pick her up and then gave her yet another huge hug.  What a special thing for me, as those hugs are why I love my job.

 Later on in the evening I was at our merge point. Where the Standby and fastpass finally come together.  There was a family of 7 with a young girl about 7 yrs old or so.  And she was being very helpful making sure all her family had their fastpasses.  Her mom said that she would make a good cast member.  LOL, well that statement was all it took to get my “magic gears” rolling.  I asked the family if they were in a big hurry to move to the ride they said no, I then told my standby line I would be right back with a special “cast member” to assist them.  I asked the little girl to come to me and I took off my Toy Story jacket and put it on her.  I announced to everyone we had a new cast member here.  And the family was snapping pictures of their little girl who was grinning ear to ear in my oversized jacket.  She had a name badge with her name already so was easy to replace my name off my jacket.  I then had her let in the next few groups and they all were so wonderful to this little girl.  And it was a magical moment that I hope will stay with her forever. Because I know it will always stay with me!

Ladyvader’s Blog Now Mobile!

You can now access this blog via your Web-enabled cell phone and other mobile devices. A plugin was added that enables most mobile devices the ability to display the site.

You don’t have to do anything special to get to the site, either. Just go to http://www.ladyvadersblog.com and everything will be done for you! If you have difficulties accessing the site on your cell phone, let me know.

My Heart Skips a Beat!

  What a scary moment I had the other day during my On With the  Show class.  Just sitting there at the desk and my heart began to race.  I knew it was something abnormal but hoped it would settle down.  Eventually I allowed for my friend to call 911.  It all seems like a dream.

  They hooked me up to monitors, and began running tests.  And all I could think of was “Am I having a heart attack?”  fortunately it was not.   It was just my heart reacting to too much caffeine over the past few weeks.  Ends up cold medicine has lots of caffeine in it.  And I have a addiction to diet Mountain Dew.  LOL.  And I guess all of this stressed my heart out a bit.

  It all seems so surreal.  But as I was laying there I did think of all my dear friends and my family.  And how important all of you are to me.  I will be going to see a cardiologist in the next week for more tests.  But I promise that I will try to lay off the Dew! and my heart will only skip a beat when I think of how dear all of you are to me.

The Years of Dream Making.

December 31st was the last official day of Disney’s Year of a Million Dreams Celebration, which actually lasted over 2 years.  It was a wonderful celebration with so many wonderful experiences for both all of us on the Dream Squads and our guests that visited both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.

It was an honor for me to be selected in the second wave of cast members.  It was still pretty new to all of us.  And together we came up with wonderful ideas to make lasting memories.

Today I am going to a special gathering of all of us who were fortunate to be a part of such an amazing thing.   I look forward to seeing familiar faces, and giving hugs to good friends.  I am sure there will be a tear or two.  Because over the past two years there were stories that were so heart warming.  We were the fortunate cast members who got to spend  more quality time with guests with special needs so our stories are limitless. 

I have been lucky to have this site to post my memories.  I do remember it was the first thing that our manager told us, you will want to keep a journal.  And I did through my old site and now this one.   Even though Disney will now be moving on to “What will you Celebrate?”  I will always think of Disney as being a world of Dreams that come true.  It was born from the brains of marketing,  but ended up being the heart of Disney.