We Miss You, Dixie!

When we were dogless, it was a difficult decision to make that leap. But we sure made the right choice getting our feet wet with Dixie Belle.

I wanted a shetland sheepdog because I've always felt that the breed is just gorgeous. I love collies, too, but they are just so big - I'm a small dog person.

First, I visited the local animal shelter and they had a nice sable sheltie, but unfortunately he was on 'hold' whatever that means. The pound said that if the people who were 'holding' him didn't come back by the next week, I would be next in line. But, fortunately for us, they did come back.

And I say fortunately because if we had adopted that sheltie, we wouldn't have gotten Dixie!

I contacted a Sheltie Rescue organization (http://www.illinoissheltierescue.com/) and filled out their application and passed the interview. The following day, I received a call from one of the directors. She told me that she personally knew a woman who had two shelties that she wanted to give away to good homes. These dogs were not going through the rescue. The woman who was giving them up just wanted to know that they would be going to a good home and for some reason, the director of the rescue thought of me. She asked if I would meet this woman halfway from her home in Peoria and take one of the dogs, sight unseen.

Hmmm......when someone is giving away a dog, there is always that worry -- why would someone give away a perfect pet? In this case, the woman had a baby and felt that it was too much to have two shelties along with the baby. It was either the dogs or the baby and I said no to the baby.

We took a chance and said OK - we would adopt Dixie!

I was nervous driving to meet her. It was about an hour drive and I worried about how the dog would fare in the car for such a long trip. We were getting a travel crate along with Dixie so I knew she could ride in that and her owner assured me that she was good in the car. And she sure was - she rode home in that crate without a peep.

I was a tiny bit disappointed that Dixie turned out to be a tri-color sheltie. I had fallen in love with the sable (brown/white like Lassie) at the pound. But I soon forgot all that because Dixie turned out to be the most laid back, gentle, and obedient dog ever.

She had already gone through obedience training and was close to receiving the "Good Canine Citizen" award. So she didn't jump on people or act like a crazy dog. I want to get her bad points out of the way right off the bat and yes, she did have a couple.

First of all - garbage raiding -- she had dragged the entire contents of the kitchen trash across the entire kitchen on more than one occasion.

Second, she loved to bark bark bark.

Third, she insisted on herding people which would freak them out because she would follow along behind people and snap at their feet. Never biting them, just kind of butting.

Now that we're done with the bad stuff....let me just say that Dixie Belle was a beautiful dog, maybe a bit large for a sheltie, but lovely just the same. She had a gorgeous shiny black coat with brown and white trim and a white blaze on her nose. She loved to walk on a leash and never pulled and tugged. If she got out of the yard accidentally, she would just walk around to the front and sit on the porch.

Dixie was almost four years old when we adopted her and we had her for 7 years. She was just short of her 11th birthday when she died last summer. It was a very sad day for all of us.

We miss Dixie Belle and I don't think I'll ever have another dog as pretty as she.

What is Tuscan and how did we do without it until now?

Before I go off on my rant, let me just say that I really have a problem with trendy stuff. I also hate the term, 'upscale'. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

That being said, yesterday morning I was going to White Hen for coffee. Plastered on the front window was a huge sign advertising their new and wonderful TUSCAN vegetable soup. I was kind of admiring the look of the soup, it did look delicious, but my happy thoughts suffered from whiplash as I did a mental double take and re-read TUSCAN in the description.

WHY does everything have to be Tuscan suddenly? Is it because of that movie? As far as I know, Tuscany is what this Tuscan thing is based on. Tuscany, I learned, is part of Italy. I think its been there for a very very long time. Probably longer than the United States.

But I'd say its just in the past year or so that I've been seeing TUSCAN everything, including White Hen soup.

So, I did a Google search just to see how widespread this buzz word has become. I found that there is now Tuscan home decor, Tuscan cooking, the Best Western Tuscan Inn in California, Tuscan flatbread, Tuscan Hall conference center in Texas, Tuscan whole milk available at Amazon. com, Tuscan Lakes (an 870 acre planned community), AND a Tuscan Siamese cat breedery. How can all of these diverse things be described by one common word: Tuscan?

Why does everyone want Tuscan things, all of a sudden? What is the attraction here? It isn't a particularly lovely word; nor does it roll off the tongue melodically like cochlea or march importantly like Rastafarian. Just why would you need your soup to be Tuscan or your cat either for that matter?

I need to get off this rant immediately before someone gets offended. Most likely, someone somewhere has just named their new baby Tuscan Marie or Tuscan Elliott and you know how irritated people can get if you criticize their kid. Before I quit, though, I'm offering you this lovely Tuscan Rose so you can contemplate its similarity to a gallon of milk.


(yes, it really is called a "Tuscan Rose")

School is over and I'm.....what??

I never thought I'd feel sad to be out of school for the summer.

Remember those days of the past - the last day of school? Freedom! Joy! The long summer days ahead; it seemed they would go on and on; one endless weekend.

Well, it has happened: I am sad to be sprung. I finished my Medical Terminology class last night, took my final, and now I am going to miss going to school. It's a frightening realization because it means that maybe I am a real adult. Because, really - there is no way I could still be a kid and be sad about getting out of school for the summer.

I loved my class. It had been years since I went to school. Unless you count yoga or pregnanacy fitness or lamaze as higher education. So it seemed a big decision to actually sign up for a real class. After the first couple of sessions, I began to question my decision. I had to actually set aside time - my precious time - to do homework and study for the weekly quiz. I didn't even want to think about the BIG tests, the midterm and the final looming somewhere vaguely in the not too distant future.

I got into the routine quickly enough, though, and began to relax enough to actually learn things. My instructor was a registered nurse who infused the lecture with tales of her own personal experiences at the hospital and I found the lectures to be very interesting, even entertaining.

Now that my Tuesday nights are my own, once again, I feel a little bit empty. I think that not only did I learn all about medical terminology, body systems, and medical procedures; but I also received a dose of self-pride. Hey, I could actually sit in a class of a bunch of 'kids' and do as well as the rest of those freshly minted brains. Never mind that they were probably taking four other classes simultaneously and I was only taking the one.....

Let's see, if I stretch this out properly, I could probably be able to take one class per semester and have my master's degree in hmmm.......about 45 years.

That'll keep me busy!

It truly is Magic!

My daughter, Lauren, was talking to me today about some friends she met while we were on a Disney cruise in November of 2005. She still keeps in touch with these girls! But anyway, while we were talking about the cruise and the Disney ships, I started really wishing for another Disney cruise. I know I'm a cruise addict, there is no doubt about that. I'll take any cruise, any time. But there is just something more about a Disney cruise.

If you've ever been to any of the Disney theme parks, you've experienced some of those extra touches. Now imagine these touches applied to a cruise and multipy it times 100 - and this is what sailing with Disney is all about.

For instance -- dining onboard the Disney Magic or the Disney Wonder. Not just a dinner, not even just an exquisite dinner....but an event.

We sailed on the Wonder in 2004 and the Magic in 2005 and discovered that they are identical ships, so the dining rooms are the same with the exception of the formal dining room on each -- on the Magic it is called Lumiere's and on the Wonder it is called Triton's.

Lumiere's features French cuisine and has a beautiful rose theme - which follows the Beauty and the Beast story.

Triton's was inspired by the Little Mermaid, of course, and has an art deco style with a beautiful 'under the sea' mosaic on one wall.

When you dine on a Disney ship, you rotate dining rooms nightly. What this means is that you are assigned a specific restaurant for each night so you get to take turns in each one. You have a wait staff that is assigned to your family and this wait staff also rotates with you. Thus, each night your preferred drink is brought to your table since your waiter remembers what you usually order. My daughter, Amy, always found not one, but two, glasses of cold chocolate milk at her plate at each dinner!

The girls with our waiters on the Magic: Johnathan and Pieroj, at Lumiere's --



Over our Thanksgiving cruise, we had the best rotation ever. There are over 1,000 passengers onboard each ship, so not everyone has the same rotation, obviously. I felt we were so lucky to dine at Parrot Cay on Pirate's Night and on Thanksgiving, we were in Lumiere's (which also coincided with formal night).
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I'll start with Animator's Palate restaurant which happens to be my favorite. Now 'palate' also can be spelled 'palette' -- and both of these spellings would apply to this restaurant. It features many of Disney's most loved films and this restaurant literally comes to life while you dine. As you begin your meal, everything is black and white - the walls, the giant paintbrushes and palettes in the center of the room, the waiters' vests. But with each course (and the music is synchronized to change with each course), a bit more color appears. There are framed portraits on the walls and if there is a song playing from say - the Lion King - only the portraits featuring Lion King characters will light up in full color. As the dinner goes on, more and more color is added until dessert - when even the waiters' vests are in full rainbow hues instead of the plain black and white. Animator's Palate is a true experience!
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The very tropical Parrot Cay restaurant:




Parrot Cay is a very brightly colored, tropical restaurant featuring a lot of bamboo and green leafy designs, pinks, oranges and a live steel drum band playing Caribbean music. The food is also Caribbean themed and so delicious! I forgot to mention that all the waiters perform in each restaurant every night (after they are finished serving) and in Parrot Cay they encourage everyone to join them in a Conga line around the room. We ate at Parrot Cay on Pirate Night which was so appropriate. I'll talk more about Pirate Night later, but in a nutshell - it was a night celebrating Pirates in the Caribbean - so dining in the Caribbean restaurant was perfect that evening.

Pirate Night at Parrot Cay:



The third restaurant, as I briefly mentioned, is either Lumiere's or Triton's (depending on the ship you are on). On the Disney Magic it is Lumiere's - I don't think I've ever dined in a more luxurious and beautiful setting. It is French cuisine (and David even tried escargot), and just extremely posh. The chandeliers have the little rosebuds inside them -- these little touches are all around. Here's a photo of one of the chandeliers, although you can't see the rosebud it is inside the very bright area:



And Triton's is equally luxurious with an art deco style. You are dining 'under the sea' which may or may not be a good thing to think about while you are on a cruise ship - but anyway, who doesn't love the Little Mermaid? I just loved the huge mosaic of Ariel and also the beautiful blues and greens in this restaurant.

Now since there are three main dining rooms, you do get to visit each one twice during a week long cruise. Or you can opt for casual dining at Topsider's or Beach Blanket Buffet. At these dining rooms you can take your tray outside and sit at the rear deck, watching the ocean churning behind the ship. There are not many things I can think of that are more relaxing than just watching the ocean go by, especially in the Caribbean where it is the most wonderful aqua blue in color. But I digress....
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Above: in the hallway just outside Palo.

Finally, a very special choice for dining is Palo Restaurant. If you want to dine here, you need to make reservations *before* you leave for the cruise. It is very popular at Palo for good reason. This is the adults only restaurant and although you pay $10 per person, you are catered to and doted on while you enjoy truly the finest Northern Italian cuisine.

We also had High Tea at Palo -- absolutely delightful with the wonderful creations of cakes, scones, finger sandwiches, and items that I've never seen before, served with several varieties of English Tea.

Well, I could go into the late night buffets, Pluto's Doghouse, Scoop's and other dining extravaganzas, but perhaps those are best talked about in another entry as this one is becoming very long and now I'm getting a bit hungry just thinking about them.

Truly, if you can only manage to put aside $1 every day, start saving for a Disney Cruise! You will have the time of your life and feel like a pampered princess or prince, whatever the case may be.

When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true!