As far as days go, Friday was the best day. I felt like crap, couldn't speak well, but I felt more relaxed. Maybe it was because Stephens mom had gone back to Bakersfield. Who knows. We started the day with breakfast at the Carnation Cafe on Main Street. I had Pecan Pancakes. Boy howdy were they good. We then went over to California Adventure. You know, I really like that park. When I'm feeling well. First we went to get fast passes for Tower of Terror. I thought that would be best. It worked out great. Then we walked to the board walk section and rode the small roller coaster. That is a fun ride, except I wasn't feeling well. I kept thinking we were going to fall off the edges. We didn't, but it felt that way. Then we went on California Screaming. That goes upside down. I had energy before we went on... After, I was dead. It wiped me out. Really. It was at that point I decided I wasn't going on the Tower of Terror. I just knew I couldn't handle it. We did a little pin trading then I dropped Stephen off at the tower. I just sat on a bench and waited. It was nice to not walk. I got a smoothie. I don't normally like smooties, but this one was ok. It was a beautiful day, and I really was enjoying the rest. After Tower of Terror, we decided to go back over to DisneyLand and got another birthday sticker for me. We had lunch near the Haunted Mansion. I wanted to eat at the Blue Bayou, but they didn't have space. What a bummer. Then, we got drugs from the first aide center. I love that DisneyLand has a first aide center. I just needed a bit of advil, and they gave it to me. That was great. The nurse called Goofy, and he sang happy birthday! That was cool. Then, back to California Adventure. It was finally time for California Soaring. It is such a cool ride. You can smell the smells of the state, oranges, pine, sea... Very cool. A cast member saw that I had my birthday sticker on. He announced to the whole ride that it was my birthday. Everyone looked at me. That was embarrassing. After some shopping, we decided to get going. I was so burned out. So, we went to do more shopping at Downtown Disney. I bought pink hot chocolate. YUMMY. I also bought a fleece jacket because I was so cold. We went to the car, and I asked Stephen to drive. I just couldn't do anymore. He made me very nervous when he was driving. When we got out of LA, I took back over. It was obvious that he was just uncomfortable driving. That ticked me off a bit... But I would have killed him if he hurt my car. I still had my birthday sticker on when we stopped at Wendy's, I got a free frosty out of it. Yeah, it was a kids size, but it was YUMMY. I stayed at Stephens that night, and was home by 12:30 on my birthday.

Apparently Stephen was too excited to sleep (doesn't account for the snoring, but whatever). He said he was up all night because he was too excited. We got ready, and were ready to leave the hotel at about 10 to 8. The park opened at 8. There was a bus outside the hotel waiting to take people to the park. I wanted breakfast. I thought Stephen was going to throw a hissey fit because we weren't going to be at the park the minute it opened. I wanted my free breakfast. He was pissed, but ate it. We ended up getting to the park by 8:40. I don't know what the big deal was all about... It's not like we are 6 or something. He is 34 years old. At this point, I was still trying to deal with my very minor cold. I bought so many bottles of water at $2.75 a piece. I was trying so hard to flush my cold. I know I saw the insides of every single bathroom in that park. I tried hard not to let my cold get the best of me, but it was hard. I didn't let it hinder me from going on rides that day, but it did make the little irritating things I hate about Stephen bug me that much more. Sometime before lunch, I discovered that "cast members" that were wearing pins had to trade with people if they asked. I have never been a pin trader before, and (at that point) only owned a few Disney pins, and never thought anything of it. Then we went to ToonTown, and everything changed. I decided that I wanted to trade pins. I don't know why. I just did. I started picking out pins I liked, and then picked out a lanyard to put them on. I then saw the best pin in the whole wide world on a cast members lanyard... It was an Ariel and Eric locket with green rhinestones. When you opened it, there were Ariel and Eric looking at eachother. I almost died. I had to have it. The cast member said I had to own a pin to trade for it. $86 later, I had that pin (yes, and a bunch more... like 10). When I was paying, I told the clerk that it was my birthday on Saturday. She said, "it's your birthday?" I said, well on Saturday it is, but yeah. Then, all the cast members started scurrying around. Before I knew it, the pin was mine, and the music was off, and everyone was singing happy birthday. It was surreal. Someone announced it to the whole store, and it wasn't some wimpy singing, it was loud and clear. It was lovely and embarrassing all at the same time. I don't think I will ever forget that. The cashier then told us to go to town hall and get a happy birthday sticker. We had to meet Stephen's mom by that point, so we went down towards Splash Mountain. On the way, I saw an eBay Auctions pin to trade for. It was really cool, and Stephen was jealous. Really jealous. They all went on Splash Mountain, I didn't because I was worried about getting sicker than I already way. You can get wet on Splash Mountain. We decided to have dinner at that point. We walked towards Main Street to leave, and I asked if I could stop at town hall. I got my sticker AND Mickey Mouse sang happy birthday to me. Now, that was cool. We had dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe. It's not my favorite place to go, but with a party of 8, it's kinda hard to go places. Plus, there were 3 kids with us. I thought the kids were well behaved. I guess I didn't see them on their off moments. During dinner the little girl asked me if Stephen and I were married. Stephen laughed and said no. She asked why not... I said, "because Stephen is too cheap to buy me a ring." His mother burst out laughing. Stephen was bright red. I was pleased as punch. Sometimes you get a one liner out, and you just make the whole place laugh. That's what happened, ok well Stephen wasn't laughing, but everyone else was. After dinner, we went back to the park and rode the Matterhorn... My all time favorite ride. We rode it twice in a row. I think that is the best way to ride it, over and over again. We watched the fireworks and the snow. By now, I was getting really tired. My cold was starting to catch up with me. I was ready to go to bed. We walked back to the hotel. That was a long walk after walking all day. It was only 3 long blocks, but it was really far. When we got back to the room, there was real porn on HBO. So I watched. Stephen didn't. That was wierd. I've never known a guy to not watch porn when it was on. I finally turned the channel because Stephen was not happy. Friends was on, that made him happy. I went to sleep.

I left for DisneyLand on Wednesday. I decided to take a vacation day so that I could leisurely drive to Bakersfield and pick up Stephen at 6pm. It had been my hope that Stephen would have the day off. Hmph. He didn't. That sucked. But, as it turned out, it was fine. As soon as I got on the road, I hit traffic. I want to know how that happens! I get on the road at 1:00pm, and there is traffic. I'm thinking to myself, "Where did all these people come from?". When I finally make it to Gilroy and get on Pacheco Pass, I go from moving at 25 mph to a dead stop. It took me so long to get from Gilroy to Casa de Fruita. I think it had to be over 45 minutes. This is normally a 10 minute ride. How sucky is that. Right after I passed Casa de Fruita, the strangest thing happened. My nose started to run. I found some Kleenex, and started to blow. At first, I thought it was allergies, because it would clear up a bit when I got past the farms. Yeah, no. I was wrong. Lucky for me I had 3 bottles of Ice Water in the back seat of my car. That stuff has Vitamin C added! I figured I'd just drink as much of that as I could and try to flush out what I knew was a little cold. I only stopped once to go potty at a rest stop the whole way. I was pleased with myself. However by the time I got to Bakersfield, I thought I was going to have a major accident. I know, why tell you this? Because this was how I met Stephens mother for the first time. I called her to unlock the apartment so I could go to the bathroom. When she showed up and unlocked the door, I RAN in the apartment and found the bathroom. I didn't even really say hello. I ran inside. Stephen showed up not that much later. We decided to eat on the way, and headed out. Stephen had the brilliant idea of taking the 210 to the 99 rather than taking the 5 all the way into DisneyLand. Since I don't know the freeways very well in LA, I agreed to this. We hit tons of traffic when we got to Pasadena, so we stopped at BestBuy and got dinner at Chipotle. See we had to stop at BestBuy so that we could get "Christmastime in the 909" Dinner was good. BestBuy was ok... I couldn't care less about the cd. I didn't like it, even for $5. By the time we passed Covina, I realized what kind of bypass Stephen had suggested. I was pissed. This "short-cut" added more than 30 miles to our trip, and over 1 and 1/2 hours. When we finally reached DisneyLand, I was totally confused. If you haven't been to Anaheim lately, DON'T. DisneyLand EXPLODED. Streets that used to be there were gone. Just simply gone. I don't know where they went. Stephen had absolutely no clue where we were in relation to the hotel. Neither did I. He kept telling me that we were at the parks entrance. We weren't anywhere close to it. The entrance is where the old DisneyLand sign used to be. NOT where the entrance to Downtown Disney is. He got me all confused. I finally called the hotel and got directions. If that's what you want to call them. They told me the right streets to look for, but they told me to turn the wrong direction on those streets. Everytime they said make a right, they really meant make a left. I can't tell you how many illegal u-turns I made that night. By the time we got to the hotel and settled in it was almost 12, and i had been in the car for more than 12 hours. That, my friends, is wrong in a major way. Stephen woke me up with his snoring several times that night. I thought it was funny and didn't think to much of it. But I did kid him about it the next day. He didn't take it too kindly.

So, just incase people didn't feel uber comfortable about the whole send an email to this address thing... I've added a handy-dandy button. Click the handy-dandy button that says "Christmas Card Exchange", you get a form. Fill out the form, and I'll reply with my address in return! Isn't that simple? I thought so. So, now don't be afraid, no one will have to know you want one, but me! If you have already sent me your address, don't worry, you are on the list. I'm so excited! I just hope I can get my mix down before I leave for DisneyLand!

I've been working dilligently on my Christmas Card / CD all weekend. This included a trip to Rasputian and Streetlight to check out all the used Christmas CD's! Yes, I bought 12 or so... So? I'm a Christmas music whore. Sue me. Anyhoo. If you would like to exchange Christmas Cards with me, simply send an email to daisydo at gmail dot com. I will start sending my cards out December 3, if all goes well. For those who are unsure about my trustworthyness with a home address, ask zoot, susanna, snidget, grace, agnes, just to name a few. They will tell you that I'm not some random stalker. Unless you are a cute guy. Then I could become one quickly. This years title is "The Wonder of Snow." Come on, you know you want one. You know you do. Send that email, get on the list, and reap the benefits of me being a Christmas music whore.

Here is the uber cute purse Missey Andrea got for me. Isn't it yummy!
Here are the lovely presents from Ms. Lisa. See the change purse? Can't you see why I would covet?
Aren't the balloons beautiful? And then, they are weighted with m&m's! How sinful is that?

My birthday is always a hard time for me. I don't know why. Actually, I think it is because it is around Thanksgiving. Try having a birthday party on Thanksgiving weekend. It isn't fun. Honestly, I was trying to get out of having a gno party thing. I figured if I was away at DisneyLand for the gno on the 24 and planned shopping on the 1st that we really wouldn't have to deal with it. The event would just pass. Boy howdy, was I surprised when I showed up a bit late to girls night tonight. All the girls were there waiting for me. There were presents infront of my chair, balloons tied to my chair, and party hats for all. All I could say was... "You guys are losers." Lets just say, I beamed for the rest of the night. My birthday came 10 whole days early. Stefanie bought me a beautiful balloon bouquet, with pastel m&m's as a weight. One of the balloons even said "Happy 21st Birthday"... As if! I don't want to even think about how many years ago that was. Lisa bought me a change purse very simular to one that Andrea has (that I have been coveting for almost a year), some really soft pink socks, a cute little bag with rhinestones on it, AND these paper daisies with metal stems that were produced in the late sixties. They are absolutely adoreable. She also made a pink party hat with a pink feather and a glitter "g" for me to wear for the night. As you can see, I did. Andrea got me this pretty purse with pink handles and mother of pearl flowers on the front. It is long and skinny, very vintage, but I think it's new. It is lovely and even has a little pocket inside so I won't lose my cell phone. I think I need a new outfit to go with it. I'm taking my stash to work with me tomorrow. I will take pictures. I got great gifts. I had a fairly shitty day, and was having a ppp, that is until gno. It is so nice to have friends that love you. And sometimes it just makes your whole little moment when you get such an unexpected surprise. I have such great friends.