A Love Story

This week, I’m on pre-vacation. Yes, I made that up, but I’m going with it anyway. Last Friday, I turned in developmental edits on Monster Haven #4, Golem in My Glovebox. Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Disney World. This week has been all about getting the house back in order after Hell Week (a name given to any week which ends in a deadline) and getting ready to go—to Disney World, in case you missed that part.

This post is one last writerly thing I’m doing, but I’m not even going to talk about my books (Monster Haven books #1-3 available now wherever e-books are sold!) because for the next couple of weeks, I’m not even looking at my sales ranks (except once or twice a day or so), and I’m not answering any mail (unless it’s from readers or somebody from my publisher or if it’s really funny or maybe a friend needs me or my daughter needs my recipe for fried chicken strips).

I often feel a little weird because my books (which I’m not talking about) have a little romance in them, but they aren’t romances. I hang out with a lot of romance writers, though. Seriously. Take a look at the list on the right. I’m very often the odd girl out, like I'm missing a vital skill set. But we’re going to do something a little different today. I’m going to tell you a love story. A Disney love story. A fairy tale.

Once upon a time… 

A girl who was prettier and thinner than she knew at the time, and younger than she appreciated back then, got a job working for The Mouse (specifically, the Disney Catalog), got pregnant, and got married, all three in the space of about six months. Yes. In that order. A year later, a new boy started working there, too, and the girl and the boy were instant friends. They loved all the same things, you see. He made her laugh all the time. They tried to stump each other with difficult Disney trivia questions. They sang Dr. Demento and Tom Lehrer songs. They argued over which Enterprise captain was superior. (Kirk.)

Totally harmless, mind you. They were friends, nothing more.

Eventually, the girl had to move away when her husband joined the military. A second child arrived. She moved again, this time out of the country.

The boy waited a very long time for her to come back.

Of course, she did come back, many years later. She was getting a divorce. The boy, who was now a man, grew excited, but quickly became resigned. The girl, who was now a woman, had found someone new while waiting for her divorce. The two visited for awhile, and he listened to her stories before they parted ways.

Totally harmless, mind you. They were friends, nothing more.

She ran off to get married again and work for The Mouse once more (specifically, Walt Disney World). A few years later, she was back, having never remarried—a little bitter, a little tired, and having lost her belief in the magical forever promised by Disney.

As always, the girl who was now a much older woman and the boy who was now a much older man, went out together to catch up on all that had happened since they last saw each other.

Totally harmless, mind you. They were friends, nothing more.

Until he reached out and held her hand. In that one magical moment, everything changed. Everything

finally made sense to her. The thing she’d been searching for had been waiting for her all along. Less than six months later, they were married. He had a ring designed for her in the shape of The Mouse, so she would always know the magical forever promised by Disney was real.

They spent their honeymoon at Disneyland. They still play Disney trivia (mostly, she wins because she knows everything, and he should just accept that), they still sing Dr. Demento and Tom Lehrer songs, and he still won’t admit that it takes a Picard and a Riker to encompass all the qualities of a Kirk.

Tomorrow, they’re leaving for Walt Disney World, nine years after he first held her hand.

 …And they’re living happily ever after. 

Have a wonderful couple of weeks, folks. I know I will!

Rachel's head is packed with an outrageous amount of useless Disney trivia. She is terrified of thunder, but not of lightning, and sometimes recites the Disneyland dedication speech during storms to keep herself calm. She finds it appalling that nobody from Disney has called yet with her castle move-in date.

Originally from Northern California, she has a tendency to move every few years, resulting in a total of seven different states and a six-year stint in England. Currently, she's planning her next grand adventure. Rachel has one heroic husband, two genius kids, a crazy-catlady starter kit, and an imaginary dog named Waffles.

She doesn't have time for a real dog.


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The Magic of Travel

I left bright and early this morning for a vacation I've been dying to go on for a while. (Somewhere new!) You see, I was raised in a family that started out going somewhere different every year. Then around 1984, my parents developed a love affair with Myrtle Beach, SC, and it became our go-to destination every year.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love it there, but every year? There's too much of the world to see. And I'm not much of a lie-on-the-beach-all-day person. Still, my parents made a point of doing family vacations every year, and that was always important to me.

Fast-forward to having my own kids, and I still think they're important. For a few years, my husband and I got in a rut not so unlike the one my parents made. You see, we're both Disney freaks, and our kids like it too (as most do). So we had been to Disney World three out of the last four vacations. (The one in between was when the kids and I joined hubs on a business trip overseas.)

And we found ourselves talking about doing Disney again. I didn't want to; he did. We finally agreed to leave it up to the kids. Imagine his shock when our kids (7 & 11) announced that they'd rather go someplace new. Then they started talking about our trip to Italy and the funny words and gelato and the Coliseum and a bunch of other things. (I didn't bother mentioning how many of the places we saw that year that had made it into a manuscript.) Hubs was disappointed, but I reminded him that if we take a break, Disney might actually be magical again next year.

So, we are in Florida right now, and I imagine he's pretty antsy to shove us in a car and drive to Orlando, but tomorrow we're boarding the Oasis of the Seas and cruising to the Caribbean so we can swim with dolphins and snorkel with stingrays and see the ruins of Tulum. (Actual activities not yet decided :P) I'll be begging the kids to eat something new, and he'll give me the "I told you so" look. But then we'll see dolphins racing the boat and try out the zipline on the ship, and I'll get to give it right back to him.

Because at the end of the day, vacation for me isn't about the food. (Although, that might not be strictly true of Italy--yum!) It's about seeing and experiencing new things. It's about fun with the people I love.

And, okay, it's about hopefully finding some little tidbits to work into a book. I don't think Disney would like it so much if I used their parks as a major player in one of my books. And really, if you're at Disney World, the park is a character all on its own. So, wish me luck, I'm off to see a man about what would happen if someone skated onto the ship's ice rink in the middle of a show. And then I'm going to ask how many zipline accidents they've had onboard before I use that tiny little wire to try to conquer my fear of heights.

Kiss Me or Kill Me?

Because our children are still all 12 and under, and because we have good friends who could get us good deals (including letting us sleep on their Florida floor), Dr. Stevens and I are taking the boys to Walt Disney World next week. We have been telling EVERYBODY we know (and now, thanks to the interwebs, a few of you we don't know) all about it.

But we haven't told our sons.

That's right--we're planning to ride the entire cliche, including filming that "hop in the car, we're going to Disney" moment.

Actually, that's not true: I don't even plan to tell them then. I went to AAA and got myself an old-fashioned paper Triptik, and when they ask where we're going I'm going to rip out a page and say: To the bottom of this page. I have 16 hours of torment in the car coming my way and I figure I should get to perpetrate some of it.

I will be interested to see how they react when the news is finally revealed. My oldest is halfway to figuring it out. He's one of those people who wants  to be surprised, but doesn't want to look dumb. He'll nod sagely and tell me he knew it all along, surpressing his squeals of excitement. My middle child will bounce around like those colored plastic balls in the popcorn popper rolling toy. My kindergartner will put his hands over his mouth and his eyes will pop wide.

I know people, however, to whom I could never do this. They hate surprises. They'd burst into tears, regardless of whether the news I drop in their lap is good or bad. For them, the fight-or-flight is just too strong and they can't reinterpret the news quickly enough to channel their reaction.

What about you? If you were my baby boy (stay with me, here) would you want to kiss me or kill me?