I spent the weekend at Disneyland with beatnikside and stonesheep. We had a great time despite the fact that it was unseasonably hot. It probably helped that we knew just when to plant ourselves at a bar and drink gin and tonics instead of standing in line. Geoff even has audio evidence to prove it. Should you ever fnd yourself at Disney's California Adventure and in need of a cocktail, head over to Ariel's Grotto. It looks like the kind of place where they serve nothing but cheeseburgers carved into the shape of mermaids, but there's a full bar in the back where they go decidedly light on the "mixed" part of "mixed drink." stonesheep and I each had only one gin and tonic, but those two drinks held about a third of the bar's stock of Bombay Sapphire. It'll remind you of the way you mixed drinks when you were 19, but hey, Disney's all about the youth.

Speaking of youth, I ran into my friend Pia on Saturday outside the Jungle Cruise. We went to high school and college together, and our brothers were very close friends. I hadn't visited with her since maybe 1992, and I was so surprised to see her that it took me a while to process that it was in fact her. It helped that she has apparently forgotten to do any aging, and therefore looks just how I remember her looking. There were about a billion hot, sweaty people at the park on Saturday, and the chances of running into one you knew ten years ago in another state have to be pretty slim, but I'm glad we beat the odds; it was good to see her.

Yesterday, the crowds were comparatively sparse, so we were able to walk right on to many of the rides, including Small World--not without ambivalence, as you know if you happened to listen to the pre-ride narrative. I decided it was funny, especially when I imagined the ways Disney might heighten their emphasis on product placement throughout the ride. "And here, we take our little boat through the Taco Bell drive-in! Arriba! Next up, Panda Express." I do believe stonesheep regretted her decision not to fortify herself with a third cocktail. We should have gone to Ariel's Blotto for a four-in-one.