November 14, 2012: Mean Green.

Today is a wonderful day. Every day is a wonderful day. In fact, let me tell you a little secret; any day that you wake up is a wonderful day and you can find a reason to visit Walt Disney World. That’s the entire premise of this blog and I am proud to say that this is the first blog of the second month. Only eleven months to go to make it 365 (x whatever) excuses to visit Walt Disney World. Use that as your first excuse and go to Walt Disney World and E-mail or post your own blog about what you do.

Woo Hoo! It’s National Guacamole Day. It fits on a chip. It’s great with cheese and spiced meat and chopped tomatoes. It’s an appetizer, it’s a condiment, it’s the universal, all-sustaining, marvelous splash of edible color created to do nothing but enhance your day and your enjoyment of Mexican food. You want it, you need it, you gotta have it. Guacamole! Ole’ Guacamole! I like me some guacamole. Okay!?! Get to EPCOT, get to the Mexican pavilion and eat everything you can find there that comes with guacamole. If it doesn’t come with guacamole, order some on the side and add it to whatever you eat. Are we clear on this? Good.

Whoopee! It’s National Pickle Day. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good pickle, especially the snappin’, crackin’, really awesome pickles that come on the side with a good deli sandwich. But I’m not as enthused about pickles as I am guacamole. Did I tell you that you need to get some guacamole (preferably at EPCOT)? Just askin’. Listen, Disney has the two most wonderful fixing bars in the world: the fixings bar at Cosmic Ray’s and the bar at Pecos Bill’s. You not going to go wrong hitting either one and you can get all the pickles you want but… if you go to Pecos Bill’s you can also get guacamole. Hey, it’s National Guacamole Day, I can give it a rest tomorrow. I may have to go to Toro Loco. I have friends who will be on planes today going to Walt Disney World. I bet they eat at Pecos Bill’s.

On this day in 1851, Moby Dick  by Herman Melville was published. There’s a really large aquatic mammal in this book. A guy named Ahab is obsessed with this really large mammal. It’s a great white whale, not good, not above average, but an honest to goodness great white whale. A big whale like Moby ate a nice little wooden boy named Pinocchio. That whale’s name is Monstro. He was a big whale but I don’t think he was great; in fact he was sort of villainous. In honor of Moby Dick, go to the Pinocchio Village Haus in the Magic Kingdom and eat, we have eaten there, it’s good, it’s counter service, they have pizza. The pizza at Pinocchio Village Haus reminds me of the pizza I ate at the University of Kentucky Student Center from 1978 to 1982. I love that pizza and I find it from time to time, oh that taste, can you imagine a slice of Italian goodness dipped in a little guacamole. Don’t knock it. People dip pizza in ranch dressing all the time, creamy and white to creamy and green, it’s a small step. Go ahead, you can do it.

I have really enjoyed this blog today. I hope you have too. I hate to end on a serious note but this is the 42^nd anniversary of the Marshall Plane Crash. If this blog makes it into a second year, I’ll mention this again next year. In our area, this is a big deal. It was devastating. I lived in Huntington, WV for a couple of years, worked there longer and shopped and played there even longer and the Plane Crash is a unique and unifying event in this area that is hard to understand unless you experience it. I remember laying in the floor watching WSAZ, channel 3, when the story came on about the crash. The team was wiped out. Only a few members that didn’t make the trip to East Carolina survived and a couple of members of the coaching staff who had other obligations that spared them the ride on that fateful plane survived to help rebuild the football program that rose from ashes to glory. Watch the movie, “We are Marshall.” We went to the theater, watched the movie and cried. We bought the video, watched it again, and cried some more. It’s hard to do justice to the deep emotions that even typing this pulls up. God bless Marshall University and Huntington, WV as they turn off the Memorial Fountain until spring. Yes, this can be tied to WDW. Bobby Pruitt coached at Marshall University. Bobby was one of the coaches featured in the movie, “Remember the Titans,” which was a Disney movie. So, from happy to sad, there can always be a Disney connection. Everyday we wake up is a good day and lest we forget, Marshall University is the Big Green and you know what else is green.

Remember, your best excuse is always: waiting for your dreams to come true.