Sedentary Saturday at the Casa del Hammond

After a week of illness, academic team, character counts week and a house full of teenagers celebrating Halloween, it was nice to wake up this morning to a fairly silent house with only a few random children on the chaise, the couch and the recliner. A nice, cool, damp fall Eastern Kentucky day, a perfect day to stay in but we have church at 7 PM. Our monthly business meeting and our annual election of officers. I have already submitted my monthly treasurer's report, Matt is copying study material for my academic team students and I wanted to give you your daily excuses a little earlier today.

The daily excuses are not comprehensive, they are just a sampling of the interesting events each day that I think you could claim as motivation for a day at Walt Disney World. I am committed to at least 365 days and, as you can already see, far more than 365 excuses. I want to thank those who have commented on the excuses and I invite you to comment as well. Leave me a comment in the comment section or e-mail me at bxhamm01@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

And now... the excuses.

I love Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway received the Nobel Prize in Literature on this date in 1954. I visited Hemingway's home in Key West a few years ago and got a bit of an education in the life of the man as well as petting and playing with several polydactyl (six-toed) cats on the grounds. I want to go back. We were there as the first stop on our Disney Cruise in 2008, our 20th wedding anniversary. Hemingway loved Key West and Cuba. We were within five miles of Cuba during a latter leg of the cruise. Do yourself a favor, in honor of Hemingway and all the others whose hearts were broken in the Cuban Revolution, go to Bongo's in Downtown Disney and eat some great Cuban food. Have my favorite Papa Rellana, it's like breaded mashed potatoes stuffed with spiced beef and covered in gravy. This is just the appetizer, remember, calories at Disney don't count.

1943, Randy Newman was born. I remember the Randy Newman of "Short People" fame but he has become the go to guy for Disney and Pixar for the great songs in their movies. You know a Randy Newman song the second you hear it, this drives some people crazy, but I don't mind. If I want to hear something different, I'll listen to someone else until I get sick of the things they do that make them sound like they do. My favorite Newman song is, "When She Loved Me," written for Toy Story II and performed by Sarah McLachlan. Sometimes you want that sad song to just push you through a blue time and this is the song for me. The scene in the movie where Jesse's owner gives her up is one the saddest scenes in any movie, period. Any movie. There's a lot of things that you could do and a lot of places at WDW you could visit to celebrate Randy Newman but how about a quiet moment at Port Orleans Riverside just enjoying the fact that sad and happy can balance in life and the fact that "You've got a friend in me." I couldn't resist.

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