One More Week!

Holy cow, I'm almost done!

Time has flown by this past month, and I'm now leaving next week... crazy. I still feel like there's a million things I haven't done, but... I can't quite think of them. I think I've actually managed to do most of what I wanted to here. My last day of work is exactly a week from today, and I leave next Friday morning.

Yesterday I took the day off and did all of my Disney shopping that I denied myself of this whole summer. I'm glad I didn't let myself buy anything till now, because I've had all summer to see the merchandise and decided on what I really want from here and what I'll regret not taking with me. So I bought only the things that will have some sort of meaning from my time here:

1. A glass tiara from Arribas on Main Street
First off, this thing is gorgeous. Enough that I'll probably want to wear it when I get married. Second, I have seen SO many little princesses' mothers bring these in as a surprise for their baby and ask me to put it on them without letting them see it. And they get turned around and are so surprised because they've got a REAL princess crown. These things are beautiful. They're not completely glass, most of it is metal, but there are little glass jewels all over it, and it's super sparkly and pretty--something every princess likes :) That was my splurge gift to myself, since they cost my first born child, but. It was worth it, I think. Plus, if you wear it around the park, cast members treat you like royalty.

2. A fairy tale princess tiara
Yeah, yeah, I know I bought two tiaras. But this little tiara is the kind we actually put on the princess when she gets a fairy tale princess bun. I figured I should at least take SOMETHING from work, and these tiaras are pretty cute.

3. An ironic mug
I like mugs. A lot. And when I saw this one, I laughed from the irony. Which I think only cast members can really appreciate. It's Tinkerbell looking like a mess because she just woke up, and on the back it says "Mornings Aren't Magical." Youuuuu said it Disney! So why do you make me wake up at 5 again and expect me to make you lots and lots of magic? :) A lot of cast members laugh at that mug cause it's just so... well, exactly what we do. We roll out of bed looking like crap, hop on the bus to work, still looking like crap, and we get ready in the locker rooms underneath the park, and when we come out onstage, suddenly we look the part and we have to smile and create magic and run behind the mirrors to hide our yawns, cause even if we LOOK like we're perfectly capable of creating magic, we sure don't FEEL that way that early in the morning. Especially since the boutique opens before the park. They thought that one out real well. :)

So those were my gifts to myself for the summer. I consider it money well spent, because they all hold some sort of meaning/memory for me.

And now, I have some amusing stories. I know I haven't posted much about my princesses lately, just what I've been doing outside of work, and several people have told me they like my princess stories most. But sadly, when I say I had no good stories for the past two months, I really mean I had NO good stories for the past two months. For some reason I was just getting the most spoiled little princesses I have ever seen. You know the kind. The ones where you just want to shake the parents, because when the princess starts screaming "I WANT A WAND LIKE THAT GIRL!" they say "Okay honey, we'll get you a wand and a dress and shoes and a crown, just stop crying!" Yeah. Those kind.

However, two days ago I had some eventful princesses. For the first time in a while, and I wanted to cry when I got this particular princess. Her name is Cady, and she was four years old. I swear, this girl looked six. When she told me four, I paused, thinking I'd heard her wrong, and then I said, "Princess Cady, are you sure you aren't 200 like me? Because you look much older than four." Of course, she got a kick out of that (they always do), and the practically scripted conversation ensues: Are you REEEEAAAALLLLYYYY 200 years old? Well yes, princess, of course I am. Would I make that up? Don't you think I look 200? NOOOOO!!!! Well, good! That means the pixie dust is working! Pixie dust keeps us looking young. It's magical you know, because it's from Tinkerbell. Blah blah blah, I could go on and on, because all of this is what I repeat a million times a day.

What was remarkable about this girl, however, was not that she didn't look her age, it was what happened while she was in my chair. I'm combing her hair and parting it, getting ready to do the four twists in the front that are trademark for the Pop Princess hairstyle, and I'm talking to her as I'm doing this, asking her questions about her life and telling her stories about the castle, me, other fairy godmothers in training, etc. And then as I've almost got a part perfectly straight, she suddenly does this huge stretch and I mess up the part, and I'm thinking. Okay... are you going to be difficult and move around on me? And then I start to notice her responses are getting slower and slower and quieter and quieter... and then her queen comes over and is like, Sweetie, I know you're tired, but you need to stay awake, okay? So then I'm laughing inside because I realize that she's falling asleep from me playing with her hair. So I get another fairy godmother, Christie, to come do her nails and makeup and to entertain her so that she'll stay awake. We start asking her if her princess school teaches her how to kiss frogs, and she says, "NO! Ew!!!! That's grooooosss! I don't kiss FROGS, I kiss BOYS!" We died, we were laughing so hard. And her king says, "Yep, that's right. She only kisses boys." Aurora was her favorite princess, so we asked our customary question when Aurora is the favorite: Well, if you don't kiss frogs, do you plan to just fall asleep and wait for a prince to kiss you awake? At this point, she's so tired that she just yawns, stretches again, and says "Yes...." Christie asks her to close her eyes so she can put the eyeshadow on her, and we both say the other scripted line: Close your eyes lightly, just like you're taking a nap--BUT DON'T ACTUALLY FALL ASLEEP!

Well, with how tired she was, it was just asking for disaster by telling her to close her eyes, because as soon as she did, she was out like a light. Her head lolled to the side and I had to catch it or else she would have fallen over sideways, and her king and queen are laughing their heads off. The king came over and held her head, telling her to wake up, but man. I have never seen a kid sleep like that. He was shaking her whole body to try to wake her up, but she was out. So he ended up holding her head for the rest of the time as I quickly tried to finish her hair, and everyone in the boutique is laughing and watching the "Sleeping Beauty in chair 1." At one point, one of the cash wrap girls came over with bracelets for her to choose from (you get a bracelet with the pop princess hairstyle), and she opened her eyes for a second and said, "blue...." and fell back asleep. There wasn't even a blue bracelet there, they were all pink and purple. :)

It was hilarious. I was laughing the entire time, and when I had finished, her king picked her up and just shook her, shouting, "Open your eyes, you're all done! You have to see what you look like! Wake up, baby!" Everyone was laughing hysterically, it was so comical. She eventually woke up after about the tenth time her king had said she was done, and then she got super excited to see herself, so we put her back in the chair, quickly positioned her and got the royal photographer, and turned her around. She screamed and bounced up and down in her chair, clapping her hands because she was so surprised. Everyone was saying, "Look what happened while you had your nice nap! Was it a lovely nap, princess? It's tough to be a princess, huh? Such hard work." She was dancing all around the boutique after that, full of energy, which of course just made me laugh even more because she had been SO dead just minutes before. But I guess seeing the "fireworks" in her hair gave her a lot of energy, and she was bouncing all over the place. She gave me a huge hug goodbye, and when I say huge, I mean, she wasn't letting go so I eventually had to kind of pull her off of me because I needed to free up the chair for the next princess because we were running an hour behind and I needed to wash my hands to start helping another princess.

Pretty much the best princess I've had all summer. I had been thinking that I've gotten a lot of unremarkable princesses and that I tend to miss a lot of the excitement in the boutique. It seems that most of the time I'm either at tea or I have the day off when something exciting happens in there. But I finally got my sleeping princess. I still haven't had a princess threaten me or hit me or tell her queen that I'm trying to choke her and rip out her hair (which happened to my friend Melissa--the princess punched her in the stomach and shouted that her fairy godmother was trying to kill her. It was... interesting, to say the least. Pretty traumatic for Melissa).

Another exciting thing that happened was this freak thunderstorm. Now, I understand very well that thunderstorms are pretty much a daily occurrence here. When I say this was a freak thunderstorm, I mean, this was an unusually heavy and long and loud and late thunderstorm. It started around 4 and lasted until 9. The lightning was going off every few seconds, and the thunder was so loud you could feel it and it almost hurt because it was so strong. It made me jump quite a few times, because it was just THAT loud. Everyone was jumping.

Now, what was particularly memorable about this thunderstorm was the fact that it was centered right over Fantasyland. We were still open, and I was on podium 1 that day, checking people in. But of course, with this thunderstorm going on, no one was showing up for their appointments, so I had absolutely nothing to do. So I stood in the doorway with a few other FGITs, and we watched the lightning. We saw it physically strike the ground in between the castle and the carousel twice. It was crazy. The castle started to flood (not inside, but in the tunnel through it. So the boutique was still dry and fine, but where everyone was standing to hide from the rain, they were standing in about three inches of water), and some of the girls inside were getting scared from the really loud thunder, so we had to start making up stories about King Triton being angry about something, and the loud noises were because of him. And when the princesses would get ready to leave the boutique and would see the lake of water they were going to have to walk through, we would just shake our heads and say, "That Ariel... sometimes she likes to bring the ocean to us. We have to keep telling her that not everyone has fins."

Last week I went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter with my parents, and that was SPECTACULAR! I was blown away. I'm debating whether or not I'm going to go again tomorrow with some of my coworkers. It was just so neat! Moaning Myrtle is hanging out in the bathroom, the paintings move and talk to each other in the castle, the butterbeer from the Hog's Head Inn refills itself... it's just amazing. Definitely worth a trip there, that's for sure.

And I believe that's about all for now. I've started packing so that I'll have more time to play in the parks when it comes to my last few days, and I'm getting in all my last minute park time. I plan on making a trip to the Pirate's League one day to get my face painted. I figure that since I give them so much publicity and they're such a close relative of us, I should pay them a visit. Also, that's where I ideally wanted to work anyways, and I know several of the pirates there because they crosstrain to the boutique. So. Hopefully I can make it over there sometime to be a new recruit of the Pirate's League. :)