Chaos Attraction

Great America Winterfest

2018-12-24, 2:26 p.m.

This is for December 22:

I watched the Try Guys learn how to knit video. It was adorable. After they learned how, they had the weekend to make Secret Santa gifts. One made a glittery thong, which was tried on in the video. (“You probably shouldn’t knit in a gay club while watching a drag show.”) One of them said this may actually become a hobby of his. I also liked when they were hanging out on the street knitting and came to the conclusion that “it’s less like a cult and more like a GANG” when people wanted to talk to them. Adorbs.

I found out that Mom has given Mauricio the noisy doormat, he loves it and he does not care how the neighbors react to it. His sister-in-law’s dog, which is visiting for the holidays, hates it though!

Anyway...I have come home for Christmas to avoid that fucking toilet for over a week and that is a joy. I came down here and then went with Mom to Great America Winterfest. This is a thing she saw listed a few weeks ago and then I told Jackie about and invited her to go to. None of us exactly goes to Great America (a roller coaster-heavy amusement park) much or ever, but Mom spotted that they had other activities going in winter and suggested it. Indeed they do, as they’re kind of low on rides (a few were open but mostly of the kiddie variety) and had more shows and lights and revamped stores for Christmas merch and an ice skating rink and a craft fair.

We had a very good time looking at the lights, of which there are many. We got the special deal that included parking, dinner, and a souvenir mug for free hot chocolate refills. We attended the Snoopy Christmas ice skating show, which was fun and featured actual snow and couples skaters and fun costumes. Didn’t end up going on any rides (see below for why) but had a pretty good time anyway. I was amused at the pre-made snowflake angel mold things that people could step into and pose for pictures in. Oh, California!

I got a pointsettia key necklace and a “Deck the Halls with Ugly Sweaters” ornament--the sweaters below say “Fa,” “La”, and “La.” Both Mom and Jackie bought candy stuff--I found Mom some Oreo candy canes and soda-themed candy canes-- and Mom bought more ornaments. (Since we don’t have a tree here due to hoarding, beats me what she’ll do with them. Go to my house, I think.)

The one fly in the ointment was that we chose to go to Maggie’s, the fried chicken restaurant. This was not quite as bad as going to say, Knott’s Berry Farm (the last time we tried to do this I think the line was 2+ hours long and we gave up), but it was pretty damn bad. I don’t know exactly what was so slow about the line since as far as I could see they had three staff members doing their best to serve up the food and they were putting in new food when they could. The rumor we eventually heard was that someone had bought $147 worth of food and that was what took so long. But they were very, very slow about providing the food--I got mine the fastest of us all and that still took about 45 minutes, it was even longer for Jackie and worse for Mom because they forgot about her order. And when we got it, mine was pretty much lukewarm and Jackie said hers was ice cold. And it was...okay, I guess. I assume at this point Jackie is going to go home and write a scathing Yelp review about it. I was not happy about it either (seriously, that was about 2 hours of park time and the place is only open 5 hours), but after the toilet issue, cold late food is nothing to me. Then Jackie decided to go to Starbucks and found the other longest line in the park. Oy!

Also, while Mom and I were very mildly sick after eating it, Jackie got massively sick after eating it and is still feeling somewhat awful on the day I’m finishing writing this (the 24th). Yikes. I bet she writes a nasty Yelp review about this joint.

In other news, I made donuts. I gave Jackie the donuts tonight and she loved them (yay, such a relief), I think that’s the one present I’ve given her that she liked. She said I should sell them on Etsy. People keep saying I should sell things, but I’m not sure I have the audience for that if I charged what I should.


I’m going to include the 23rd in on this entry so I can be relatively caught up for a change. Mom and I went into SF to look at the Christmas stuff, but it was not that great of a trip. It started very unexpectedly raining. We went in to look at the Westin St. Francis gingerbread castle and it wasn’t there this year--apparently that hotel is a Marriott and the workers were on strike. We went to Disney and we went around the Westfield mall and Macy’s and whatever and it was pretty so-so. Even Mom, who usually loves SF, thought it was looking pretty run down right now. I said it always looks like that to me, but whatever. I did buy a fortune cookie locket and a sporran pouch (think “fanny pack”) at Urban Outfitters, but that was about the most exciting bit of our day.

Oh, wait, there was the mistletoe lady. One lady at Macy’s had a mistletoe headband that hung mistletoe over her head. I asked her if that was getting her the results she hoped for and she said so far one lady had kissed her on the cheek, and some people had asked if she was up to handling what happens. I blew her a kiss and Mom (who could actually reach her behind the counter) also gave her a cheek kiss.


previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry
hosted by DiaryLand.com