Today is Sunday, November 16 and there are only 11 days until Thanksgiving.  You should start thawing your turkey now so that you will be able to get the turkey parts bag out of the bird in time.  On this day we remember the birthdays of Tiberius Cesar, Burgess Meredith and Chinua Achebe.  Today, in 1676 the first colonial prison was organized in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1914 the Federal Reserve System formally opened and in 1959 “Sound of Music” opened on Broadway.  In Oklahoma it is Admission Day and tomorrow starts National Children’s Book Week here in the US.

As you may have read, last week I took a break.  I was on vacation with the lovely Elaine, my son and daughter-in-law and our two grandsons.  At the time, we were in San Francisco.  I hope no one was too upset by the fact that I did not publish.  I don’t do that often and I was sure you wouldn’t mind.

As I said, we were on vacation.  We spent a couple days in San Francisco.  We saw all the sights, including Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street (and yes we walked up the crooked part [and paid the price for the hike]), Ghirardelli Square, Muir Woods and walked up hills that we would not have walked if we thought it through.  When we arrived at Ghirardelli Square it was lunch time so we ate – at the Sundae Bar.  Yes, our lunch that day consisted of ice cream sundaes.  If you have never done something like that, I highly recommend it.  We had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from our hotel room, we were close to everything and if it wasn’t close, the public transit system was easy to access right by our hotel.

After leaving San Francisco, we drove down to Santa Cruz, stopping at the boardwalk there to see the Pacific Ocean, and then on to Burbank.  The next day we took the Warner Bros. studio tour.  That was very interesting and it gave us a new perspective on the way movies and TV shows are done.  We also got to go on the sound stage where “Two Broke Girls” is taped.  From there we went to downtown Hollywood and walked around doing the whole tourist thing.  We went to Grauman’s Chinese Theater and saw all the hand and footprints of the stars, we saw the stars on the Walk of Fame and saw a red carpet that was set for a film premier that evening.  I even walked on the carpet for a couple steps before a security person glared at me and made me get off.

Our final couple days were spent in Anaheim, at Disneyland.  The whole trip was great, but the Disneyland part was special for several reasons.  First because the lovely Elaine and I had never been there.  Second because we were there with “the kids” and that made it a lot more fun.  The final reason was because I spent my 65^th birthday with my family, in Disneyland.  No, I did not make a big deal out of it.  I did not get the birthday mouse ears, I did not get the shirt that said “Birthday Boy”, I did not get the Birthday Boy sash or any of the other stuff that was available.  I simply had a great time as an incognito birthday person.

The whole trip was great!  My daughter-in-law did a fantastic job planning everything, making the reservations, getting our flights set up, etc.  We were excited to be on the trip and very happy to have been included in their plans.   On our own, if we even went out there, the lovely Elaine and I would probably not have done the Hollywood part of the trip.  I am glad we had the opportunity.

That being said, I want to spend some time talking about the sights in Disneyland.  Aside from the obvious fun of just being there, it was a people-watcher’s heaven.  I am amazed at the number of adults who were walking around dressed in some form of Disney character.  I am not talking about people who work there; I am talking about people just visiting.  I could not get over the women walking around in red skirts and white blouses, trying to look like Minnie Mouse.  Some of them were amusing; some of them were cute; some of them were just a little too large to carry it off well.  A couple women looked more like a blimp advertising Disneyland.

I saw one family that all had matching Disney shirts and were wearing Mickey ears.  The parents were wearing ears that were not meant for adults and had them perched on the back of their heads like beanies.  They were using the elastic strap to keep them in place and the straps were digging into their skin.  The father and mother were having a great time and you could tell that they thought they were really cool.  The kids, a young girl and two boys, looked like they would rather have been sold into slavery than endure the agony they were suffering.

I could not believe the number of adult women walking around with some type of mouse ears on.  I am not talking about mothers of little kids.  I am talking about groups of two or three women wearing fancy glittery, feathered mouse ears.  These were on plastic straps that went over the head, but were still more for young girls.  I saw couples with bride and groom ears – the groom had ears with a little top hat in between and the bride had a little veil.  There were people with ears that lit up and changed colors, ears that were geared toward various Disney characters, ears that were decorated for Christmas and on and on.  There were people walking around with animal tails hanging behind them, people wearing all kinds of Disney shirts, caps, hats and all sorts of apparel.  It takes all kinds of people to make the world go ‘round and apparently they all have to go through Disneyland at some point.

This week our fact tells us that Dr. Seuss pronounced his name “Soyce”.  What a shame that the man could not even pronounce his own name correctly.