Well, I guess it’s 11:20 here on the east coast, but my laptop says it’s only 8:20.  Someday I’ll understand why my computer doesn’t automatically update the time when it changes time zones, but as of right now I don’t know, and I don’t care.  I mean, it changes automatically when daylight savings time starts and ends, why not when it moves across the country?  But I digress.  I’m on day two of my Orlando Disney/continuing education adventure, and I should be exhausted, but I’m not.  Or maybe I am, and I’m too amped up on adrenaline from a day running around Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios to know it.   (For our West Coast readers, Disney’s Hollywood Studios is essentially Disney’s California Adventure, but only the parts that focus on Hollywood and the movies, and with some stuff from Disneyland that have to do with movies, like Star Tours.  Yes, a whole Disney park focused on one tiny part of LA.  It’s a little ridiculous.  But there are some fun rides there.  Or as they say around here, “experiences.”  Isn’t that the most PC thing ever?  And now this has turned into the longest parenthetical digression ever on PfP, so I’m going to stop.  Maybe I am tired.)

So Epcot was surprisingly cool–I really enjoyed the country exhibits more than I thought I would, and I finally made my peace with the 360 degree theater while watching a cute film made by our neighbors to the north, those cheerful Canadians.  When I was a kid, my mom used to always make me go into that theater in the round at Disneyland, and it’d always be when I was super tired and wanted to just sit.  She, of course, made me stand.  And I’ve been annoyed with her for it for the past, oh, thirty four or thirty five years.  So today, I told her all about that.  And I felt better.  She said that she told me to stand because if I sat on the floor, I wouldn’t have been able to see.  I replied that when I was five, I really didn’t care about seeing some dumb nature movie, and I was glad when that thing got taken out of Disneyland because it meant I’d never have to stand in a movie theater ever again.  I was so surprised today that she hadn’t made me stand just to be mean to her poor, tired kid.  She had wanted me to experience the movie in the best possible way.  I have no idea why that would be surprising to me.  As an adult, I totally get it, of course.  But the part of me who will always be a five or nine year old kid had been holding onto that tiny bit of resentment until today.  Goodbye to that childhood trauma, hello to a more positive relationship with my mom.  There was more stuff at Epcot than just the Canadian movie, but it’s almost midnight here, and I want to get this done.  Besides, I seriously doubt anyone wants to read a blow-by-blow about my day with Disney.

I did go to the conference for a few hours this morning, and it, too, was really cool.  The conference I’m at has been touted to be the best veterinary conference ever, by no less than my boss.  Anyone who knows her knows that this is high praise.  I learned about different indications for a few different anti-itch medications, and new treatments for demodicosis.  Oh, and I signed up to receive a free journal in the mail, and earned a free stuffed dog for my troubles.  A free stuffed dog wearing scrubs.  That’s right.  I’m a thirty-eight year old professional woman and I’ll do anything for a free stuffed dog.  Okay, not anything.  But I’ll listen to drug reps talk about pretty much anything to get one.  The exhibit hall opens tomorrow, and you know what that means….  More free junk to schlep home in my suitcase that was already only twelve pounds away from the weight limit when I left California.  And that was before I picked up my ten pounds of conference proceedings this morning.

And with that, I’ll say good night.  Thanks for reading my inane ramblings.  Now I’m going to look up directions to Universal Studios Orlando.  I suspect there will be a fee to leave the Disney compound tomorrow, but Harry Potter World awaits!