drainedThis morning we got up early to help clean the church building, we went grocery shopping on the way home, and then we...played Kingdom Hearts [chi] for a while, but not as long as we usually do on Saturday mornings, and then we went back to work on Chaika. It's weird lately, because I feel like we really don't spend that much time working, and yet all I want to do is anything but work. (Not true. I could probably think of several things I'd rather not do.) My current theory is that our energy reserves are constantly a little lower than they need to be. So then we go to Disneyland and not only lose time to work, but then lose tons of energy so our productivity goes down, and also lose more time to work because we give up sooner, and because we take more time to do our work, we have less time to spare for relaxation, and the vicious cycle continues.
But enough whining. We had a pretty nice time at Disneyland. We got to see the Dapper Dans in their Halloween attire, singing songs like the trick-or-treat song from Mickey's Halloween Treat and the Headless Horseman song from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Disney's got some pretty fun Halloween songs, now that I think about it, so we were pretty excited every time they started a new one. The sad thing is something went wonky in the sound system when they were singing the Headless Horseman song, so they might have had more songs after that or not, and we may never find out.
It was pretty hot and humid, and Gaston was tired, too, so we wanted to do things that mostly involved being inside...and that meant taking a break to go to the movies and watch Walt Before Mickey. In case the title isn't obvious enough, it's about Walt Disney and the events leading up to the invention of Mickey Mouse. Our verdict on it is that it wasn't all that well made, but it was interesting. It might have helped that when something happened, it would make me think about something else, so whenever the movie dragged I was distracted. I think that's how most people end up enjoying a lot of movies that we find boring.
Other highlights of the trip include finding someone in the Golden Horseshoe who loved Legends of Frontierland (a role-playing game they did at Disneyland last summer) so much that he came in his Rainbow Ridge outfit and set up a card table. And also, we spotted the actor who plays Kyle in Last Man Standing. It was funny because we saw the guest service cast member, so we started scanning the party to see if we recognized anyone, and we didn't really, except for one guy who looked kind of familiar maybe? and then we heard him talk and recognized his voice immediately.
As for watching Spirited Away at the ward party, we had to watch it dubbed, which was a bummer, but it was interesting watching it for the first time in so many years, especially now that we've learned so much more about Shinto. We're also 99% convinced that Noragami was inspired by Spirited Away. This morning at building cleanup, one of the elderly members of the ward asked us if we had any nightmares from the movie, and we said no, we'd seen it before. Then he asked us what we liked about it, because he couldn't see anything likable in it. I think in the past I would have been frustrated beyond all reason, but today we were mostly amused. Still a little indignant, though. (He said the animation was bad! What!?) We told him what we liked about it, and then when someone else came up and we had to explain what we were talking about, the older gentleman said there was nothing likable about it except...and listed the things we'd just told him. So at least he's willing to acknowledge that maybe he missed some good things in his previous assessment.
Today I'm thankful for making somewhat decent progress on Chaika today despite our refusal to work any longer (we think on Monday we may have recharged enough that we can work a little longer to finish it if we have to), having a pretty good time at Disneyland, getting to see Walt Before Mickey, it being almost time to relax for the rest of the weekend (except for Primary, of course), and Pepperidge Farm cookies being on sale today.
