Author Archives: Jill Adler

Sage Takes On Epcot

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Ok, I really should be sleeping at this very moment. Everyone else is passed out. But I can’t let the thoughts pile up. I wouldn’t be able to sort them out later. What a day. We had at least three tantrums from Sage – and this is after she spent over an hour screaming like Linda Blair last night. She didn’t want to sleep and she made sure no one else could. SIGH. My dad has started calling her The Thing again.

It absolutely sucks to have a child who might lose it at any turn. You read all of those books that tell you to head off tantrums before they happen? What do you do when they’re always about to happen? We can’t just give her everything she wants. Tantrums happen whether she’s tired, rested, fed or hungry. She wants a present every day. She doesn’t deserve one. Last night she didn’t want to sleep. Not going to let her stay up. Today she wanted a princess dress. We told her last night that if she didn’t stop, she wouldn’t get a dress. She has to go a whole day without being a beeatch (we didn’t use those words). She didn’t last five minutes today before the monster came out. Stomping, shouting, making pouty faces, and crying were all part of the scene today. At least they didn’t last as long or as loud as last night. But it was enough to get us to tell her, no dress tomorrow. And then there’s another tantrum. Maybe tomorrow she can be a good girl and get her dress on Wednesday? Doubt it. The good news is then we don’t have to spend $60 on a Disney Princess dress. That’s the price in these parts.
We kept seeing all of these little girls glittered up, with a tiny tiara tucked in their bunned hair and wearing the latest in princess fashion. I asked one mom how much it cost and where did they go to get their kid all dolled up like that and she said Bibiddy Bobbity Boutique in Downtown Disney, $189!!! OMFG. Good thing Sage will never ‘earn’ that kind of present. Parents with boys are lucky. They have to buy hotwheels and video games. They don’t have to spend $200 on dress up clothes.
In case you couldn’t tell, we made it into Epcot. Not a single problem with the tickets. The place was relatively uncrowded and we were able to do just about everything we wanted to – Soarin’, Innovations, Sum of All Thrills, Turtle Talk, Test Track, walked twice around the World, drank beer in Germany, ate potstickers in China and watched Illuminations. The parks close at 9 p.m. until Thanksgiving but we still didn’t get home until 11 p.m.
I”m really going to bed now. I need my energy to deal with Sage. We’re doing Universal Islands of Adventure tomorrow. My rents are big Harry Potter fans. One last mention- Sage went right to bed tonight without fuss. Is there a light at the end of this tunnel?
She looks like a princess but can she act like one??

Orlando Day 1- Dizzy, Not Disney

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I now know how a black person feels when they visit Utah. Our first night in Orlando and my dad picks a place called Mama Nem’s for dinner. The soul food restaurant in a strip mall about 20 minutes from our hotel (the Marriott Grand Vista) came recommended. By whom I’m not sure but there we were; hesitantly shuffling past a sranding-room-only waiting area of black people all staring at us as if we were lost. Two white seniors, two white parents and a little white girl who kind of looks like the All-American Kid. The only white people in the entire place! We held our heads high and waited to be seated. It was like that scene in Animal House just before the guys come up to Boone and say “Do you mind if we dance wif yo dates?”

Everyone was extremely nice; the hostess grabbed a piece of melt-in-your mouth cornbread for Sage while we waited. After about 5 minutes, however, mom was visibly uncomfortable. Let’s go, she said. It was the wait not the company that bothered her. They had caught the redeye from San Diego to Orlando last night with very little sleep. The hostess had said it would be another half hour….until we offered to seat Sage in a high chair at a four-top instead of a bigger table. All of a sudden it was 10. They didn’t want us to leave!
The restaurant itself wasn’t much. Zero atmosphere. WE were the atmosphere- for tonight anyway. It was hilarious. But when I tried to take a photo of my parents from across the table. Ryan stopped me and said it was rude. HUH? He accused me of trying to take a picture of black people (like when I took a photo of these girls lined up in bikinis outside of my acting class just because I’d never seen anything like it?) OMG could he be serious? I take my camera everywhere and I shoot it everywhere- including dinner. Tonight I told him that he was the rude one for making me act differently just because we were in an all-black restaurant.
Bikinis on Main
The food soon arrived, piled high on the table. Collard greens, fried green tomatoes, mac n cheese, fried chicken, ribs, corn, fried shrimp, mashed red potatoes. All of the usual heavy southern foods. The sides were on the money, the main dishes not so much. The ribs held very little meat and our chicken was dry- Sage took one bite of her drum stick and handed it to Ryan. But I’ll tell you- even when Sage got off the high chair and started boogieing in the middle of the room to the hiphop music overhead, they didn’t rush us out.
We drove back to the hotel a bit weary from the experience. Tomorrow we test out our Disney World tickets. I got them off eBay and the seller dropped them at the hotel this afternoon. I’ve read the warnings and posts all over the web. Don’t buy tickets on Craigslist or eBay because there’s no way to tell if the ticket’s already been used but the dude had near 100 percent feedback and I used my credit card. Worst case scenario: the tickets are confiscated, we buy at the gate for the regular price and I dispute the charge on my card. I’ve always been one of those people who had to “learn the hard way”. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Wintervention Comes To Utah

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Wintervention at Abravanel Hall

 

Just got back from watching Warren Miller’s Intervention. The place was packed and the energy electric. I love how ski movies are part of our pre-season ski conditioning. They get you drooling for the white stuff the way a cupcake makes a five-year-old’s chin drop. You shut your eyes and imagine the same cold smoke wash over you. But I have a problem with this year’s Miller entry.

The skiers are getting farther and farther away from being relate-able. I’m never going to ski Antarctica or Georgia and there’s no resort (ie Telluride) that’s going to send me out with a guide to ski deep untracked before allowing public access to it. WM producers would have you think the only people who ski inbounds are jibbers who use the lift shacks and towers as terrain park features.

In Utah, we have some pretty mind-blowing turns but to send the Crists over to ski Cedar Breaks National Monument where NO ONE that’s not with a film crew is ever going to ski because 1) it’s not a true ski area and 2) everything is mandatory air, is pushing it. To be fair, the filmmakers did say that this 61st annual installment was meant to be exotic. I just would have liked the exotic to also be realistic as a destination.

The running theme on addiction and staging a ‘wintervention’ for your recovery hit home. My favorite quote of the night was “I keep turning down my future just to go skiing one more time.”

Anyone who anxiously watches the fall weather patterns for those first signs of snow knows what it’s like to Jones for winter. The segments of the late Arne Backstrom floating in Heavenly’s untracked (shot at 7 .m. before the mountain opened to the public) were right on the money. And those crazy Kiwis ripping at the Freeskiing Championships and bungee jumping in the New Zealand segment were sick.

No Warren Miller production would be complete without a narrator and Jonny Moseley has finally gotten a handle on his voice overs. They’re more friendly and casual- much more like he’s talking than reading us something someone else wrote. However, the movie sound in Abravanel Hall was so loud that most of what was said by the athletes was distorted and difficult to understand. Wish I could say that the music was better but it seemed a bit ‘off’ as well. The songs themselves were great but they didn’t complement the moments. Take Mr. Scruff “Music Takes Me Up”, for example. It’s a very cool song… about music not skiing. And not life.  And how about the punkish Grinderman? Something about sucking her dry and biting him on the 29th floor?

Still, you can’t get too technical about a Warren Miller film. They call it ski porn for a reason. It’s not ‘real’. The athletes and photographers bust their butts to bring you some stunning imagery and inspiration so even if you will never spend a night in a tent on a Norwegian island surrounded by polar bears, you can appreciate the effort. Besides, at the end of the night it gets the job done. Wintervention reminds you that it’s time for a fix.

Wintervention plays at 8 p.m. in Park City, Oct. 29/30 at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.

More film dates.

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