What did I get for Mother's Day?

Apparently the plague, or more likely, a sinus thing. I've been on the couch for two days with a sore throat, headache, and the Niagara Falls of post-nasal drip, with accompanying old man cough. I'm on the mend. When the sore throat started tickling on Saturday my first thought was "Oh, SHIT, I guess the incubation period of strep is one week." Delaney had been over for lunch last weekend and woke up at 3 a.m. on Monday with a fever and sore throat, followed by a diagnosis of strep and a round of antibiotics. She's fine again. I somehow dodged it, or so I thought until my throat started feeling scratchy on Saturday.

But we had PLANS, DAMMIT! It was Mother's Day weekend, and three generations of females were headed for Epcot for a spontaneous girls' Saturday evening out. (Daddy was working, and we decided we'd go on Friday afternoon.) The weather was divine - low humidity and actually a few degrees below average (don't worry, it was above average HOT and humid again on Sunday) and no sore throat and headache was going to stop ME from having a lovely afternoon. We closed the place down (it closes at 9 at this time of year). We visited the butterfly garden again, ate Mexican food at a table by the water, walked around enjoying the topiaries and such, and just slowed down and chilled. Delaney met Bemax from Big Hero 6:

And Snow White:

We didn't have any fast pass deadlines to meet and mostly wandered. The only high speed thing we did was Test Track. My fast pass ninja daughter somehow scored a hard to get last minute pass.

I know it sounds like I live at Disney and must have done everything there at least twice, but I'd never been on Test Track and had no idea what to expect. After Delaney used her magic band as the leader of our group and we helped her design our virtual race car (purple with flowers and butterflies on the sides, Barbie would have looked right at home behind the wheel), we climbed into the cars for the ride. It's an indoor simulated "test track" (duh) that puts a prototype vehicle through various conditions - mountains, wet roads, rough conditions, it's fast and twisty. Then - and I didn't know this was part of the ride because I'd never paid attention - we went through a set of huge doors into the brilliant sunshine and accelerated onto an outdoor, elevated race track, where it got really fun, with high speed banked turns and dips and rises - not as wild as a roller coaster, but FAST. Really damn fast, you definitely feel it, and it's a LOT of fun.

After we removed our very windblown selves from the ride we went into the next area, where Delaney got to drive "her" car (the Barbie Formula One Butterflies Model we designed was saved in the computer and linked to her magic band) on a video game style track. Then we visited some actual Chevy cars and trucks on display (we weren't tempted by any) before finally exiting the building into the sunshine again.

I can see why it's so hard to get a fast pass for this one, it's truly a blast and a time investment. Unlike some other experiences where it's a long wait for a few minutes' high speed thrill and boom, it's over and you're dumped out into a gift shop (Space Mountain, I'm lookin' at you) Test Track really is an experience. There is a gift shop, but we walked through it with barely a sideways glance (though Delaney was temporarily sidetracked by a big shiny red truck). Even three not particularly car lovin' chicks enjoyed it a lot. My daughter has a fast pass set for Memorial Day weekend, and we know her husband will love it. I'm sure he'll help Delaney design something fabulous, though we were pleased to find out that our purple butterflies and flowers design scored quite high, right up there with the scores by some of the serious muscle car boy kids around us. Never underestimate the chicks with the purple and butterflies.

But mostly we just wandered without an agenda, which is how Epcot should be experienced. It was a lovely, perfect evening, except I was getting progressively sicker. When my daughter bought me a pint of Fin du Monde in Canada and I couldn't finish more than a third, I knew I was sick. (If I can't drink a pint, call the doctor.) But that was toward the end of the evening and didn't spoil the fun much.

After a ride on Spaceship Earth my daughter suggested we hit Mouse Gear, which may be my favorite gift shop in all of Disney. It's the Target of Disney gift shops - housewares, clothes, shoes, jewelry, they have it under one very large roof. I think if you rearranged the store into a square it damn near might be as big as a Target. She wanted me to pick out a Mother's Day gift. This didn't take long at all. I have a new china cup with a rubber sippy top for my office tea:

I love it.

I spent yesterday and today on the couch. Yesterday I definitely was sick as a dog. I exchanged Mother's Day greetings with my son by text. He sent me an Amazon gift card which is already spent (it's bad to be home on the couch, sick, bored, and with a gift card). This morning I still had that suspicious sore throat and didn't want to blithely show up at the office with a round of strep for everybody, but now that my post-nasal drip and old man cough have asserted themselves and I don't have a fever, I'll be at work tomorrow with my lovely new tea cup and a shitload of Mucinex.

It was a lovely Mother's Day.