Diminuitive Disney Delights

A Quick Intro
This past winter, I worked at the Disney Store in West Town Mall as a seasonal employee. Besides being an extremely fun job, I walked away with a few things. Among the discounted merchandise and a free Toy Story 3 DVD Cast Member Edition (which I won in a round of Disney trivia because I am just a big kid), I learned that there are often events held in store that can be a blast for the kiddies. Their mission statement of sorts is to make a visit to the Disney Store "the best 30 minutes of a child's day." They make that possible with a lot of classic magic--even I have a blast playing around there. Well...I suppose that isn't a stretch. However, I bet you're wondering how you can enjoy more of that magic without having to travel to the theme park or otherwise spend a lot of money. I shall tell you just how!

Above: The kind of window setup that practically drags me into a store. haha

Childlike Charm: A Family-Friendly Afternoon

The Who:

My Leesie-Lou (Big Sister Extraordinaire) 

The Unstoppable Zoe Brady

<The little childrens, their parents, and some kindly Disney Cast Members (as they're called)>

Lightning McQueen and Mater, as well as other characters in Cars 2.

The What: A Disney in-store event promoting Cars 2.

The When: Two Saturdays ago (They're doing these events every Saturday in June at 10:30am and 12:30pm)

The Where: Disney Store, West Town Mall

The Why: Because Zoe is a Disney freak (whose grandmother works at the Disney store) and because Elise and I woke up ungodly early for a failed attempt to visit the farmer's market downtown.

The How: You pretty much just waltz right in there. In busier stores, they frown upon lining up more than 30 minutes prior to the event, but ours really isn't busy enough to worry about such things.

This adventure was not the original one intended. As I've said, Elise and I woke up ungodly early with another purpose. Farmer's Markets usually open in the wee hours of daylight (at least, so we thought). So we got up at 5:45am, got ready, got some cash, and were in Market Square around 7am. Here's the thing--no one else was. Turns out the downtowners are probably too busy treating their hangovers to be up at the crack of dawn, so they don't open til 9am, and neither do any of the restaurants or coffee shops. Is that not ridiculous? Lazy bones. Anywho, we roll with the punches. So, we headed to Panera for our pastries and the neighboring Starbucks for our coffee and Elise brought up the idea of taking Zoe to the Cars 2 event. I thought: hey--maybe today can be salvageable (travel blog wise)! Fast forward...

We arrived at the store with a surprisingly large group of families. For every Cars 2 event this month, the kids get a sticker in their Cars passport, pictured here with Zoe's sippy cup:

The latest in non-jetsetting jetsetters' accessories. Wait...what?

What happened the week I was there was a showing of one of the short films from a dvd called Mater's Tall Tales. It was unmistakably cute and actually pretty funny. Parents and kids alike seemed to enjoy it (as well as "cool aunts" such as myself). And who doesn't love hearing little younguns shriek with delight? Then, all the kids got a little kit to put together a cardboard truck, awesome stickers included.

Who knew decorating cardboard could be fun outside of box-fort building?

They weren't even posing. They're just that cute.

The only problem that we found with the activity is how difficult it was, objectively. Elise didn't have any trouble, but a lot of parents had to enlist the aid of the Disney Cast Members in the (forty four step) process. Still, fun was had. And each kid had their own unique sticker design...whether or not it made any aesthetic sense. haha.

After the event, we meandered around. Did you know that Disney has acquired Marvel Comics? It might be bad news in the eyes of some diehard comic fans, but it's good news for adults or kids who like to try on Spiderman masks or pretend to wield mighty Thor's hammer...not like I did that or anything...

Find out about upcoming events near you here. Oh...and did I mention they're free?

It's Like WonderPets...Only They're People!

Arguably some of the creepiest kids-show characters out there.

A Quick Intro
For those of you who aren't inundated in modern children's television, the Wonder Pets are the three animals pictured above. By day, they're an odd set of classroom creatures. But when the kids empty out for the day (or for recess) and the hotline goes off, they begin to sing: "The phone...the phone is ringing. There's an animal in trouble!..." blah blah blah, annoying tune. Once I watched an episode where they were saving some sort of animal that was stuck in something, and they sang "Pushy pushy pushy on your tushy tushy tushy" and Elise and I thoroughly disapproved of the gratuitous bum-talk. That's beside the point. Turns out...there's a real life equivalent of an emergency animal hotline right here in K-Town. I'm sad to say that I found out about this place because of a poor turtle in pain. Maybe he was running from loansharks. Maybe he saved an entire village of ladybugs. We didn't know, but we were ready to help our sluggish friend in any way possible.

Creature-Feature: A Surprise Rescue

The Who:

"Wildcard" Whitteny Stinnett, protector of creatures big and small.

The Aiding and Abetting Author (AKA me)

 

The Illustrious Mr. Shell Turtlestein, on the run from his attacker.

The fine folks here, who I neglected to photograph amidst all the excitement/dying camera battery-ness.

 The What: A daring midnight rescue! Well...almost.
The Where: This journey went from the side of a road, to Starbucks, to Wal Mart, to my apartment, and finally ended at the Small Animal Teaching Hospital on the UT campus.
The When: Last night and the prior, just normal summer evenings.
The Why: When there's an animal in peril, it is time to jump into action!
The How: Well, we just did it. You see...

It all started on a rainy night at Starbucks. We were dead, I was way too caffeined-up, and Whitteny was on her way to come see me. I got a text from said beloved best friend which said "I'm so excited!" I asked why, of course, and she replied: "You'll see!" Now, when Whitteny is being cryptically enthusiastic about something, I begin to worry. There's always that fear in the back of my mind that she's kidnapped a small child ("He was so cute, and his parents looked like bad people!") or maybe adopted a puppy ("He jumped a fence and landed in my lap! That means we're supposed to keep him!"). When she arrived, I could see that she was clutching something wrapped in a shirt. It could've been anything. Maybe a gun...you never know. She's a wild card, that Whitteny. On this occasion, it happened to be a turtle with a gimp leg.

Shell Turtlestein, as we began to affectionately call him, had been limping by the road. Some sort of animal had gotten a hold of him and his leg was severely injured (and, disgustingly enough, being devoured by maggots). She scooped him up, created a makeshift habitat in the back of her Ford Escape, Freddy, and brought him into Starbucks...where we then proceeded to say "Oh my gosh, you cannot have a turtle in here!" After catching quite a bit of flack from my very cynical coworker about how we were probably going to do Shell more harm than good, we took him home. We had very little idea what to do with him, as we are not veterinarians. After a little research, Whitteny discovered that maggots can actually do injuries good, as they feed on necrotic tissue. So for the night, we bought him a big tupperware tub, gave him some water/spinach, and went to sleep. The next night, we were discussing the turtle situation with our college group leader Synda Lopez. Whitteny was afraid that Shell would die before we could afford to take him to the vet. Whitteny tried to clean out the wound, but it was difficult. That's where the human WonderPets come in!

Synda informed us that the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital has a 24-hour emergency vet clinic (along with a plain ol' animal hospital for paying customers). If you find an injured wild animal, you can call 865-947-8387 and inform them of the situation. You can then take the animal to 9407 River Drive, in the Agricultural Center of the UT campus, and drop it off. Not only will they care for the injuries, they will get the animal back to a proper habitat and even call you to tell you how the creature is doing if you so please. I had no idea that such a thing existed, but thanks to them, we got the satisfaction of knowing for sure that we saved Mr. Turtlestein's life and limb!

Signs tell you where to go. I know, they're thinkers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One perk of living in a college town is that there are so many services you can find for free if you really look, because every teacher wants to show their student hands-on demonstrations of their future career. In this case, the meek and kindly animal heroes at the UT College of Veterinary Medicine provides a service for critter-loving good Samaritans like my best friend. Check it out if you come across an animal in need--or if you want to, you know, become a veterinarian.