Mother's Day 2012

What do you get the woman for Mother's Day who has just about everything in life? Not something as mundane as flowers. No, you get her her very own Caterpillar excavator, for those times around the yard when she needs to reorganize the yard, especially when she really needs to reorganize the yard. She even liked the fact that it came with its very own step ladder to help her climb into the cab. I would have gone and fully checked it out were it not for the "No Trespassing" sign it was parked near.

My wife and I had gone to Cinemark at Festival Bay to see Aardman's "The Pirates! Band of Misfits." We're both big Aardman fans (Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep) and we were looking forward to Pirates. We loved it.

On the way out I happened to see this little tableau out back of the shopping center were the movie theater is located. With absolutely no traffic (and empty parking lots all about) I stopped, got out with my trusty E-P2, and went over to frame it up and grab a few shots. While I was standing there doing my thing the mall security guard stopped by in his spiffy white Jeep to watch me take my photos. I didn't notice him until I was finished and turned around. My wife said he sat there the whole time and watched me "fiercely" until I was finished. He drove off as I was getting into my car.

What did the little security guard think I was going to do? Steal it? Tie it to the back of the Prius and tow it off? Commit some act of terrorism against this made-in-America engineering marvel? It is getting to the point where the rent-a-cops are more trouble than the regular cops with regards to photography; the regular cops are bad enough as is. I don't go looking for trouble but I truly wish he had tried something. Even my wife has become sensitive to the crazed attitudes towards photographers and photography.

After the late-morning movie I took my wife out to where she wanted to have lunch, and then we drove over to a local TCBY for desert. The yogurt place is part of a shopping center with an Albertsons super grocery store at the corner of Apopka Vineland and Conroy Windermere (love those multiple names). I remember when it was built and its grand opening. We used to shop there when the kids were in elementary school. Now, after nearly 20 years, it's closing its doors. My wife knows me, so she didn't complain when I drove over after we finished our frozen yogurt sundaes and I grabbed a few shots outdoors and in.

While I was inside I quickly looked for any bargains with the brands we use, but I didn't find anything. And I think that's the key to why this store is going out. In spite of the fact it's near three of the richest neighborhoods in Orlando, Windermere, Bay Hill, and Isleworth, the store never carried the brands we and a lot of our friends wanted. And they never seemed to be as price competitive. It didn't use to be this way, but when a Publix opened caddy cornered across from the Albersons about ten years ago, the Albertsons seem to go into decline. It's a huge building. It will be interesting to see what goes in there next, if anything, and how long it stays empty. The other closed Albertsons in the area, at the intersection of Dr. Phillips and Sand Lake Road in The Marketplace, has been closed now nearly four years.

Today was a nice laid-back Mother's Day for everybody involved. My wife got to sample a few of her favorite culinary delights and enjoy a really good non-violent, funny movie which left her in good spirits all day long.