(no subject)

[elfs]

WTF

The next day, we sent the kids off with the grandparents, who had determined to take them to Universal Studios. Whoa, this is looking more and more like a vacation every day. That left Omaha and I at loose ends.

We drove around to more of her haunts, which was actually kinda fun. She was a volunteer at the aquarium, mostly helping with fundraising but had fond memories of the facilities itself. The aquarium is doing a big round with a new movie about one of its own dolphins, a tailless soul named Winter about whom they're making a movie (think Day of the Dolphin meets Benji). The movie apparently features fitting the dolphin with an artificial tail, so it's kinda cool, and it stars Kris Kristofferson and Morgan Freeman as avunculars, and the soundtrack is cheesy as heck.

We stopped at a mall because we were bored. Westfield Mall Operators makes every mall seem the same: the inside of the Clearwater Mall was exactly the same colors and architecture as Southcenter mall. The most surreal thing we saw there was "The Middle Earth Olive Oil Company," which just seemed like a marketing disaster. There was also a hair color place that used black and white posters to emphasize their use of color.

The Church of Scientology.

We tried to find a restaurant, so we stopped in downtown. Downtown Clearwater is headquarters to the Church of Scientology, and it is completely overrun with men and women, always walking in pairs, all wearing blazing white dress shirts and black slacks. The shirts all have logos on them that indicate their ranks within the organization. I saw over 50 people walk by in the half hour we were there, and never did I see anyone walking with someone from a different ranking.

If you want to see genuine, pod-people crazy, that's it in spades. We couldn't find a restaurant there, so we went back to the beach.

After a beachside lunch, we swam for hours. It's hard not to love the beach, especially when you've grown up in the water. I was comfortable with my eyes open underwater, a fact which had annoyed my girls days before.

Dinner with Omaha was at a place called The Crab Shack, and it featured mostly seafood. The best plate, although I didn't get it, was the frog legs & alligator bites. Omaha got the blue crab special, a local delicacy with a decidely unusual flavor. The last time I was in a ramshackle bar and Heart's Crazy For You was playing on the jukebox, it was just before the aliens arrived. The cole slaw was really good, the potato salad excellent, salted and with a hint of bacon.