Shopping cows

There are cows at the mall.

The absurdities of real life--stranger than fiction.

Ride through the mall

Today I went to a mall that was so big, it had golf carts going back and forth to take people from one end to the other. Apparently we looked like we needed a ride.

Santa's spare time

In his spare moments, it seems, Santa is a helpful guy--or that's just a guy who stole his outfit. ;)

And here's one of Santa's elves who ate too many carrots or something.

Kid friendly

Oh, the things kids are allowed to do here. Oh what they get away with at the malls.
Here is my small friend climbing on the store displays, talking to the mannequin, and playing with the decorations.

Adults are tolerant and eager to please children. There is a greater value placed on them as people, as an investment, as the future, than I find in the US.

As a child, I remember pushing strollers around in the Gerber factory store whenever I went there. One employee lady didn't want my brother and I to do that. I thought she was mean. I only liked to go the store when the nice lady was working. It was no fun to worry about being yelled at, but how could you know ahead of time who was going to be working any given day?

Well, here, my small friend doesn't have to worry about that. He can get away with anything.
Just see how big his smile is.

Free smoothie

I've spent a lot of time in the mall this week.
It's air conditioned and a good place for an active one year old to run around and be adored by strangers.
There is an outlet of Jus Booster Juice (a Canadian smoothie chain) at the mall. The Very Berry smoothie would keep the active little boy still in his stroller for a good amount of time as we walked around.
Our last evening in the mall, we were walking toward the exit and noticed that a new Jus Booster Juice had opened in another part of the mall. We knew it had just opened because of all the time spent in the mall: we hadn't seen it the day before.
One of the employees approached us and said we were welcome to come and choose anything we liked from the menu for free.
Oh, we told him, we'd already had our smoothie for the day.
"Tomorrow we will be open, ma'am," he replied, "And you will have to pay for it. Today it is free."
Free? Okay, why not? It's a free smoothie.
So we had our Berry Twister and Go Mango blended up and continued our walk to the exit at the other end of the mall.
What a nice gift.
So this is my Kudos to Canada: way to export good business, good service, and excellent fruit smoothies around the world. Go Canada.