Mothere's Day stuff...
Yes, I guess first up, I'll wish all the moms out there a Happy (late) Mother's Day. Yes, I'm late on LJ, but I DID remember it for my mom. Granted, as usual, I was a bit last minute in acquiring my gift. You see, I wanted sincerely to do something different this year, as usually when it comes to mom's birthdays, or other events, I'd get her flowers and a card. I thought about to two weeks ago when mom, in a rare display of showing her feelings, mentioned how she's been getting a bit depressed and bored lately because of Jim working so much, not only with his job as a engineer, but the housing inspection business he started up several months back, leaving her alone in the house during the day and evening. She said, "At one point, I got so bored I thought of calling you and seeing if you wanted to do something."
Now, I have to admit, I really wasn't sure how to respond to this. I mean, with anyone else I would have offered sympathy, or maybe some advice, or even related how I felt lonely and depressed a lot as well. But this kind of throw me into a weird space beside, because, like I said, mom's not usually the sharing personal feelings type. Maybe she's mellowing in her advancing years. So, I just kind of nodded and made some general replies to show I was listening.
So, what I decided to do was get her a gift card for a nice restaurant, so Jim would have to take her out sometime, and they could enjoy a night out. I MEANT to get one Friday afternoon after I got done with the dentist, but it slipped my mind. So, after work, I went over to Wally World cause I remember they had gift certifications.
Now, here's where the nuttiness begins. Most of the gift certificate where to restaurants we don't even HAVE around here. I mean, they had cards for Olive Garden, Lone Star, and Chilis, none of which are in town or even in nearby Carbondale. What is the freaking point of stocking cards to chain restaurants that aren't here locally? They had a Denny's and a Outback as well, but I didn't think mom would like to go to those. (I mean, I'm sure Outback would be okay, but I was thinking more of a "sit down" type place, rather than a "keep getting up and getting your food" type of thing.) So, I called Target, they didn't have ANY restaurant gift certificates, so I wasn't sure what to do.
I saw one for Red Lobster, and I knew that, although my mom liked shrimp, I wasn't sure how big she was into other types of sea food. So, I did some more checking and eventually settled on a gift card for Applebees.
She seemed to like it, so I guess I did okay.