I am just now coming out of the fog that was last weekend – good timing since another weekend is upon me.  What on earth did I do last weekend that was so consuming?  Glad you asked.

We moved my father-in-law within his assisted living facility (ALF).  This required my sister-in-law flying in from Oregon for four days.  She had the job of relabeling all of his clothing and linens with his new room number plus various other organizational activities.  In addition, my husband, my son and two other men from our church joined together to do the heavy lifting and toting all of his belongings down the hall and around the corner from his old, north-facing room to his new, east-facing room.  This is more important than you might think due to the fact that he is legally blind and sunlight is such a treat for him.

Now you are probably asking what that has to do with stalking.  Was I stalking some elderly person in the ALF?  Uh, no, of course not.  Who would do such a thing?

And, why wasn’t I helping out with the move?  Because I had the day off.  This was a gift I suggested for myself several times until Bob offered that he thought I might need a little time off from serving his dad.  Great idea!  And, it’s a good thing, too, or else I would not have had time to go stalking my favorite celebrity.   Okay, stay with me and I’ll tell you the story.

I have a dear friend who lives in Seattle who was considerate enough to visit Orlando and stay at a resort near Sea World last weekend.  This was pivotal to my impromptu plan.  I was scheduled to pick up Margot in the early afternoon on Saturday.  We planned lunch and a little light shopping.

Before heading out, I checked my face book and discovered that a friend was at the Ritz day spa in that area and she had an encounter with Paul McCartney.  (Thank you, face book location services.)  He walked past her while she was holding her grandchild and he couldn’t resist reaching out and holding the baby’s hand.  That put things in motion for me.   I jumped in the car, put on my Beatles 1 CD, cranked up I Want to Hold Your Hand, and headed out.

I asked Margot where she would like to eat and she was pretty open.  I asked her if she would like to go to lunch at the Ritz Carlton and stalk Paul McCartney and she was open to that, too.  So, off we went.

I’m a bit of a novice at stalking people, but I thought I’d be pretty good at it.  After all, I am a mother of four children, so I’m used to trying to observe people when they don’t want to be seen or bothered.

There was a lot of security out front, so we figured we were in the right place.  We walked into the lavish lobby, scoped out the place and asked the concierge for the eatery options.  We were calm, cool and collected.  I’m sure nobody thought twice about two middle age ladies popping into the Ritz for lunch on a day that Paul McCartney was staying there.

Yes, that is a cloth cocktail napkin. Fancy!

As we headed to our seats we noticed a gathering of his entourage and my heart leaped a bit at the thought that I was so close to people who may or may not be close to Paul McCartney later on that day.  Does it get any better than that?

Unfortunately, no.  That was as close as we came to seeing him.  We did enjoy our fifty dollar lunch and I got quite excited by the fact that my Diet Coke came to me all fancied up with a linen cocktail napkin.  (So that’s what they mean by putting on the Ritz.)

In conclusion, I didn’t have to help move my father-in-law.  I enjoyed a wonderful yet expensive lunch with my friend, Margot.  We saw a group of people who may or may not have been part of the McCartney entourage.  I drank a fancy Diet Coke on a cloth cocktail napkin.  Oh, and I didn’t get arrested for stalking.  Sweet.