Guerrilla Art: Mr. and Mr. Disney Wedding Pins

Spotted at the MCO Disney Earport

Spotting this “Mister and Mister” wedding pin set at the MCO Disney Earport store a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t help but wonder. Did someone put the two grooms pins together on one card just to make a point about same-sex marriage? Or was this the aftereffect of a lesbian couple rearranging the pin cards so that they could have the two brides pins? Or perhaps it’s a bit of impromptu performance art?

In any case, it made me smile.

I’m Baaack . . .

I just flew in from Maui, and boy are my arms tired.

Not from flapping my way over the Pacific, of course . . . from scraping the incredible layer of snow and ice off my car, in order to drive my kid to school this morning. Boy am I glad I took an extra vacation day from work today, to ease the jet lag and make today’s logistics a little easier, too. I was tempted to just stay in bed (the 5 hour time difference is kinda kicking my ass), but knew my son really wanted to get back to school to be with his buddies, and perhaps gloat a little bit about how many whales we saw, without ever setting foot on a whale watch. You couldn’t sit on the beach or drive to Lahaina without catching a glimpse of them cavorting in the blue waters.

Pal Mickey opted out of the trip, but Stitch hitched a ride in my backpack. You knew he’d want to visit his adopted home state, right? It was interesting that just a couple days before I left for Maui, a comment on my blog suggested that the movie Lilo and Stitch is nothing like the real Hawaii . . . and this comment was in the back of my mind off-and-on while I was there. (I’ve been visiting a family residence in Maui’s Upcountry area since the early 1970s, so while I cannot claim to be a local I certainly have a deep fondness for and sense of connection to the island.) We didn’t run into any wayward alien experiments, or little girls trying to feed the fish peanut butter sandwiches, but much of the Maui workforce relies on tourism, there are plenty of hula classes available for people of all ages (both Hawaiians and haoles partake, though tourists will most likely learn the hula at fancy hotel events rather than the friendly, more down-to-earth community centers).

I’ll try not to bore you with endless snapshots of my fabulous trip (after all, this blog is allegedly about Disney stuff), but will share a few pictures of, strangely enough, the Kahului airport (larger versions of everything here are linked to from the images, fwiw). First of all, here’s a picture of Winnie the Pooh which you pass right after going through the scanners at airport security, above the chairs where you put your shoes back on. It’s been there for years, and I figure there must be an interesting story behind it, but don’t have a clue what that is.

Also at the Kahului Airport, I snapped a couple pictures of the restroom signs, lest you think that Disney has any monopoly on theme-ing.

And yes, I did get a couple incredulous looks while I was taking those snapshots, but that shouldn’t come as any surprise to those of you who take pictures of crates, restrooms, or trash cans.

I also took a shot of this Disney pins display at the Foodland in Pukalani Terrace.

I first noticed this display last February, and thought at the time that perhaps it was part of a new line of pins to be marketed at various vacation destinations. I haven’t seen these pins pop up anywhere else, though, and if they’re aiming at tourists I think they’d want to be in the touristy tchotske shops, not in the local supermarkets. Anybody seen similar displays elsewhere?

Now, I understand I’ve missed a ton of Disney news. My blogreader has an intimidating 635 unread items, and the bulk of those are from Disney-type blogs. I won’t even attempt to cover all of them here . . . but I suspect I won’t be able to resist chiming in on a few today, before my vacation officially ends tomorrow.