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Yesterday Mom came into town so I could drive her to San Marcos (about 30 miles south of Austin) to get hearing aids. Apparently no one in Bryan sells hearing aids nearly as cheaply. Anyway, she was going to get my brother to do it, and when he grumbled about taking time off from work, I asked if it wouldn't be easier for me to do it since I wasn't working that day anyway. Mom protested because Bro lives in south Austin and I live north, almost outside of Austin- but I told her if she was driving all the way from Bryan anyway that it wasn't that much farther. She agreed.
She had a hard time getting here- she has lived in small towns since about 1982 and gets the piss scared out of her when she has to do things like merge onto freeways while going 60-70 mph. So she arrived around 8:30am a bit shaken. She'd also picked up kolaches at a little place in Caldwell. This begun my disappointing food day- I'd told her I liked sausage, but I'm used to sausage kolaches having those little linky things in them. These were those big ground-up Jimmy Dean patty things. They were basically McDonald's sausage and biscuit. Blech.
So we hop on the road and head down to SM. Arrive, they test her hearing, then squirt goo in her ears, I call a friend and we agree to meet for lunch. They remove the goo, and we're outta there for a couple of hours. So we go to where my friend lives. This is Danny, who lived in the same crappy efficiency apartments I lived in when I was in college 150 years ago. He has a dog that looks like a miniature dobie/rottweiler who is named Kirby. Kirby is a sweet little dog, and we took a brief stroll around the neighborhood while Danny emptied Kirby. He pointed out the houses and told us little bits of gossip about his neighbors. One place was painted pale yellow with dark green trim, he called this 'the Crayola house.' Tee hee!
Then we had massive indecision hemorrhage about what to do for lunch, and finally, frustrated, I said 'let's have Italian!' so I have only myself to blame. We went to this place that was nearby. Mom ordered Italian salad, and got a regular salad with marinara sauce dumped on it. I ordered linguini carbonara- which typically comes with alfredo sauce, bacon, prosciutto, peas, and mushrooms. Well, it was made with that awful sauce you get from a jar that bears no resemblance to an actual dairy product, no bacon, canned mushrooms, canned peas which IMHO are Satan's testicles, and little identical half-circles of ham that looked like they came out of a Luncheables package. Aargh! But, the company was good so that more than made up for it. We talked about local politics and old soda formulas and everything else.
Then Mom and I had to go back for a fitting, while Danny went for a haircut appointment. They stuck the plastic forms minus all the electronic guts in her ears to see if they fit, which took about 5 minutes, then we were free for another hour. We went to this cool shop called the Paper Bear, which had jewelry, candles, figurines, toys, posters, and tons of other neat stuff. The shop is huge. I wasn't in a 'buy lotsa stuff' sort of mood, but just wanted to look around. This drives Mom mad, because she has a tendency to show her love materially. I mean, she tells me she loves me all the time, but she just has to always be giving me stuff, which I think has lead to some pretty bad habits on my part (must! have! more! trinkets!) and I'm always trying to get her to quit. I also checked out a pagany store that was next door. It was a bit sparse, but there was this cute little standard-issue store cat that was mostly black and very friendly. When I crouched down to look at something on a low shelf, she jumped up on my shoulders. She balanced there as I walked around the store, purring and chewing on my jewelry. She also chewed on my fingers- not hard, but got my index finger almost to the back of her throat and gnawed away. That was weird. She did that for a good while, then saw a bug and leaped after it.
I would have liked to hook up with Danny again, but Mom wanted to get back so she could head home before it got dark. So I called him and promised him we'd come down again some time when we had more time to spend. Mom had her hearing aids put in, and they worked fine. The ride back went quickly and I showed her another way to my house that didn't involve so much merging- she liked it much better. Then she took off.
I kind of crashed after that. I've been feeling an odd malaise for the past couple of days- I lounged around in bed 'til almost 1pm today too, and haven't felt like doing anything for the last several evenings. I've just been phlegmy and lethargic. I'm not sure why; I think it might be molds, which are bad right now and one of my worst allergies. But I haven't had the watery eyes and sneezing that I usually get with allergies... who knows.
Today has been sort of slow. I didn't feel well this morning, but I managed to finally get around to some exercise and cleaning... then went to the New Moon event, a dinner at a Mexican food place. My appetite hasn't been affected by whatever I have at all- but my food luck is still bad. What kind of sauce would you put on veggie spinach-mushroom enchiladas? Not a thick, tomatoey salsa, dammit. I think living with Eric is turning me into some kind of food snob. But again, the company was excellent and I enjoyed myself.
She had a hard time getting here- she has lived in small towns since about 1982 and gets the piss scared out of her when she has to do things like merge onto freeways while going 60-70 mph. So she arrived around 8:30am a bit shaken. She'd also picked up kolaches at a little place in Caldwell. This begun my disappointing food day- I'd told her I liked sausage, but I'm used to sausage kolaches having those little linky things in them. These were those big ground-up Jimmy Dean patty things. They were basically McDonald's sausage and biscuit. Blech.
So we hop on the road and head down to SM. Arrive, they test her hearing, then squirt goo in her ears, I call a friend and we agree to meet for lunch. They remove the goo, and we're outta there for a couple of hours. So we go to where my friend lives. This is Danny, who lived in the same crappy efficiency apartments I lived in when I was in college 150 years ago. He has a dog that looks like a miniature dobie/rottweiler who is named Kirby. Kirby is a sweet little dog, and we took a brief stroll around the neighborhood while Danny emptied Kirby. He pointed out the houses and told us little bits of gossip about his neighbors. One place was painted pale yellow with dark green trim, he called this 'the Crayola house.' Tee hee!
Then we had massive indecision hemorrhage about what to do for lunch, and finally, frustrated, I said 'let's have Italian!' so I have only myself to blame. We went to this place that was nearby. Mom ordered Italian salad, and got a regular salad with marinara sauce dumped on it. I ordered linguini carbonara- which typically comes with alfredo sauce, bacon, prosciutto, peas, and mushrooms. Well, it was made with that awful sauce you get from a jar that bears no resemblance to an actual dairy product, no bacon, canned mushrooms, canned peas which IMHO are Satan's testicles, and little identical half-circles of ham that looked like they came out of a Luncheables package. Aargh! But, the company was good so that more than made up for it. We talked about local politics and old soda formulas and everything else.
Then Mom and I had to go back for a fitting, while Danny went for a haircut appointment. They stuck the plastic forms minus all the electronic guts in her ears to see if they fit, which took about 5 minutes, then we were free for another hour. We went to this cool shop called the Paper Bear, which had jewelry, candles, figurines, toys, posters, and tons of other neat stuff. The shop is huge. I wasn't in a 'buy lotsa stuff' sort of mood, but just wanted to look around. This drives Mom mad, because she has a tendency to show her love materially. I mean, she tells me she loves me all the time, but she just has to always be giving me stuff, which I think has lead to some pretty bad habits on my part (must! have! more! trinkets!) and I'm always trying to get her to quit. I also checked out a pagany store that was next door. It was a bit sparse, but there was this cute little standard-issue store cat that was mostly black and very friendly. When I crouched down to look at something on a low shelf, she jumped up on my shoulders. She balanced there as I walked around the store, purring and chewing on my jewelry. She also chewed on my fingers- not hard, but got my index finger almost to the back of her throat and gnawed away. That was weird. She did that for a good while, then saw a bug and leaped after it.
I would have liked to hook up with Danny again, but Mom wanted to get back so she could head home before it got dark. So I called him and promised him we'd come down again some time when we had more time to spend. Mom had her hearing aids put in, and they worked fine. The ride back went quickly and I showed her another way to my house that didn't involve so much merging- she liked it much better. Then she took off.
I kind of crashed after that. I've been feeling an odd malaise for the past couple of days- I lounged around in bed 'til almost 1pm today too, and haven't felt like doing anything for the last several evenings. I've just been phlegmy and lethargic. I'm not sure why; I think it might be molds, which are bad right now and one of my worst allergies. But I haven't had the watery eyes and sneezing that I usually get with allergies... who knows.
Today has been sort of slow. I didn't feel well this morning, but I managed to finally get around to some exercise and cleaning... then went to the New Moon event, a dinner at a Mexican food place. My appetite hasn't been affected by whatever I have at all- but my food luck is still bad. What kind of sauce would you put on veggie spinach-mushroom enchiladas? Not a thick, tomatoey salsa, dammit. I think living with Eric is turning me into some kind of food snob. But again, the company was excellent and I enjoyed myself.
