So yesterday at Whole Earth was fun, as usual. I bought some rocks and a few cheap pendants and a lot of tie-dye--shocker, I know. I got a lovely moon dress, another pair of tie-dyed pants (love the ones I got last year, but they are heavy and these are light) and two pairs of tie-dye leggings. I'm very excited about that--plus they went with the tunic dress I had on yesterday. Other than that, I went around with a coworker at lunch, waited on someone else to meet me and then she decided she was too sick to go, went to a lecture on flower remedies (I'm still not sure on that sort of thing, but darned if those Rescue Remedy pastilles don't work super well at work), and saw a lot of wildlife. Which is to say: only at Whole Earth can you find yourself randomly being waylaid by a box of baby turkeys.

Yeah, seriously, that happened. Some random chick who raises baby turkeys Just Happened to have them in a box in her car and she couldn't leave them there, so.... impromptu bird exhibit happens in the street. And yes, turkeys can fly....at least a little bit. I also saw a pack of baby ducks on the way out too.

Other than that...I was feeling like chicken fried ass this morning. Couldn't stop blowing snot out my nose and my stomach won't stop gurgling in unpleasant ways. However, as I was typing "rescue remedy," it occurred to me to try taking some and...I was already feeling better very quickly. Go figure.

I eventually got up and went to one last tapping session at Whole Earth, which kind of brought things full circle. I attempted to find anything else to buy Mom there (didn't really), ate the world's best falafel, and then left around 2-something. I went home, did the week's grocery shopping and bought Mom an orchid, and eventually left to go to Mom's.

However.

What was up with Mom this weekend: on Friday she spent a good chunk of the day facilitating a surprise for a friend of hers--she picked up the lady's daughter at the airport and brought her to the lady's work. On Saturday she spent the whole day indoors watching a damn Mother's Day marathon on the Hallmark Channel, all alone. And she apparently decided that Saturday is her birthday as well.

What this boiled down to was: she'd decided in her head that (a) SOMEONE was going to throw her a surprise party, and (b) she had decided that we would be doing All These Plans once I arrived there, which would be no later than three p.m. However, she neglected to actually mention any of this information to me, especially the second half of that. And when I finally told her I was getting gas and leaving by 4, she was playing the ol' "don't come, I'm disappointed and no fun right now" pout pout, pay attention to meeeeeeeeeeeeee card. Again. I hate when she does that. I get very tired of her Guess Culture thing, which means instead "Get down here right now, I need attention!"

Every year I brutally disappoint and fail her, every year we have this fight, every year crying ensues, and I end up leaving angry messages on my shrink's voice mail. (My shrink's eventual response was along the lines of "well, she's choosing to set these things up to disappoint herself here, not much you can do about it.") Gee, she wonders why I wasn't flying down like a homing pigeon to get there faster? Well, every fucking year she's making me give up something I love doing TO GO HOME TO GET YELLED AT FOR DISAPPOINTING HER. Gee, I wonder why I didn't want a few extra hours of being yelled at, because being yelled at is inevitable.

But here's the weird thing: once I finally got down there, she had managed to calm herself down-ish. She still made me do fun things like visit the cemetery, mind you, and grumbled that she'd planned on going to X, Y, and Z stores except I didn't get there until late...but she did finally pick a place to be taken out to dinner. And then someone behind me got a noisy "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" song behind us and I just wanted to kill them all. For the first time I attempted the "subtle" act of telling the waiter it's her birthday thing...and other than saying happy birthday, she didn't so much as get a candle on the dessert. So guess how well THAT went. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Let's just say by the end of dinner I was all, "Hey, Mom, want to sample some Rescue Remedy?"

Then we went home to more Hallmark, and she wanted to try on pants and have me decide which ones should be thrown out or not. Then she got mad at me if I said I didn't like any. Then I fell asleep during all of this. Gah.

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