Hi, I'm finally back from the land of no Internet at my mom's house whatsoever! Hopefully I can post enough entries to make up. God knows I've written 'em, but there's a lot of photo uploading to go along with them too....sigh. Love taking the pics, but I sure as hell hate the uploading.

We didn't do a lot today--mostly Mom was doing errands and I was packing up my stuff to go back home. But before leaving, we had to deliver Mauricio and company to the airport. Our plan was to (a) pack our shit into the van, (b) pick them up and take them to the airport, then (c) leave to go to my place. Well, between the amount of crap I had (in my defense, winter clothes take up 2 bags, plus knitting, plus presents), plus Mom hadn't even gotten to packing yet....and upon further reflection, the amount of luggage M and his wife usually bring on trips.... Mom figured we should clean out my stuff and just come back later. This turned out to be a monumentally good idea because SURPRISE, Mauricio hadn't bothered to mention that they were bringing a niece along too. GOOD THING WE BROUGHT THE VAN RATHER THAN THE CAR THEN, HUH?

The niece was very nice, and unlike everyone else, packed relatively light. M and his wife, on the other hand, had 3 suitcases (one for gifts) and a ton of carryons. And M was wearing a hat, scarf (provided by me), a sweatshirt... and shorts and flip-flops. For FLYING TO CHICAGO, WHERE IT SNOWS and is fucking frigid! (I don't care how super neato cool every ex-Chicago resident I know swears it is, I refuse to go anywhere where the seasons are winter and Fourth of July.) It's one thing to dress like an idiot Californian in your shorts and flip-flops in pouring ass rain (though really, that's stupid too), but in SNOW?!? I ragged on him for this no end, saying things like, "Don't you want to keep your toes?" Alas, he was not convinced by logic or cold weather. "I'm on vacation! This is how I dress for vacation!" Look, I've got a hat and a scarf and a sweatshirt on...." SIGH.

It was kind of a giant circus going there. There was Christmas caroling in the car, Mauricio insisting on playing a bit of "Chinese fire drill" by switching seats when we were at an intersection, and just a lot of of hyper people stuffed in among stuff, while it was raining. I was all, "Good luck, no, seriously, GOOD LUCK" to the niece with regards to traveling with them, and she was all, "I am looking forward to taking a nap and having headphones."

We went back home, packed, reloaded, did more errands, left.... but before hitting the real freeway, we went to Pleasanton to bypass some traffic issue and while we were there, looked at a street that Pat (cranky Pat, not Pat with the cute corgi) had recommended on Crellin Road. At first we wondered what she was talking about, but at the end of the street...well, HOLY SHIT THE HOUSES AND DISPLAYS WERE ENORMOUS. Heck, one lady was handing out cookies to folks like us driving by in front of them. Adorable. They had their own radio station at the house too. Worth seeing if you are in the area.

We drove on to my place....eventually.... but Mom wanted to stop at the outlets to buy gifts for people, including the relatives (such as Aunt Susie, who still hasn't contacted us, ahem) at Harry and David. She also wanted to get gifts for her neighbor, Jim. She wanted to get them all gourmet pears. Now, I've never really liked pears in the first place--they seem to have two flavors, rock hard or super mushy and I'm not fond of either--but Jim is a total macho guy (bounty hunter, repo man, karate studio owner, etc., etc....) and I just didn't seem him getting all excited over gourmet pears. Or "make your own soup" packets, which was her other idea. "Why don't you just get him some Moose Munch? That seems like more of his thing," I said. "He's diabetic!" she said. "Then get him the sugar-free Moose Munch. It's right there." "But....he should have fruit!" Between that and her asking me what the other relatives would like, I finally said, "Look, I don't know what ANY of these people would like, ever. I've never gotten it right. Why do you keep asking me? You could ask random people in this store who don't know them and get just as good of answers as I can give." Which is sad, really, considering how long I've known my relatives and to this day I cannot figure out what they would like. Hell, I have a better idea of of what Jim is not that likely to eat compared to them. It's just sad. Then after that we had to hit Joann's to find replacement buttons for a jacket even though they were only going to be open for another 8 minutes.

We are finally here, and I am writing this thing while I still can. And uploading pictures, God help me.

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