It's Monday! And my weekend rocked!

This was quite an eventful weekend. Friday was relaxing--I finally got L's cable to work again and spent a lot of time catching up on trash TV-- but the rest of it was very busy.

Mom came up here on Saturday in order to go to a train show. Apparently this is something that people find out, but I come from a train family--I had relatives who worked on railroads--and my dad collected toy trains and had various setups in the living room. There's still a permanent one in there that kind of blocks most of the room. There's various things we used to do growing up that we don't do any more without him, like watch sports, go to games, go to car shows...or for that matter, train shows, though Mom still does a few train-related things with her friends here and there.

Well, going to this show was fun and brought back the good old days. Mom even bought a train. She ran into a guy that Dad was friends with back in the day, who put on a show with his setup that was pretty cool. For those of you wondering what that meant, he had some automated buildings that would shovel ice cubes and logs and barrels onto the train, a magnetic loader to put things on and take them off, etc. I also saw an amazing Lego setup that blew my tiny little Lego-loving mind. Good times. Okay, it sounds silly, but who cares? I bought a bunch of minifigs--I've always wanted to just buy them individually. Who knew you could find a Princess Leia, Endor-style? Not I. I also got a minifig in a rabbit suit, a hippie man, a singer Lego that looked a lot like me, a fairy keychain, a mermaid...Good times, good times.

I briefly drove Mom around the downtown area in my friend's car (to the Farmer's Market and back) in the morning just to prove that yes, she still freaks at my driving even if it's someone else's car. She actually restrained herself from yelling, which was nice, but she still couldn't go 10 seconds without critiquing something. My favorite moment was how she didn't like how I'd parked on a downtown street and wanted me to immediately back out and re-set myself more in the middle...and I was all, THERE'S A BUS BEHIND ME RIGHT NOW. Sheesh. Oh well, wasn't surprised at that. Yes, I know I'm not perfect and there's tons to pick at with me, but can she give it a rest? Sometimes you just gotta say, this isn't the world's best parking job, I had to go in at a weird angle, but at least I'm between the lines and didn't hit anything. I found it pretty funny that at dinner, she complained that a friend of hers picks at her for every little thing, and I said, "Mom, you're acting like Pat on me with driving, do you realize that?"

I also hit the Joann's that day because I am making this giant sweater and despite buying over 300+ yards MORE than I needed to make this sweater...I still ran out of yarn. Problem. Much to my total shock, I managed to find the last ball of yarn in that dye lot, nearly 2 months after buying the rest of it. That's a bloody yarn miracle right there, you guys! So I can finish this thing off...eventually. I also got a few more giant balls to make some more things--I'd like to try some steampunk-looking items.

As for the rest of the night, we went to Leatherby's (yum) and Mom wanted to go shoe shopping. I ended up with silver Doc Marten-esque boots (except these, unlike Docs, haven't given me blisters that last for a month so far) for cheap, and some jungle rain boots. Gorgeous.

On Sunday...I drove to the Bay Area alone for the first time. Mom and I arranged that I'd follow her down in my friend's car. This worked surprisingly well, especially since she wasn't in the car watching me drive and pickpickpicking at me and driving me nutterpants. It was the most help she's actually given me with driving ever, downright miraculous. Anyway, I drove as far as Pleasanton and dropped off the car there, and then got into Mom's so we could go to....Stitches West, a giant yarn conference/shopping area thing. I also discovered that if you buy stuff at 4 different places within the last half hour of the market, the bank thinks your credit card got stolen. Nope, it did not. Fun times...but I got:
(a) three patterns, at least one of which I haven't found for online purchase so far, and two layered skirts that I have been trying to find patterns for.
(b) three hanks of roving--one rainbow, one pastel rainbow and one sparkly pastel. Theme, anyone?
(c) one giant ball of yarn that was 800 yards of blue/purple for $40. FREAKING MIRACLE.
(d) one pack of 10 balls of discontinued yarn for $65. Also highly unlikely pricing there.
So, it was expensive, but fun.

Mauricio met us for dinner in Pleasanton, and I arranged for Mom to escort me as far as the Oakland airport to pick up my friend. Mauricio rode along with me, which turned out to be great because due to traffic, I ended up being way ahead of Mom and following just wasn't going to happen. Mauricio told me where to go--I admit I would have been thrown off to have to change freeways on the LEFT rather than the right--and even told me where the baggage claim area to pick up my friend was, since the signage was lacking. He had me do a runaround to check that out before I parked in the park n' call and he went home with Mom. I would also like to point out that Mauricio said I was perfect on the freeway, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

So, success! L drove home because she wanted to, so I had that off :) We discussed that I will probably drive about half the time if and when we're going down to the Bay Area at the same time, which will probably be next weekend since there's more rock and bead shows going on. Huzzah!

I DID IT MYSELF WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In other news, I am renewing my lease again. Feh. But there it is. Clearly I need to get more driving practice in before I handle a move anyway, I suppose. But it's going better.

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