On Sunday, Mom came up to do Apple Hill with me. It was as good as usual--got all the delicious apples, got other fruits, taste tested our traditional foods of apple donuts, apple cream cheese tarts, apple shake, cobbler, cider, etc. Much to my amazement...just like the previous day, all I bought was food or stuff for other people. I didn't get a darned thing for myself at all. Very, very strange for me.... I should enjoy this, but knowing me that just means I'll buy a bunch of things next weekend. Since I plan on doing a lot of other things then, that seems likely.

Mom has been in a nitpicky mood and it's irritating. Five minutes in my apartment and she's bitching about everything she sees. And she has been really super harping on the same topics over and over and over again in the last few weeks:
(a) Things her friend Pat has been doing to annoy her.
(b) Things Mauricio has been doing to annoy her.
(c) Things her doofus ex did to annoy her on their date, still.

Literally, she is repeating the same shit over and over and over again on these people. Pat won't stop nagging Mom to get her hair cut like a butch lesbian (sorry, but that is apparently Pat's ideal haircut and I'm starting to think maybe she's trying to tell us something with her insistence on it being THE only haircut allowed on older women). Mauricio is flaky about going to work. Mom's doofus ex didn't dress up on their date and he kept bitching about people the entire time.....but she's still not totally over him even though she doesn't like him, because he's all there is. Greaaaaaaaat. So much for thinking she was over him.

I am really tired of hearing this stuff, and by the time I hit dinner (note: my shrink said she would have started yelling a lot sooner than before dinner if she were me), I flat out said that I was very tired of hearing about these people and hearing the same things again and again, and can we talk about something else, please? ANYTHING else? This turned out to be incredibly difficult, as:

(a) most topics that didn't involve bitching about someone she knew meant that she ran out of conversation after about 15 seconds. "What are you watching on TV lately?" and "What's going on in the book you're reading?", for example. I actually resorted to asking her what the OTHER people in her life that annoy her were up to, and then wished I hadn't, but that got more steam out of her.
(b) asking her questions like, "What do you think about at night?" (because at this point I think she must just sit around at night dwelling on everything everyone did to annoy her) and "What would you dress up as for Halloween?" got responses like "I have no idea" and "I don't think at night, I make sure the TV is on until I fall asleep."
(c) she kept literally circling back to those three people at every possible opportunity.

Jeebus H. Christ. I know I'm a whiner, but....you know, I honestly do not bitch this much about people who are my friends. Sure, a few people have annoying traits here and there, but I just don't have enough steam to "vent" about them for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. It just feels mean. And honestly, if someone is THAT BAD, why are you still friends with them? I do not get this behavior.

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