(Now we're on to Wednesday's events.)

I did NOT think that I was going to be allowed out of the house to see Jackie today. Which sounds horrible given what age I am, but when you're out in the sticks with no public transport whatsoever, this can pretty much be done.

Anyway, I was supposed to call her whenever I was leaving and she'd come get me when I got off BART. But I seriously wondered if I'd get to leave at all.

First off, it took two hours for Mom to get dressed, showered, hair styled, et al, and she got up at 9. And she spent most of the next three hours screaming at me.

* Stuff like, "You know that web site you showed me, last-christmas.com? Download all of the 191 songs on it for me, I can't figure out how." So I start doing that, and like a half hour later she comes over saying that no, she actually said she wanted me to play all of them for her. (She wasn't in the room to even hear said songs.) Uh, no, that's NOT what you said. At all. Of course, I am not believed on this.

* Then she's all, "Burn me a copy of this Frankie Valli CD." Okay, fine, I start importing the songs. Then she yells at me because the song importing isn't done yet and shouldn't I have a CD burnt by now? To which I was like, "Uh, give me a blank CD first?" This last one was right around when we were leaving, incidentally.

* I figured, given that it was 10:30-ish and it'd be a long time before I could eat, I should look for something while Mom is off hairstyling. I can't find much of anything without upsetting her entire kitchen (and I get bitched out if I reach for something in the fridge that's not in the very front), so I have crackers and dip.

I later got yelled at for a solid half hour as to why I never thought to make Mom a sandwich.

Well, (1) guess who was going to be home all day, during the lunch period, (b) if I rummaged through her kitchen, she'd yell at me and tell me I was doing it all wrong, and (c) it's not exactly helping her to make a sandwich when she ends up doing it herself because she hates how I do it.

(God, this is ridiculous. But true.)

Oh, boy, does she plan to tattle to my shrink about this, too :P

* Jackie called around eleven to see if I was still coming, and Mom hears me talking in another room and comes in and starts screaming at me. Scared the shit out of Jackie to hear that.

Anyway, I finally got out of there and onto BART at noon, and I seriously thought at any point during the morning she'd just throw a hissy and demand that I stay at home to help her clean. She was obviously pouting that I wasn't going to be home today instead of Thursday.

And um, IF YOU ARE SO OVERLOADED WITH EVERYTHING AND CAN'T DO IT, why on EARTH do you still want to get the fucking house remodeled ASAP? Because let's face it, "get rid of the money so we can get on Medicare" has been thrown out the window because you had three months to get your shit together and couldn't, so why waste the money on that right now? But noooooo, she reallllllly wants to. Yeah, just watch who gets to deal with her meltdowns. And I love how other people offer to help her clean, but she won't take their offers because it has to be me or Mauricio or NOBODY.

*sigh* Okay, thus endeth the "She's driving me crazy" rant for today. More tomorrow, I'm sure.

Anyway, the ride on BART was nice and pleasant and no crazies were aboard, yay. I hadn't been to south SF (which I mix up with real SF uh, all the time. Ditto Sacramento and West Sac, and LA vs. Orange County. Yes, I am a doof) before and it was very cute. Jackie and I swapped presents- she got me a bag and some very amusing office toys, including my own traffic cone. (Remember, it's not a good night if you don't come back with a traffic cone.) She seemed to like the shirts I got her, thank gawd. I have a bitch of a time trying to find the foreign animation stuff she likes.

Anyway, we went out for pizza, looked at photos, and went to the nearest mall. She apparently likes to do the post-Christmas deals, and bought an infinite amount of Christmas cards. I tried on a top I liked at Hot Topic and apparently I'm a damn extra-large in corsets- which they did not have. Argh, and it was BROCADE and $30-ish bucks to boot! In the end, I got books. Big surprise.

I rode back on BART to the Whatever-It's-Called-Now Coliseum stop. This was kind of an iffy thing to do at night, but it turns out they actually had a person manning the station (something you practically never see at BART) and a cop or two hanging around, so nothing happened. Mom and I did get into a screaming fight because she'd parked on the far side of the station that I couldn't even see, and she kept yelling at me for being on the wrong side and couldn't I just magically find her. Whee. I bet I made all the crazies scared when they heard that conversation.

Anyway, I got picked up, and happily, nobody made me go inside and see Dad in the hospital. Mauricio told me later he'd tried to have The Death Conversation with Dad again, and as usual, that got nowhere. He wasn't the most stimulating conversationalist, as he was mostly asleep and passing out if he sat down.

And after that, we picked up his girlfriend at the airport, and Mom nearly got ticketed for (ma)lingering again, and we had to do the airport loop like 4 times. God, I miss just being able to park and go into an airport. It takes a damn hour of doing the driving loop just for your party to come out on the sidewalk.

I have decided that (a) if I ever fucking drive, and (b) I have to pick someone up at the airport, I shall do this:
(a) Person must call me WHEN THEY ARE OUTSIDE ON THE SIDEWALK, period. Not off the plane, not waiting for bags, ON THE SIDEWALK.
(b) I will not leave to get into the airport loop UNTIL I have gotten that phone call, because I am only going through the loop and risking getting ticketed for not speeding through it ONCE, dammit.

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