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October 28, 2002
Happy birthday, Mom!
Today is my mom's birthday -- happy birthday, Mom! She spent the weekend here, after driving through a sleet and snow storm Saturday morning. She arrived here at around noon, a bit frazzled, but in one piece. She brought me a lovely box filled with Halloween treats (ghost and spooky cat marshmallow Peeps, a cute little stuffed bat, a couple of nifty pens, and some tea) and I barely let her get in the door before making her open her birthday presents. I'd bought them a few weeks ago, and was impatient for her to open them, even though Saturday was a bit early. I got her the Chronicles of Narnia in one volume (I have it, and she'd borrowed it, but she really wanted her own copy) and Peter Gabriel's new CD. Once the presents were all opened and admired, we headed out into the rain to get lunch and go shopping. We ate at Friday's, where the cutest little girl in the world flirted with us from the booth behind ours -- she was about 4, and was having great fun peeking at us from around the corner of our booth, then giggling and darting out of sight. Her little brother was equally adorable -- when his mom went off to the bathroom, he sat in his booster seat looking after her with a terribly worried expression. When she came back, he flung his arms around her neck and gave her big, wet kisses. Aw.
Lunch was good, except for cole slaw that tasted inexplicably like fake banana flavoring. It was mostly just nice to get warm and dry, as it was pouring out. Of course, we decided to shop at a strip mall, where we'd be strolling around outside. We went to Target first, where I hunted unsuccessfully for a jacket with a hood. I did get a new wallet, to replace my old one -- the zipper broke last week, and closing it with a rubber band was more trouble than it was worth. I also broke my no-theme-clothing rule and bought a Halloween T-shirt -- black, with three little orange cats on the front. It's very cute, and was only $5. I'm wearing it right now, in fact, but I don't feel like posting photos of my chest right at the moment. Perhaps if you ask nicely...
After Target, we went on the PetSmart, for cat food, a bottle of those catnip-essence bubbles, and a new catnip toy for Smoke. The bubbles were a failure with both Smoke and Cleo -- they'll stare at the bubbles intently, but won't go near them. Alas. The toy, a fake-fur mouse with a velcro pouch for catnip, was well appreciated, though. We stopped to talk to a gorgeous grey parrot -- I've forgotten what kind it was, but it was so pretty -- soft grey feathers, and beautiful blue-grey eyes. It was also $1,300, so we resisted the urge to bring it home and went on to browse Old Navy (where they had no jackets with hoods at all, the bastards) and Bed, Bath and Beyond (which smelled nauseatingly of apple-cinnamon potpourri), and then went on the Michael's to shop for craft-type things. I bought two huge bags of yarn (Lion Brand Homespun -- seven skeins of Tudor, and three of Edwardian. It cost surprisingly little -- $40! I was expecting it to cost close to twice that, and had been saving money accordingly. Now I have enough to keep me busy for ages. I have some gifts to make, plus I need a new scarf for winter. After Michael's, we were thoroughly soggy and tired, and wanted to go home and have tea, so we slogged back through the rain to the car and headed out. We stopped in Malden for groceries, and the people in the store nearly made me homicidal. It was crowded, and in every aisle, someone either stepped in front of me and then stopped short, so I'd run into them, or forcefully shoved me out of the way. I actually found a faint bruise on my arm from one guy who elbowed me aside in the damned meat aisle, and I came close to stuffing a teenage girl into an ice cream freezer when she stepped between me and my mom and then stopped dead, and rolled her eyes at me when I said "Excuse me." Went to check out, intending to write a check, and was remembered, too late, that if you don't have one of the store's cards, you can't write a check. Gah. (A side rant -- why do grocery stores do this? The big chain stores, I mean -- this one rhymes with Flop and Mop. I used to have a card there, but I don't live near one anymore, so I threw the card out ages ago. The grocery store I usually use lets me write a check, and all I have to do is show my drivers license. In fact, every other store I shop in lets me write a check, whether I have their special store-issued card or not. I mean, I know they want to avoid bad checks, but having a reward card doesn't mean my check won't bounce, and it doesn't prove my identity, since I've never seen one of those cards with a photo or a signature on it. It's just stupid, and annoying, and makes me not want to bother shopping there again. End rant.) The cashier told me I couldn't write a check only after all the groceries were rung up, and then seemed to say that, if I didn't have a store card, I couldn't buy groceries there at all -- I'm not sure, because she was doing her best to speak without moving her lips, and I couldn't understand much of what she said. My mom and I had enough cash between us for the groceries, and she took the money, and we left before I had to kill someone.
At home, we ate salad -- we ended up not being very hungry -- and, while Mom was on the phone checking in with the neighbor who was watching her dog, I snuck off to the kitchen to put candles on the birthday cake I'd made for her. I lit the candles in the wrong order (note to self: light the ones on the inside of the cake first, doofus, or else you burn your hand.) I'd found a candle that, when lit, played Happy Birthday -- Mom liked it, and it saved me having to sing. We had cake and wine and watched Trading Spaces, and then went off to bed. I got all confused when I turned the clock back -- it felt very weird to be going to bed when the clock said it was only 10 p.m. on a Saturday, but I did enjoy the extra sleep. Sunday, we got up relatively early and went into Boston to go to the Museum of Fine Arts. We had a nice refreshing walk before the Museum, because I... well... okay, I got us lost. I decided it would be easier to take the Orange Line subway to the Ruggles stop, instead of changing trains at Park Street -- I'd been told the Ruggles stop was right by the Museum. I was obviously told that by people who lie through their teeth. We ended up walking the opposite direction from where we were supposed to be, I think -- and the one person we were able to find to ask directions, a really, really cute jogger, turned out to be from out of town. Sigh. We ended up walking all the way back downtown, until we found the Symphony T stop and were able to get on the correct train. We got lunch at the Museum cafeteria, then step off to fill our brains with culture. We looked at art from Africa and Oceania, wandered through some Victorian furniture, looked at some modern art, and finally found my favorite spot, the Egyptian funereal arts. They've moved everything around since the last time I was there, and some spots were closed for renovation, so it took a while to get there. I love the Egyptian stuff -- I recently spent a Saturday watching specials on King Tut and the Discovery Channel, and wanted to see the exhibit again. It spooks me, being in that area -- I think it's the age of it all. There was a huge stone sarcophagus that seemed to watch us as we walked around, and more mummies than I remembered. We felt oddly guilty, looking at them -- my mom commented that she wondered if it was right, having them there on display. I figure it's better than having them looted or destroyed. After that, we found our way upstairs, and looked at our other favorites, the Impressionists. I know next to nothing about art, but I like Impressionism. That room was crowded, as it always is, so we sat on a bench and people-watched for a while before looking at the paintings. Once we were done with that, we were tired and footsore, so we headed to the gift shop ( a paint-by-numbers calendar for my mom, and a Dr. Seuss one with stickers for me) and then made our way back to the T. We thought about going downtown for a bit, but Mom was tired and not feeling very well by that point, so we just went home instead. We watched Lord of the Rings while we ate dinner, then Angel (for my benefit -- Mom doesn't watch the show) and then went to bed. She left this morning after I went to work -- I came home to a clean kitchen and tidy living room, and a perplexed cat wondering where Mom had gone. It is awfully quiet around here tonight.
Let's see... I meant to write earlier about the Elvis Costello show Lee and I went to last Monday -- it was at the Orpheum, and was excellent. We had terrible seats -- thanks to Clear Channel's members-only presale, all the good seats were taken before the public sale even began. The best I could get were in the balcony, where the seats are the size of postage stamps. Really, the seats are unbelievably cramped. If you're over 5 feet tall, you'd best be able to detach your legs, because they just won't fit in the seats. I may be carrying the lovechild of the guy who was sitting next to me, the seats were so cramped. Also, the audience was lame, and sat perfectly still during the whole show. I thought it was just the balcony, but I heard later that it was everyone, with the exception of one girl in the balcony who danced up a storm the whole time, and Crazy Drunk Concert Guy, who was in the row ahead of Lee and I. He finally got thrown out, because he was being a bit of an ass, and making it really hard for the people behind him to see the stage, much less hear anything. But the show itself? Phenomenal. He played some songs I wasn't expecting to hear (I'll Wear It Proudly made me squeal and bounce around in my seat) and did three encores. Afterward, Lee and I went to Bickford's for greasy omelettes and people-watching, then I went home to sleep. I took Tuesday off because I knew I'd be too tired to go to work -- I slept in, knitted for quite a while, and just relaxed in general.
So, there -- a mammoth entry, all about what I've been doing. How have you all been?
Smoke says hi. She'd like someone to rub her belly while she lolls on her kitty perch, please.
Posted by Mary Ellen at October 28, 2002 10:50 AM