And Now For Something Completely Different

No, not really. Same old, same old I'm afraid.

It's nail day and you know what that means. Hillsborough Wal-mart.
My favorite.

We start off on the wrong foot: out of the twenty-four cola beverages we bought yesterday, six cans are scattered around the room, empty. Two more are open and completely full, I almost spill both of them; one of them is sitting on some folded clothes.
An empty plastic flower pot is in the bathroom, folded clothes on the shower seat, a washcloth is folded up inside a vase, VHS tapes and CD's are on her bed, trash is not in the trash can.
Sometimes her scrambled brain weirdness just gets to me and pisses me off, horrible evil person that I am.

Because I am apparently a glutton for punishment, we do an entire change of clothes, which takes about twenty minutes - since I can't Find. Any. PANTS!
A simple - take your shoes off - becomes a five minute exercise in patience. (do NOT say it.)
Finally, I find her linen pants folded up on the bed. I swear I looked on the bed three times.

She sat in the chair saying she didn't know anything. I agreed with her.
I am mean like that sometimes.

On the way to WM she does not say a word, she's in a snit about having to put on clean clothes, I guess. Whatever.
She perks up as she sees the building.
As I make a hard left turn into a shady parking space, (the humidity has backed off, but it's still in the 90's), I hear a thud, thud, thud. First I think a tree branch is hitting the top of the car, but the branches are not that low.

No job and expensive car repairs. Whoo-hoo!

I had asked CP if she wanted to meet for lunch since I'm in her territory. She met me at WM and while Mom was occupied with her nails, we did 360's in the parking lot trying to replicate the thud sound. To no avail, thank god.
We collected Mom and headed to a great restaurant in Hillsborough, the Gulf Rim Cafe.

CP got a good laugh out of watching me try to parallel park, (I can't even spell it!), then I gave up and did a drive through.

Mom and CP had the Gulf Rim Cobb Salad. I had the burger, very good.
Mom was totally herself during lunch. Said all sorts of witty things. Tried to eat her salad with her knife. CP got to witness the stink-eye. Lucky her.

To make our - or maybe just my - lunch even more enjoyable, there was an attractive man wearing a utilikilt. (CP remembered Mom said "He might fall out.")
Seriously works for me. I need to move to Scotland - or Hillsborough.


Do try the Margarita Pie at Gulf Rim. Really good, key limish + tequila.
Hells yea.

We stopped next door at Matthew's Chocolates. Tried the Citrus Jasmine, Cardamom, and Peach Tea Truffles. Citrus was favorite, then Peach. Cardamon was like eating perfume.
Mom got a coconut oatmeal cookie the size of her head.

We stopped at a small vintage store on the way back to the car. Mom was hysterical over some of the mannequin heads, should have taken a picture. We tried on hats.

This one is cute, I like the color and the veil.















The red one looks kinda like the bag of ice (?) used in cartoons
when someone has a hangover.

From these pictures it appears that this was as much fun as a medical experiment, but she was having a good time, honest.

We took our leave of CP and drove around Hillsborough.
Of a house for sale, she said, "There's an empty one, let's take it."

I don't know where I am, I said at one point in our drive.
"It's alright. We're right here."

I guess we are.