Getting stoned

Not me silly, my car. I was driving into Oakland on Saturday and an Expedition threw up a stone, straight into my windshield. Put a nice little hole with radiating cracks on the windshield of my brandspanking new car. Less than 7000 miles. Crap. I wasn't ranting and raving, just pissed that it'd cost me time, effort and money to get it fixed. And not a whole month ago I increased my deductible, so I'm not even sure if I'm covered. Crap.

I had a great weekend. My mom came to town to look at some areas and some properties to try and decide whether she wanted to move here from San Diego. It's a big move, she's lived down there for ages, knows the area, knows the people, loves her house. But "they" have been telling her she needs to move up here to be near my brother and me, in case she needs anything.

Friday night we went to my bro's house for dinner. He cooked his usual elaborate scrumptious meal for us. Yum. I think he not only got his own talent for cuisine, he got mine too. Otherwise I can't understand why I'm so culinarily challenged and he's a gourmet chef. It could be patience; if it takes more than 3 minutes I just can't be bothered. "Vent film for steam" is my favorite cooking instruction.

Saturday morning I took my new Garmin for a run on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail with Sandy and Anita. [Hey, the East Bay Parks District has a new website! I'll have to go check that out when I'm done here!] We didn't know that Pam's group was running there too. Luckily we got there early enough to get parking spaces, it fills up quickly. I don't know what was up with the darn Garmin; I had to fiddle and reprogram it and never really got the hang of what I was supposed to be doing. But it was kind of neat seeing how fast I was running when it was actually doing what it was supposed to. We went just under 12 miles and were only pooped the last couple of miles. I was glad to finish but happy we got the longer miles in.

Afterward Sandy and I made our plans for the Erie Marathon at Presque Isle in September. This will be one of our training marathons for New York. It's supposed to be the flattest marathon in the country, a double loop on Presque Isle. I don't mind double loops, it lets me know what's ahead. There's a firm 6 hour cut-off on this race so I'll have to be serious about my training.

Saturday afternoon was the second class for the Temescal Bag. I'll talk more about that later. Afterward I met my family and a couple of my bro's friends at Dona Tomas for dinner since it's practically next door to Article Pract. Petra came over after she was done with teaching the class and joined us for a mojito. The drinks were really good; if I hadn't been driving I'd have sucked down several of them. The food was delicious. My bro ordered every appetizer on the menu (he does that) and then we each ordered an entree. I got a huitlacoche casserole dish that was wonderful and enjoyed it again for dinner Sunday night since there was way too much to eat after the appetizers.

Sunday we showed my mom some different styles of homes in Rossmoor, a retirement community in west Walnut Creek. We were all completely flabbergasted when she loved them. Loved one of them so much that she's going to put an offer on it. Looks like mom will be moving here!

After lunch at Da Lat I took my mom to the airport to catch her flight. First, Oakland Airport is a freaking mess. Every time I've been there they've changed the configuration of the drives, how to get to the terminals, how to get out, where to drop and pick up people. Sunday was even worse than usual since security was high. Bleecchhh. The extra time it took us to get to the terminal didn't matter much since my mom gets wheeled to the gate by a skycap and thus gets to cut the lines, but what a pain putting up with all the frantic drivers who apparently forgot how to drive the instant they entered airport property.

I got home and was exhausted - I took a nap, well deserved after all the back-and-forthing all weekend. I'm glad Wednesday is a day off, since I didn't do any of the weekend-ish things that need to be done. They'll be middle of the week things this week!