mandolin | "Shopped, played chess, went to the lake, freaked Mom out. Full day." (Reply)

Since I will be moving out of the area in about two months, I am suddenly discovering things to do around here. Figures.

Spent Saturday hanging out with Pain, who I haven't seen in months, and with the little one at home we went down to the lakefront in for the Columbia Festival of the Arts - which I just happened to read about in the paper - to do something different than just hanging out and seeing a movie. It's the first time I actually went down to the lakefront, which is sad. We stayed out there for a few hours, and she taught me how to play chess and was mock-irritated that I beat her (despite the fact that she gave me hints and LET me win). We went over to the mall, and I went clothes shopping for the first time since November.

Now I'd told Mom about this with the assumption that we would have Pain's (almost) 3-year-old daughter with us, so I figured I'd be dropping them off at home and then would be in Bel Air in time for dinner. But when I got there, Suffering (Pain's husband) had agreed to watch the little one while we went out. I'd also forgotten to turn my phone back on.

We ate at P.F. Chang's and gave the waiter a hard time. That is, Pain mostly teased him, I don't think we were candidates for

customers_suck. I think he was unsure whether or not she was teasing - I'll bet he had to deal with a lot of insane people. We did leave him a 25% tip, which was doable since my stomach informed me it just wanted lettuce wraps.

When we got home at 8, I suddenly realized that my phone was turned off. I switched it on. 6 new messages. Oh, crap. Mom. I totally forgot about dinner, she didn't know we didn't have the toddler with us, and I usually check in with her quite often.

Poor Mom, knowing that my car had been misbehaving, thought that we had the little one with us and that I'd be home for dinner. She also didn't have the right phone number to call Pain, who'd gotten a new phone. Oops. So I kind of had to book it home after taking Pain back and playing with J for a bit, who I haven't seen since October (and wow, she's gotten big). I was forgiven, and Mom was glad that I was okay, but, um... I do owe her dinner, at least, for this. At least.

Sunday was a graduation party for a kid who I used to babysit. Technically, Matt is my nephew by marriage, but he's never really been obligated to call me Aunt Mandi since he knew me well before Mom and Chris got married. It was fairly nice, I got a lot of tips on fixing up the house and Matt got a lot of money. I felt a little out of place, but I was also a bit tired and distracted by all the stuff I needed to do. Not that Matt and I could relate to one another - I was glad to get out of high school, since I was fairly bored with it and with some of the people in my senior class, but he's going to miss it.

Gave myself a headache this morning; had to reschedule the time to meet with the seller about the house. Normally, an 8 am time would be fine if it wouldn't coincide with one person having to come all the way down the Beltway to get there or the lunch date with Grandma. I need to be home tomorrow afternoon to wait for a service tech to fix something, so I can't use up too many of my credit hours.

*sigh* Two weeks and counting til settlement. Two weeks.

But I'm going to see the Wallflowers with