Today, I got some good karma. It was "take grandma (aka, my mom) to Robinsons day".

First, we dropped the kidlet off at one end of the shopping mall, so she could go to the Gap and Sam Goody's with her Christmas gift certificates. Then, grandma and I drove across the boulevard to where Robinsons is.

Grandma has a blue disabled card she can hang from the rear-view mirror, and get one of those cool, close up parking spots. She let me borrow it so I figured we were good to go for a great parking spot. WRONG! This is a gigantic shopping mall. One of the biggest in the country, I might add. I counted only eight handicapped parking spots in the whole effing parking lot - and, of course, those were all taken. So, I pulled up to the front of the mall and let grandma hobble out of the Geo. People were stopped in back of us, cranky people - because, it takes grandma a good, long time to get her feeble self out of the car. I tell her to wait on the bench, and I'll be right back. Yeah. Right. I couldn't find a spot to park that wasn't half a mile away. So, I hoofed it across the parking lot and made it back before she forgot who I was.

Grandma and I went up to the fragrance bar, because she wanted to purchase something from Estee Lauder and get the gift with purchase. She also wanted to get me a bottle of fragrance, 'cause I'm so nice... However, she wanted the fragrance to be Estee Lauder's (I really, really don't like Estee Lauder stuff). She really wanted to get me something, and I didn't want to refuse - so I settled on Dazzling (?) the Silver, which is actually nice smelling - kind of reminds me of Sunflowers (except Sunflowers isn't $60 a bottle!). Afterwards, we hobbled back out to the parking area, and grandma sat on a bench while I ran back to the car, drove out the parking lot, onto the boulevard - narrowly escaping three auto accidents - drove back into the mall driveway so I could be going the right direction for grandma to get back into the Geo. Whew! We picked up the kidlet (who by this time, had purchased a lovely bag and a video) and then headed over to the supermarket, so grandma could pick up a few groceries. Thank all that is holy - Albertson's has a Starbucks inside. I so needed the chocolate/coffee fix after the mall...

We got grandma settled just in time for the skies to open and the rain to pour down.

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My brother and my mother have tentatively decided to move in together, and rent a 3-bedroom apartment. I was so trying to be neutral - yet supportive, when all the while, I was jumping up and down in my head, shouting with joy! If those two live together, I no longer have to worry about her falling down at 3 in the morning (which did happen just last week). I don't have to worry about her tumbling down the stairs, or slipping in the shower and breaking a hip - without being discovered for a day or so... She'll have her beloved son and his two kids to keep her company. And, my brother will have a clean house (her housekeeper will come too, of course) and his kids will have grandma at home to stay with when he wants to go on a date. And, best of all, I won't have to feel the horrible guilt of deciding my first priority is to my own child, and my child's security and happiness in living here, in her old, familiar neighborhood, with all its memories and natural beauty - which precludes me from dropping everything that is "my" life, in order to move into a two-bedroom apartment on some ground floor somewhere with my mother. I hope this works out between my brother and my mother. This could be the first good night's sleep I have been able to get for a few months now.

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Bird stuff:

This afternoon, I'm just out of the shower, when I hear a hawk screeching. I run around, quickly throwing on clothes and dash out to the balcony. There is the male hawk being picked on by two crows. They're circling above the Little League field and he's screeching at them. Pretty soon, his gal-pal shows up and now all four of them are circling, higher and higher. The two couples split up - one crow and one hawk/one crow and one hawk. I finally lost them. They were too high up to see with my cheap-assed binoculars.

A few minutes ago, the kidlet called me out to the balcony. There was a "screaming" noise coming from the gully. Yes there was. Somehow, a peacock has made its way down from Palos Verdes, and it's just calling and calling for a friend in the night...

SLAY ON BUFFY!!

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