Today is Matt's birthday! Everyone wish him a happy happy!

My trip was pretty good. My flights were all mostly on-time (except the very first one, but since I had a 2-hour layover, I had a decent buffer to absorb it) and the roads were not obscenely crazy.

Grandmom is losing her memory, but right now it's just short-term memory. She'll ask a question, nod thoughtfully at the answer, and then ask it again. Or tell the same story forty-seven times in a row. She still knows faces and names and where she lives and all that.

She was thrilled that I was there, which was the point.

We almost missed each other at the airport -- my flight came in much earlier than scheduled, so I went down to the baggage area to wait for her. Then she and her friend arrived a bit earlier than the flight was scheduled, and they went to the escalator to try to catch me coming down. So we both wandered around in the wrong spots for a while before we finally met up.

Grandmom asked me about thirty times, Tuesday evening, if I wouldn't rather get a little turkey and cook it than eat downstairs in the dining hall. I reassured her each time that the hall would be perfectly fine. Festive! And social! And we wouldn't have to do any cooking or clean-up!

I thought that was her memory acting up, but it might've just been one of her usual passive-aggressive tricks of asking until she gets the Right Answer, because when I came up for breakfast Wednesday morning, she was drawing up her grocery list. "I thought we'd pick up a little turkey and eat up here. That way we'll have some leftovers to minch on." No, I didn't typo the word "munch." She really did say "minch." In fact, she said it about eight thousand times. I couldn't tell if she was feeling the need to rationalize actually taking a stand, or if she had just forgotten having said it before.

My parents turned up shortly after breakfast, so they drove us to the commisary instead of us having to take the bus, and we bought groceries, and then went back to Grandmom's for lunch.

After lunch, we mobilized again, and went down to the SAS shoe store. It's too bad their website is so sparse; it's a fantastic store. In addition to shoes, they have a little general store with fun kitschy stuff, and a candy store, and a concession stand where the non-shoppers can wait. They sell a bag of fresh-popped popcorn for five cents, and a bottle of Coke for 10, or you can get hot honey-roasted peanuts for a quarter, and a fresh-baked cookie for fifteen cents. After we'd shopped, we all sat and ate some popcorn and listened to Grandmom complain for the ninetieth time that the peanuts used to be free, and tell us how Grandad had always headed straight for the tables without even looking at the shoes.

I bought a new pair of shoes, and I almost bought a purse, except that it was kind of expensive, and I couldn't quite justify it in my mind. I let it be known that it would be a lovely Christmas present, however.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, of course. I watched the Macy's parade and gently shouldered Grandmom out of the way and took over about 90% of the cooking. Mostly because if I'd let her do it all her way, it would have ended up mostly inedible. We had the world's tiniest little turkey -- just over 7 pounds, barely bigger than a chicken -- and she was talking about putting it in the oven at 9am, for a dinnertime of 5.

So she helped me peel potatoes, and made the apple salad, and helped me find utensils I needed, and I did the rest.

We had a friend of hers up to join us who would have been all alone otherwise. Marguerite was pleased to see me; I think the last time we'd met in person, I was in high school. (She said I was 11 or 12, but I've noticed a tendency to underestimate ages. Grandmom insisted that the servers in the dining room were all high school students, though most of them were clearly in their 20s.)

Travel was heavier Friday than I'd expected, but not horrible. Grandmom and my folks were expecting heavy road-traffic (for the after-Thanksgiving sales) and mistrustful of the very tiny San Antonio Airport's ability to process people efficiently, with the end result that I was completely through security and ready to board my plane a good two and a half hours before it was due to take off.

At least I made some good headway in my book.

Matt and Penny seemed happy to see me when they picked me up at the airport. Penny flung into my arms and said, "Mommy! Mommy! I missed you so much!" and kissed me, which was really adorable and wonderful. Then she was excited and chatty about how she'd got to come to the airport! To get Mommy! At the airport!

We had a nice, calm weekend, for the most part. I got up with Penny both Saturday and Sunday, since Matt hadn't been able to sleep in Thursday or Friday. We floated around the house and relaxed, and put up the Christmas tree, and let Penny help decorate it. Sunday I made another Thanksgiving-style dinner, for Matt's birthday. (Yes, his birthday is today, but I wouldn't have been able to roast a turkey today. Try to keep up.)

I'm kind of tired today, despite having been on vacation for most of the last week, and my feet and legs ache from all the standing and walking. But I'm glad I went to visit Grandmom, and I had a good time.

Now I'll need to knuckle under and do some serious work before the Christmas holiday hits.

Heh. Hehehe. Heh.

"Work."

This morning as we were getting into the cars to leave, a pair of cats came up to Matt.

They were both tabby-striped, one slightly larger than the other. They walked right up to Matt when he talked to them. He picked them up, and they started purring. He brought them around to the car door so Penny could pet them, and then tried to put them down.

The larger one followed him while he went to look to see who they might belong to. The smaller one tangled itself around my ankles. She stood directly on my shoes to avoid the wet grass. She purred frantically when I picked her up.

The larger cat (I'd say "he", but I didn't check) followed Matt back to the cars. The smaller followed me after I put her down.

They were collarless, and I was so very tempted to suggest we keep them... But. They had the sleek fur, bright eyes, and solid builds indicative of animals well cared-for and regularly fed. They were affectionate and well-socialized, and I'm certain they belong to someone nearby who would be devastated to lose them.

But now I want a cat even more.

Hey, I thought, I'll download the pictures from my camera and then I can include the Thanksgiving shot, and the one I took last night of Matt and Penny blowing out the candles on his pie!

So I dug out my camera and plugged it in and... nothing.

Unplugged it and checked. Memory card error.

Took the card out and put it back in. Memory card error.

Tried again. Memory card error.

Changed from playback to picture-taking mode. Memory card error.

This is the new memory card I bought just before going to Cancun. So it's less than six months old.

Luckily, I'd downloaded the Thanksgiving pictures to my Mac over the weekend. So the only picture I actually lost is the one of Matt and Penny blowing out candles.

I'm beginning to think the camera itself is defective. Or that there's something about the camera connected to my work computer that causes the cards to blow out occasionally.

Something else to add to my wishlist, I guess. And I'll have to be extra-careful to download all my Christmas pictures ASAP in the meantime. To my Mac. Especially since I refuse to shell out for yet another card, so I'll be using my reduced-capacity old card, or the eensy-weency card that came with it in the first place.

Bah. Humbug.

--Liz