Weekend with my Mother

So --- to quickly update you on my weekend with my mom, here you go:

After taking an Arabic exam last Friday morning (oyyy -- found out today I got an 87% on it because I made some totally brain-dead mistakes...), I raced to the pool, swam 30 minutes of laps, biked home, showered & changed and hopped in my car to drive up to Phoenix to pick up my mother, who was working there on business this past Thursday and Friday.

I navigated my way through downtown Phoenix in my old jalopy, amidst massive road construction (they're building a light rail system there... woo hoo!), and found my mom waiting for me outside her law firm's office. We then headed a couple miles north to my mom's cousin's house (the fabulous Ardy, who I stayed with a couple times last semester when I needed to escape Tucson). We chilled out with Ardy at her house for a bit and then drove across town to Ardy's sister's house, AKA my mom's other cousin Joanne, where we met up with her and my second cousin, Mali, and her husband, Tom, who are both nurses in Phoenix.


This is me with Ardy and Joanne last spring. I like to call this shot "Gulliver and the Lilliputians"...

After a few glasses of wine and several nibbles of cheese, we then moved on (yes, again) to dinner at a place called Randy's, which was a diner adorned with florescent lighting and an elderly clientele, located in a strip mall. (no photo on Google, although apparently there are a lot of men named Randy in Phoenix...)

This is all becoming a bit TMI, isn't it? I'm tiring myself out just typing it.

Long story shorter: Dinner was good. I ordered a BLT, my favorite deli sandwich. Mali and Tom were super nice (I hadn't seen them since their 1978 wedding in Toledo, OH!!!... which I remember because my grandmother couldn't get my socks on straight in my shoes, and I kept taking off my shoes and pulling the socks off until she finally spanked me, and then I must have left them on, but I don't remember being very happy and I recall seething about my uncomfortable socks for much of the wedding).

Anyway, we all stayed up talking until nearly 1 am and reminiscing about family affairs. The next day, my mom, Ardy, Joanne, and I went to breakfast near Ardy's very cute house. Afterwards, my mom and I went our own way, and upon the recommendation of "the cousins," we decided to spend our day shopping at Kierland Commons in Scottsdale.

Here's what it looks like:


I burned a hole in my wallet at BCBG (I'm not a huge fan of their frilly tops, but I love love their skirts, dresses, and pants), where they were having a 50-70% off sale on some very cute items... I got this skirt, but in dark brown with sage and orange trim:

I love it! It is sooo cute...

We then drove back to Tucson (two hours south) later that afternoon, dropped off my mom's mongo bags in my teeny studio, then went out to grab some dinner at Micha's Restaurant, a local Sonoran Mexican spot...


It's nothing fancy, but the food is pretty darn good!

Then we drove over to the unbelievably gigantic "Casa Video" (home of the free mini-bags of popcorn for guest consumption while browsing for videos -- which, by the way, we did not partake in seeing as we had just eaten massive quantities of high calorie enchilada-type meals) and the largest documentary and foreign film collection I've ever seen at a video store...


The Mack Daddy of video stores... who'd guess it was in Tucson?

My mom wanted to get "Walk the Line" again --- she's mildly obsessed with it and has already seen it and owns the audio CD, which she listens to non-stop at home -- so I nixed it.

Instead, I found the greatest new documentary called "A State of Mind," about these two North Korean gymnast girls, which I convinced my mom would be a better selection. (click here to see the film's website)

It's the first ever documentary filmed there, and the New York Times called it "Jaw-dropping... a rare and chilling glimpse into the culture of North Korea."

I highly recommend it... it really was so totally bizarre and wild to know that a country so isolated and so totally and completely unlike here exists on the same planet with us. The coolest part focused on "The Mass Games," which are the North Korean version of the Olympics and which involve thousands of dancers and gymnasts performing in perfect synchronicity...


And, by the way, they really hate us Yankees... but who doesn't?

Anyway, my mom fell asleep after it was over, and I was freakishly engrossed in every "special feature" the DVD offered (ie: interviews with the directors, a photo gallery, etc). My poor little mom... she was propped up at an odd angle on my couch and was so exhausted that her head just flopped over on one of my decorative pillows. So I decided we should probably go to sleep by this point (around 11:3opm).

And that's pretty much it --- took her to the airport the next morning, went to a department luncheon, and pretended to do homework in the afternoon while I actually read PerezHilton and other shite and worthless internet sites for much of the day, did laundry, and snacked.

I also talked for about an hour on the phone with my friend, Paola, who lives in Philly now...

She's fabulously philanthropic and is participating in her 3rd/4th (?!?) Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in NYC this year.

If you get a chance and want to support her pledge (I wanted to give more than I did this year, but I'm poorer than shit right now... forget that I said I bought that BCBG skirt -- it really was for 70% off!!), please please click on her personal Avon Walk homepage right here and help her reach her pledge goal. Time's a tickin'!!!!

It's now past midnight, and I must start going to bed earlier. Where in the hell does my time go?!? Toodles.