Spring forward/fall back

This is the time of year when I'm thrilled because I get to sleep an hour later. I guess you have to be a night person to really appreciate it.

My mom is in town on business. I'm picking her up in San Mateo tomorrow and driving her down to San Jose. She's staying in San Jose for a few days, and then she's attending a conference in Berkeley. Before I go pick Mom up, I'm going to take Random and Harlee to the vet to get their shots. (Wish me luck grabbing them, especially agile Harlee.)

I had an appointment with the case worker/therapist/whatever on Friday, and as usual, I walked out more frustrated than when I walked in. She spent a long time talking about how important it is to take your meds (because of my manager asking me to stop), when I do take my meds and I handled the situation with my manager asking me to stop exactly right. She did say that I knew how important that it was to take my meds because "of the difference in how I feel". Hello? Taking the meds is trading one set of problems for another set of problems; I have no illusions about that. The whole point of working with my doctor to adjust the meds is to find the right tradeoff. She also was harping on how important it was to tell me doctor if I become depressed. When have I ever not told my doctor what he needs to know? Deep sigh. Next time, I might flat out tell her that I don't think that the sessions are helpful and see what she says. Unfortunately, I need to see her along with my doctor because of Kaiser protocol.

Turn, turn, turn

Today provided a good example of how everything has its own tempo.

The plan of record was to take the cats for their shots, go up to San Mateo to pick up my mom, go to eat in Half Moon Bay, and bring my mom down to San Jose. I did do all those things with delays.

Catching Random and Harlee did indeed prove to be an adventure. My normal method is to calm the cat down by petting him or her, then wrapping him or her in a towel, and sliding him or her into the cat carrier. That method worked on Random with a little bit of struggle. Whenever I so much as touched Harlee with the towel, however, she flew halfway across the room. I tried several times, and all I accomplished was to make her very wary of me. I tried to bribe her into the carrier with catnip treats. Then I tried putting some tuna on a napkin at the very back of the carrier. To my surprise, she went for it. Five-sixths of her was in the carrier, and I gave the last sixth a shove and shut the door. Poor Harlee was hysterical: meowing and carrying on, sticking her paws through the mesh of the door, and so forth.

At that point, catching the cats had taken about an hour. I called my mom right before I left for the vet, and told her that I was more likely to be there at two rather than one o'clock.

The cats behaved beautifully at the vet. The only problem was that we were there over an hour.

When I went home to drop the cats off, I told my mom that I'd be there at two-thirty, which turned out to be the case. She was perfectly calm about the delay; I think that I was more upset about it.

Then we set out to a restaurant in Half Moon Bay that got interesting reviews on the Internet. Highway 92 turned into one of those twisty mountain roads that scare the hell out of me, so I slowed down a lot (and, no doubt, annoyed a lot of people). Then we hit stop-and-go traffic. The restaurant (Half Moon Bay Brewing Company) was worth it though. Good food, good atmosphere, good service, and a great view of the bay.

I decided that I didn't want to take Highway 92 back (in the dark, no less). So I drove Highway 1 north to where it merges with Highway 280 at Daly City. There was a stretch of scary twisty road, but the drive was better than 92. I was so glad to see 280-;)

And then we got to San Jose, my mom visited with the cats, and I dropped her off at her hotel room. A long, but good day.