Every time I actually make it onto the 9:30 offshore call, the guy in India I need to talk to can't make it. No doubt he was on the line the day of my procedure when I was watching Supernatural on painkillers, but now? On leave, or some silliness like that. Feh.

KBug chose a lovely dress!

MOB dresses are depressing. Why are they all so drab? I know it is her day and all that, but the dresses they had were blech.

Yeah, you know we can find you something better.

The wedding is over a year away. I'll try not to flood y'all with wedding talk between now and then.

Pfft. Have you met us?

With the corset type back, she is thinking of replacing the white ribbon with a red ribbon.

Ooo, I like. That dress will look incredible on her!

That is a beautiful dress! Congrats to K-Bug.

Really lovely dress.

GORGEOUS dress! And yeah, no traditional MOB dress for you-- you can do SO much better.

There shouldn't be such a thing as a Mother of the Bride dress. Just..you know...whatever the mother of the bride chooses to wear to the wedding.

Thanks y'all. We are both still kinda in shock. The dress fit the style she has been talking about for the last year and the price was within what I could afford, so it all just came together unexpectedly.

I have lots of time to find a dress for me.

Perhaps I need to visit buffistas instead of flying here and there for work. It has been a while since I've been to the West Coast....

Kill two birds with one stone, Maria--come visit MEEEEE!!! I'm on the West Coast now!!!

And yay for the internet, so we can all see the dress RIGHT NOW! How awesome is that?? Though I'm amused and reminded of chatting with Suela about how 30 years from now we'll all have internet implants in our heads and still be chatting on b.org, creakily...

I am home.

Mr. Cow met me at the Emeryville station with Burrito and cookie and the A's game on.

The A's decided to celebrate my return with their fourth error of the game and proceeded to cough up the lead. Thanks team! Nice job with the winning-through-defense approach.

P-Cow's car is not unlike riding through Space Mountain. It has doohickeys and gadgetry.

So he swept me up in his magic chariot and I asked him whether he was married yet.

But then I realized he was having an important relationship with his car.

He came upstairs when I got home and started playing with Matilda and they invented a new game on the spot and she was laughing like a drain.

I'm so very weary and stress-addled. It was lovely to be ferried home. All praise the Cow.

Between 11am and 2:15pm today I did the following:

• made the decision to give up the car

• got boxes and tape to collect car stuff

• walked the 9 blocks to the hotel to get my suitcase and walked back

• cleaned out the car into three boxes, plus car seat.

• sold the car and transferred the title to some guy at Pep Boys

• Got in a cab and took my load of stuff to Greyhound

• Where they told me the bus was late and would miss its connection in Fresno. So there was no point taking it since I'd just be stuck overnight in Fresno.

• Ferried my four boxes of stuff from the Greyhound station to the post office. Which was tricky because I had to leave unattended boxes in the skeevy station, and could only take one box at a time because I dare not leave my suitcase (with laptop inside) alone.

• Mailed three boxes of stuff back home

• Walked back to the hotel, now only carrying my suitcase and Matilda's car seat.

• Had the hotel call me a cab.

• Arrived at Amtrak and bought a ticket to SF.

Then I sat down.

So the Greyhound delay was actually a blessing because it didn't cost much more to go home on Amtrak and it was a much more pleasant ride and I got to buy beer and cocktails on the train.

That's a lovely dress, Suzi!

We want the play-by-play, P-C. This good deed will not go undocumented.

So demanding!

I went to Cactus and picked up a chicken burrito and a big chocolate chip cookie, and then I drove to the train station to wait. I got there around 9:30, but it was good that I was early because very soon, I heard a train whistle and at 9:37, I got a call from Hec.

I switched to the A's game and rolled down the windows. I pulled up to the station entrance and popped the trunk. He gave me a hug and thanked me. "This is all that's left of my car!" he said as he picked up Matilda's carseat and tried to finagle it over the cargo net and into the trunk. I pulled the net back and moved the carseat out of the way as he put his luggage in the trunk. And that was all that was left of the car.

I got in and closed the windows but had forgotten to unlock the door, so Hec waited for me to let him in. On his seat he found some goodies. 30 Rock S2 DVDs. A CD of five tracks from the Avatar: The Last Airbender finale that I picked up at WonderCon. And a chicken burrito. I should note that at no time did Hec burst into tears.

"Ooh, this is like Space Mountain," he said of my modern-age car.

As we drove off, he noticed what was playing on the radio and excitedly began asking me who was winning. I had no blooming idea.

"When did you start following the A's?" he asked.

"I didn't; I put it on for you."

"That was nice of you."

"It was [javachik]'s suggestion." So most of the ride alternated between the lamentation over the situation and yelling at the A's for sucking. Four errors! Come on! This is the team that's supposed to be good at defense! Or something. Then the Mariners scored a touchdown or whatever.

We passed the bus on the bridge. Hec had planned to take the shuttle across and then walk to the bus station and take Muni, all while dragging what was left of the car with him. He much preferred Space Mountain. (Caprica to everyone else.)

Near the end of the Fell Expressway, he appeared to give up all hope for the A's and gave me permission to put on some indie pop or whatever, so I switched to Smellerbee, and the wistful sounds of Ra Ra Riot and Stars brought us home, where I illegally parked and put my hazards on. With no traffic, we had made it there in about twenty minutes or so, much better than the hour-plus that had been estimated.

I carried the goodies and the heavy luggage up while Hec handled the carseat. That is, after Hec unlocked the gate. He couldn't find the key because the car key was off the chain and it's what he used to know the relative position of all the other keys. Once we got that sorted out, we went upstairs, and Hec announced his entrance, and there was much rejoicing. Matilda was full of energy, and there were hugs and kisses.

And then JZ asked if Matilda wanted to show us her bunny.

"BUNNY!" she exclaimed and ran around the bed and jumped on the bed and showed us her stuffed bunny. Which she threw into the air. "BUNNY!" Again. "BUNNY!" And again. "BUNNY!" She never got tired of flipping that thing in the air. "BUNNY!" And then she started throwing it to us. "BUNNY!" And we threw it back. "BUNNY!" And then somehow nouns became involved. "BUNNY SPOON!" "BUNNY BED!" "BUNNY FORK!" "BUNNY KNIFE"! This went on for like ten minutes, I swear. I even made the bunny talk in cat-voice from my play.

Finally, though, there was no more bunny-throwing, and there were hugs and thanks.