Welcome to this Pokemon game diary, Reader! I'm very happy to have you here. (B)
Here you will find your Hopes and Dreams discovered! Many adventures await. And any questions you have you can ask me at any time! (B)
Very good, Reader..
Your mom was trying to surprise you, which is why she made that superfluous phone call. I thought it was sweet! Plus, my mom is dead, so maybe I just appreciated the attention.
I would be way into Pokemon collecting if it didn't require buying into several other Pokemon products just to gain access to restricted species. Also, certain species can only be legitimately acquired at events in the physical world. Long story short, lawfully catching them all is virtually impossible, so why bother?
So buy one, catch the Pokemon you can, fight battles, train them up and have fun. I think the series dropped the "Gotta Catch 'em All" tagline around Ruby and Sapphire.
Those other parts of the game -- battles, leveling, beauty pageants, etc. -- aren't much fun for me. If I want to play a turn-based RPG, there are plenty of other options. So I personally would only approach a Pokemon game for the collector aspect, and that aspect has largely become unapproachable.