I linked this thread a few minutes ago for someone else, and re-reading it, I realize I never did a follow-up on the air conditioner problem. Turned out that it was the belt breaking, I should have just looked under the hood. Anyway, she got it all sorted out shortly after it happened. And the mechanic did it for her for free because they had, just a couple weeks prior, given her car a tune-up and said they inspected the belts and that the belts didn't need replacing.