Oh, what a day!

Oh what a day! (sung to the tune of "Oh, what a night!")

Oh what a day
Early April in 2008
What a very full and nasty plate
What a silly, stressful day

Oh what a day
Busted tire and then a busted foot
I wish I coulda sucker clocked that coot
What a lousy, awful day

Ok, you want to know how it went? Of course you do. That's why you're here. I feel like the Grandpa on Princess Bride: "Adventure, Police Officers, Subway Sandwiches, Grumpy Old People, Friends to the Rescue, Stupid People Moments...." Will you try to stay awake?

It all started around 5:40 when I woke to feed Lil' Sweet Pea. No big deal, we're used to waking up around then nowadays. So I got her settled in time for me to go grab a shower and get dressed before taking the crew + 1 friend to drop Princess + 1 friend off at school. Then I sat down to work on the FRG calendar, called the FRG leader with some questions and of course, whenever I chat with C, it can't be just a minute because she's so dang fun to talk to. My friend B had very kindly offered to watch Things 2 and 3 so I could have some nice down time and relax by my lonesome.

But NOOOOO, I had to go run an errand. This was my first mistake. I should have just accepted the down time with grace. So, off I went up to the JAG office on Post so I could get a request for Frieda's birth certificate notarized. Yes, I hadn't done that yet. I was supposed to wait a month after her birth before sending in the request and, well, after that I just sort of completely forgot.

Anyway, Post is a real pain to drive around since it's like a sprawling and spacious downtown, with fields and things all over but narrow and one way streets and "don't park here or you'll regret it" signs everywhere. And of course very few of the important offices people have to go to actually have proximal parking. Fortunately though, JAG is free for service persons and their families so we got a notary, three kinds of powers of attorney, and we're going to get a will drawn up all for free. Not bad, eh?

So since I happened to be up there I asked Man if he wanted to go to lunch. Now, he keeps talking about how I could use the practice with driving down town, and he's right, but then he doesn't behave himself like he's actually appreciating the fact that I am, in fact, practicing driving down town. I keep hearing things like "wait, that was a perfect parking space, why'd you go right past it?" or "wait! never be in the cross walk at the same time as pedestrians" or "what'd you do that for?"

Now, I get tired of such things so I often just silently stick to the passenger side and happily hum and stare out the window while he does all the stuff I do but with Competence. Fortunately, this and the fact that he doesn't put more water through the filter pitcher after taking a drink are his last two remaining annoying habits so I really can't complain. I'm sure I can be much more annoying than him.

Anyway, so after missing a parking spot and looping around the block and fumbling with some parallel parking but not actually hitting anything while doing so, we park and walk up to Subway. I asked for a 6" but Man said that since a 12" is just a dollar more we may as well get one of those and take the leftover home. Ok, so I asked to switch to a 12" but the Sandwich Artist misheard me and made both a 6" and a 12". So, now I'm feeling like a total fool when I meekly ask if I might have only the 12". -sigh- After that we got to sit and eat and chat which is something we don't get to do very often, sitting at a table for two which is also something we don't do often. We did have Frieda with us but she doesn't take much room.

After lunch I insisted that Man drive back to Post so he could get his car and go to yet another MRI on his shoulder, but this one was done with dye. Mere blocks from Subway he curb checked the van and completely blew out a tire. We pulled to a stop in a residential area with nice houses and parallel parking only. You'd think that if you had enough money to have a house like that in an area like this you'd be able to afford one with a DRIVEWAY but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, I called the roadside service we have, reported that no, we don't have a spare, gave them the info they needed to find and assist us, and Man had to leave so he could walk back to Post and get his car. Poor Man happened to be in his Class A uniform. Not a fun thing to walk all over a city in.

So I sat. And waited. And got a call back from roadside service to let me know that they couldn't find a truck in the area that could transport both myself and Frieda. Through the course of many phone calls I got ahold of the guy watching my kids and someone who could come give Frieda and me a ride but she had to run an errand first herself. The truck didn't get there until an hour and a half had passed during which time the man who lived in the house in front of which I was parked pulled up in his car and glared at me. I apologized for taking "his" spot but he parked across the street (a whole 'nother 10 feet) then stalked into his house, making the time I was alone in the van pretty uncomfortable. Fortunately, Frieda is a wonderfully calm child and was perfectly content to nurse a bit and smile with her mother. Soon his wife also parked in front of me making it impossible for anything like, maybe, a tow truck to get close to me without completely blocking the street. After Friend A came to hang out until the tow truck arrived, those two old people came out of the house together. The lady was asking her husband why they couldn't take her car, but the guy said they were just going to take his for no reason, leaving her car in front of mine and no way to knock on the door and ask them to move it for us so the tow truck could get in.

Oh, well. My fault for not having a spare, right?

Anyway, the tow truck got there and the nice man informed me that I do, indeed, have a spare tire. Where? Underneath the back end of the van. What's more, we also had a jack. However, I have yet to locate a lug wrench that is also hidden in the van but with that tire and jack there afterall I'm spooked at the idea of what other secrets my vehicle may have, just waiting for me to need them and laugh at me.

I do know how to change a flat. Which made it all the more embarrassing.

He asked me if I'd like to drive it home and I said yes, yes I would. So he put our (nice, full-sized) spare on for me, put the old tire in the back of the van, and Friend and I drove home. I got to B's house to find that Pebbles was still napping so I ran off to pick up the older kids from school, then ran back to his house to drop off my and his oldest, taking my and his youngest home with me so I could clean and start some dinner. I had just put one of the big ones in the bath and started to nurse Frieda when I got a phone call from B.

Go to the hospital now, he said. Princess has a hole in her foot from a garden tool.

His voice was loud and panicked. I thought, heck, this guy is an Iraq veteran. I'm sure he's seen all kinds of injuries and garbage so if this is making him scared it must be bad.

So I called yet another friend to rush on over to watch the kids so I could take Frieda and trek on up to the hospital. While frantically putting Frieda back in her car seat (and boy was she mad) and trying to stay calm so the kids wouldn't freak I got another phone call on my cell from B, saying that a police officer wants to talk to me.

What the heck?

So the police officer asked me if I had a child that B was caring for. I said yes, described her, gave her and my full names, at which point I remembered yet again why I never use my cell at home. It was cutting out. Of all the freaking times for a cell to cut out. So I managed to call him back from a land line, run to a neighbor's house to grab him to watch the kids until my other friend got there to watch them until Man got home and drove off just as Friend C rolled up. So, three adults and 5 kids (two of which were mine) were in my unpickedup, undishwashed house. Oh well. I'd done a lot of pride-swallowing that day and that was not the time to stop.

I had been told on the phone to drive to a high school near by. What the heck? I was totally confused but was later told that B had well and truly panicked. He put Princess and his child into his car (which, btw, is an old Crown Vicky, complete with black and white paint a la Cop Car except it's rusted and patchy now) and tore down the road, calling 911. Why calling 911? To get directions to the hospital.

The dispatcher told him to pull over as soon as he could and the ambulance and police would find him and help. So he pulled over and found himself explaining to 10 police officers and two EMT's why he had an injured child who wasn't his in his car that looked like it was imitating a police cruiser.

Go ahead and laugh. I know I am.

Later Princess mentioned that B was driving so fast and crazy that it scared her. People were calling the police to report an "erratic" driver. Neighbors were discussing the car that just whipped through the neighborhood followed shortly by several emergency vehicles. For one day we were the cause of all that commotion you hear out your window, and those emergency sounds that chill the blood as you imagine what sort of horror they're responding to. Yep, just lil' ol' us.

Anyway, I pulled up when there were only two cruisers left and found her wide-eyed and quiet in the back seat. I could tell that my girl, who gets completely hysterical from immunizations couldn't be injured too badly if she were just sitting here without a peep. So I put her in my van, signed off the form the EMT's gave me saying I refused medial treatment from them, and helped the police with their report, then drove her up to the ER.

5 stitches later, she's still awfully dramatic about it but just fine. It turned out to be a shallow but nasty laceration as opposed to the deep puncture B thought it was. She drags herself into the computer chair and weakly pushes herself around the house in it so she can get around. Oh, the drama.

Poor Man arrived home from his MRI to find all these people including B and B's older child all over the house and an onslaught of explanations to sort through, including the 4 incoherent messages I left on his cell phone.

One final phone call from the police to complete an accident report brought our adventure to a close.

Spaghetti for dinner and an early bedtime for all.

What did I learn yesterday? After watching Frieda stay so calm even though she isn't thrilled with her car seat or driving around or being largely ignored for most of the day, she was fine as long as she was fed and I was close by. Being a religious person I thought about God, and wondered what it would be like if that was the sort of attitude I adopted. As long as I have God, the rest isn't miserable at all -- just interesting and hard, and joyous. That made dealing with the ER a lot easier and it made it possible for me to get out of bed this morning, ready for a new adventure.

I was also very humbled by the kindness of friends and their willingness to watch out for us. This community is incredibly quirky and the people here have all had hard lives in some way or another, but we stick together in ways I've never experienced before. Friend C called this morning to see how I was doing and we just laughed and laughed over this, especially since she's a nurse, EMT and fireperson. (firewoman? fire...fighter? whatever) Poor B keeps shaking his head over the whole thing, remembering over and over what it felt like to be questioned by so many officers all at once and wondering if he was going to be arrested. Princess told me that she wished I had told the ambulance to take her to the hospital since she hasn't been in one yet. Bah.
So, on to whatever's next. I get to watch a friend's child after school, host one of Man's friends for a couple of hours, watch another friend's child this evening, and my house is still dirty.

But first I had to blog about it. :)