Rainy Days and Mondays

WARNING: GRUMPY BLOGGER AHEAD

So... I have this post drafted (in my head) about the lovely dinner I made last night, to make you all very hungry and want to cook a la Jellybean Mama. However, I am having a bad day and wanted to write about that instead. It always cheers me up to read about other people's misery because I'm a mean person, so maybe sharing my bad luck with you will make you realize your Monday is actually going really well.

You know how when you're driving, and you're in a hurry because you're going someplace new and fun, and you're going to see people you like and miss, and you've got a toddler in the back who wants you to work her DVD player and hand her things and pick things up off the backseat floor for her and you take your eyes of the road for ONE SECOND? And then maybe your wheels hit the gravel, and you have been taught to NEVER. SLAM ON. THE BRAKES. because you grew up in the wilds of Northern Ontario, so you try your best to wrestle the car back on the road without slowing down and then **BAM**. You go from happy-excited to sick-and-terrified in a heartbeat. Yeah, that was my yesterday.

We were on our way to brunch at a little French place to meet the cousins. I had picked out a nice French-inspired little outfit (I had on makeup! And cute boots!), was on time for once, Jenny was in a good mood. Then shit fell apart very quickly. It was one of those situations where you wish with all your might for time to reverse itself, just for a handful of seconds, so you can undo your mistake. Like when I lost my camera. Or you want it to be a bad dream. One minute you're driving along carefree, the next you are remembering that cars are massive, dangerous machines that require a great deal of attention at all times. My passenger-side tires touched the gravel and pulled me over, then I hit a chunk of asphalt. The tire blew. Luckily I was on a back road so wasn't going too fast, and there was a place right there to pull over. Also, AAA came through - apparently, telling them there's a toddler in the car is the secret, the guy arrived in 20 minutes.

There are two (hopefully only two) very sad additional pieces to the story. One is that the tire was new, purchased a mere few months ago when I replaced both front tires. The other is that I severely damaged the rim, which I didn't understand until I drove to the tire place to get a replacement tire. Upon receiving a callback after my dealership opened this morning I learned that a new rim averages around $500. Five. Hundred. So I am going to run out between calls today to meet some dude who hammers out rims in the hopes that it's salvageable. Otherwise I foresee some more event cancellations in our near future. Plus, you know, I have to buy another tire.

I guess the good news is that we were fine, the spare was in decent shape, and Jellybean was happy because once I gave her my phone back she was able to play games to occupy her, plus of course I never go anywhere without juice and tons of emergency snacks. Technology is awesome (used my GPS to find exactly where we were for AAA directions, looked up closest open tire place, called cousin and The Ta, booted up Monkey Preschool Lunchbox). The Ta has generously offered up her Jeep if I have to get the rim ordered, which could take 3-4 days.

But still - ugh.

Also - the weather has finally decided to cool off. Which means that while it was 97 degrees last Saturday, it will be 67 degrees NEXT Saturday. Oh, and raining. You know - when we're suppose to be at that awesome beach house. There is nothing on this earth that will convince me to drag an already-cling-surly-toddler to a place void of toys with an unheated swimming pool that she can see but can't swim in. So that's very sad.

AND - daycare dropoff this morning was awful. Ms D is back from vacation, but I guess all the change and not feeling well has been tough on The Bean, so she wept and wept. Real tears. She told her beloved friends to "go 'way!" when they tried to say hi and bring her offerings of play food. I HATE starting a day out like that. I walked in the door of the house back home and spilled half a Red Bull on the floor. My shoes feel funny. The yard, of course, is flooded.

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHH.

There you have it.

Will update after noon, when I find out about the rim. Please leave kind, soothing, sympathetic comments and your Paypal account info.

UPDATE: The rim-hammer-outer dude said he was pretty sure he could fix it. Squee! Fingers crossed for a call later today. Also, when I got up to go drop it off I kicked over the rest of the Red Bull that I had put, of course, conveniently on the floor. So I went ahead and switched to vodka.*

*I did NOT switch to vodka, although I wanted to. I switched to iced tea.