the last week has been ridiculous.
A coworker came over to tune up the lawn mower a couple of weeks ago. They generously replaced the blade and the oil and then proceeded to cut my lawn, which takes about two hours. For their trouble I fed them lunch, they wouldn't accept anything more than that. Last week I mowed my lawn myself. At some point I hit...something...and bent both the brand new blade and the frame of the mower. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was that. Time to pull out a hammer and fix the mower, not a good feeling. Problem One: Solved
The furnace in this delightfully old (and huge) rental house has been spastic at best since we moved in. Last week it finally gave up the ghost. I'm not really in a position to call the landlord about it since we're on a month to month lease and I'm about to tell him to remove the other person from the lease, which could very well prompt him to tell us to find a new place to live. It's very close to summer though, so I've been using the fireplace and some small space heaters wisely so we've been fine. Chilly Seattle days being what they are, sometimes it gets colder in here than you'd expect, but we manage. Problem Two: Handled
But because the universe just can't handle a few weeks without some sort of chaos smacking me in the face... It was only after the 30 minute drive to the zoo and the finagling of a parking spot on Saturday that my power steering crapped out. And by crapped out I mean exploded. The kids and I walked through the zoo anyway, we were meeting a friend and I'm not letting a stupid car ruin our fun when I have a membership for goodness sake, and then we tackled the conundrum of how I was supposed to handle my huge ass SUV without any power steering. Now, I recently heard power steering referred to as a "nicety", but let me tell you, when you have to navigate a parking garage twice a day just to go to work, you suddenly begin to appreciate the ability to actually TURN YOUR CAR before you HIT SOMETHING. So I skipped church to find one of the few auto repair shops in our town that is open on Sunday. Found a shop all right. Walked around and rode the bus with my kids for 8 HOURS. Finally settled back into the waiting area at the shop when the tool they were using to replace my power steering pump broke off IN THE PUMP. By this point it was too late for either a replacement part or a rental car, so I had to bum a ride home from a nearby coworker and figure it out from there. I would like to tell you that this sort of craziness is rare, but I'm pretty much hexed and this sort of thing happens around me all the time. Thankfully the part was successfully repaired today, with a free oil change and a hearty discount to sweeten the delay a bit. Problem Three: Handled, no wait scratch that, okay handled again.
The kids flooded the bathroom. Nobody is really sure how, or if they know they aren't squealing, but I am sincerely impressed that they could get that amount of water out of a standard toilet. Laundry is my nemesis, and will continue to be since it took every towel in the house to sop up that mess. Problem Four: Gross, but handled.
My (I don't know what to call him. Ex? Estranged spouse? What?) finally came by to see the kids just before he left town for a while, so that really improved their moods. My oldest son, who is an Autism Spectrum kid btw, has been doing rather well lately. I am finally happy with myself again, and that is a priceless feeling that I wouldn't trade for anything.
In a few weeks I'll probably look back at this random series of events and laugh. But first I'll have to find out where that leak is coming from in the washing machine...
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