Happy Friday the 13th!

[Taceas]

Today has been a mell of a hess for me. I'm already short changed on time and energy to get everything packed up and ready to go for vacation, and that's just when stuff hits the fan.

On Wednesday I was mowing the yard and down along our long, long road...and I shut the mower off to cross the gravel drive to avoid getting the blades into the gravel, and as I shut it off I feel a clunk. I'm listening to my iPod so I didn't hear what it was and just thought it was a blade that stopped with a thud. I get to the other side of the drive and get ready to do that side and started the mower up and gah, noises from hell!

So I drive it allllll the way back up to the house onto some ramps, and all be damned, a blade fell off. I needed to go get the mail anyway so I hopped on the 4-wheeler and drove down and there sitting in the road is the blade with the shaft it spins on with it. That's a new one for me.

I call my dad, its his old rider mower, and he comes out on Thursday and temporarily fixes it till a part he had to special order comes in. All is well enough to finish up what I didn't get done with on Wednesday, or so I thought.

I go down there tonight and finish up, and just as I'm on the last portion, a flattened clearing...I feel a *lub* *lub* and I look down and its a flat front tire. This tire has always had a very slow leak, air it up before you go out and its fine for a few days. So I very slooooowly drive it all the way back up and put air in it, and its just my luck, the danged seal around the valve stem is leaking air out as fast as I put it in. Within 5 mins it was flat again. So I guess the neighbors will have to mow that portion while we're gone.

Just as I get sat down to have a cold drink and stop cursing from the lawn mower, the phone rings...its Matthew "Can you call me a tow truck?". He spent the past month working on his car trying to get it back to running status. Changed all the gaskets in the engine, new spark plugs, new spark wires, new distributor, etc etc. And on the last day before vacation the car croaks on his way to work on the highway. Thankfully it was in the long turn lane leading into the plant and some guys helped him push it off the road enough and gave him a lift to work.

But that's not all, oh no it couldn't be so easy as to call a tow truck and have it towed...they require keys to put it in neutral, which Matthew took to work with him and his shift has already started. Through some sort of benevolence he managed to get one of the security people to bring the keys to the gate for me.

All while this is going on, Maia, our dog, was dropped off for a bath about an hour and a half earlier. While I'm waiting for the keys to arrive, the groomer calls and tells me Maia is done and ready to go. I tell her about my current snafu and she informs me that she's going to be closing up the shop and heading to Evansville (city 30 mi away) for the evening. So I tell her I'll call my parents to see if they can pick her up.

I call my parents, no one answers. I call 5 more times, still no answer. I try both of their cells, nothing. And just as I'm about to call my grandmother, the last hope in town...the phone rings, it's my dad. He was doing yard work but close enough to hear the phone. So he thankfully goes and picks up Maia and pays for her stuff, and is leaving just as I'm leading the tow truck all the way home.

I've wasted about 2hrs of my day and am short $80 for towing his POS car home. I'm sure glad I withdrew money from the bank for vacation.

I'm just glad I'm not leaving today. I can't even begin to imagine what this day would have had in store for us while traveling.