Sunday, December 26, 2010

Home

Such a small word for something so big. I'm enjoying a fresh perspective following the last couple of days.








These semi-crappy cell phone photos illustrate how my holiday started. I left work Tuesday night with every intention of grabbing smokes for the man, heading home, and baking bread...and then spending Wednesday relaxing and doing loads of cookies to bring up to SC to his folks the following day. Or relaxing, and trimming back on my baking plans, because I was still fighting the cold and feeling like crap from my ColdCalm overindulgence. The best laid plans...

I was stopped at a light on US 1 when I was suddenly rear-ended and shoved into the car in front of me. I never took my damn foot off the brake. The driver in error hit a pickup, which hit an Escalade, which hit me, and I nudged a Hyundai. For those of you heading home on US 1 Tuesday night from the Flagler/Bayard biz district, yeah, that was me in that mess. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and I think the only totaled vehicle was the sphincter who caused the whole thing.

The cops were summoned, and the girl I hit worked in insurance...her boss drove by and stopped to assist, get everybody's addresses, phone #s on paper, etc. We stood around for the better part of an hour while the guy who caused the accident steered clear of the rest of us. We bemoaned the crappy timing...the guy who caused everything was scheduled to go out of town the next day and wouldn't be back in town til January-something, never mind our travel plans, so we were skeptical that things would be addressed before the holiday hit.

I assessed the damage and determined the car was driveable, but it looked questionable that the bumper would stay on. I had an old pair of Dad's shoes in the trunk (an eventual Goodwill drop-off) and I took off the laces to secure the bumper for the drive home (which was a HUGE nostalgia thing for me, as my mom did the same thing with mine and Lil Bro's shoelaces once in grade school, because our station wagon's back bumper had inexplicably given up the ghost). Bumper stayed on fine, but the first decent bump opened the trunk; it wouldn't stay latched. Yay.

Got home, called my insurance, filed a claim. Was given an adjuster and tried to inquire about a rental car for our trip north, but was told that could only occur when we actually got the car fixed. Couldn't do anything else after hours, so lay around in a brown stare mostly the rest of the evening.

Next day, got up leisurely (with no neck pain at all, yay!) and hit the phone. Got same song and dance from my insurance, but filed more info (taped interview, etc.) and hung up to plot next move. Phone rings 5 minutes later and it's the insurance company of the guy who caused everything. Everything's covered, when do you want to take your car in.....

Reliefreliefrelief...

We drove to SC in a rental '09 Kia Optima (smooth ride); the car's at the same body shop that handled Mom's bumper that I...ehem...mangled a while back. Our bumper and my pagan stickers will be history in the next day or three : (

Christmas with the inlaws was OK, no shouting matches or bloodshed. I held my tongue, ate my body weight in pecan pie, and enjoyed nuzzle time with my niece. This morning, I was treated to the best Christmas present ever: real snow! Fat, beautiful flakes that transformed Aiken into a cold, sticky paradise. I made a mini-snowman for the niece before I left, and Les and I threw a couple of snowballs at each other. His aim's better, the little creep : )

I'm looking forward to the next year, the next 10 months really. We'll start purging and reorganizing with a real goal in mind. I'll look into ETrade, now that my company's stock is finally rising a bit. I'll start saving. We move the weekend before Halloween 2011. Gods bless us every one.

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