The Moments of My Life

This one's for Jim. Just a Moment of my life frozen in time on Friday:

Had one of those 'sit still' moments, brought on by a red light. In my pocket was the First Reason I was going to Towne - a grocery list for Dennis and his friend (nice young lady) who were going camping. On the seat next to me was the Second Reason - consisting of Sera's flat tire. In the back seat were 4 pork chops contributed for dogs when Pete thought the meat had aged a day more than he wanted to risk. And I was chewing super-glue off my fingers.

It was 10:30 in the morning with a half-minute to contemplate the day thus far.

I started by driving 'the kids' to the campsite 8 miles away, but 4 miles are a narrow, dirt, winding road with speeds of 20 - 25 mph, so seems longer. They tossed up a tent and registered to reserve the spot, then I spun them back the other way to help Pete for a few hours. (Wise older folks learn to use young muscle when it's available.)

Plan was to get groceries and get home, but -. Sera called Pete before we got there, had a flat at home that wouldn't come loose. I went home instead to help. She had the lug nuts off, but the tire wouldn't break free, had the spare donut out. We tried inflating it first with a little gizmo that had banged around in my trunk some time.

Interesting gizmo, in that the switch was stuck so I pried it out and shorted across with a screwdriver to make it work... kind of. Tire wouldn't hold air. Tire wouldn't come loose. I went after a pry bar to convince it otherwise, but didn't need to use it. Sera in frustration squatted in front of it with her arms almost around it and gave a mighty jerk. It worked, though she landed on her back with the tire on top of her, missing the cardboard she'd put down to stay clean.

See, I have a bit more experience and was planning NOT to do it this way, figuring the pry bar would save my wrist from 'jerking out' too, but now Sera has her own experience to learn from - i.e., don't always believe the pictures in the manual and how easy it appears to be; keep a pry bar handy instead.

She headed off to work on the little tire and I offered to drop off the flat for repairs since I was going to Towne anyway. Betwixt this, she'd called brother Matt to get assistance if all else failed, so the phone was ringing; the youngest dog, under a year yet, didn't get let out during the tire exchange and left a pile by the door - suffice it to say one might think we had a horse in the house. These are the dogs the pork chops were for that Pete donated when I dropped off the kids.

The super glue "I opened the wrong way" the night before, coating all fingers successfully - which wasn't my intent.

This defines the moment that found me at the red light.

I didn't yet know the next few hours were aligning in equal pattern. I got home in time to call Sera with hours on the tire shop, stash groceries in refrig, change for 'professional look' for upcoming census appointment, then ran to pick up kids. They were packing for their outing while I caught the appointment... who wasn't home, anyway. While I was in that area, figured it'd be wisest to pick up the 3 bundles of wood and drop it off at their campsite (state park, approved wood only). Got home and delivered the kids to the camp.

Remember the dirt road? I hit some of the bumps left by a bad plow-job, the kind that feel like railroad tracks, going around one of the corners on the hill and this triggered my check engine light to go on. This isn't a light I've seen before, but everything else appeared fine; figured maybe something got knocked loose... or it'd resolve itself. Made the trip back a little more interesting than I wanted. Decided I'd let the car sit to sort itself out awhile before starting it again.

Luckily, this little light turned itself off and didn't require me to probe around where I don't belong - under the hood - or call my mechanic. Life finally went back to normal around here.

I think there was a spastic star moving through the universe, one of the monkey wrenches of time and space that grinds our gears. "Under the Influence" - Time just has a few extra warps in it to deal with. This is often mistaken for gremlins, but gremlins are isolated incidents, whereas spastic stars are like ripples of seemingly unconnected weirded bits.

Not sure if it's occurring more frequently; after all, we know it's always a bit weird around here!