Errand Day

Dear Friends,
Today we got our car back! It had been in the shop since Dec 27th getting its fenders straightened out. I swear they're made of aluminum or something. The accident was just a simple slide on icy roads, one vehicle into the other. But the damage! Unbelievable.

We only have the one car: so whenever I want to use it, we all have to get up at 6:00am to be out the door by 6:30. Last night, I didn't get to bed until 4am.

I'm tired.

We didn't get home until 9:30. Yep--in the car, all of us, dog included for three hours before breakfast. I kept thinking about how different it was from just two weeks ago. Our routine was exactly the same. When we got our doughnuts at Tim Horton's at 7:30, the sun sky was turning pre-dawn inky blue. By the time I was on the free-way, the sky was a watercolour of sherbet orange and pinky-purple. Clear skies. About -21 C (-6 F). Branches coated with globs of snow. Treacherous roads. When I got to the car dealership, it was light. Two weeks ago at 8:30 am we'd had to "inspect" the car in the dark.

On the way to the body-shop, we encountered heavy fog. When I got into my bright shiny orange putt-putt and drove back, just 20 minutes later, the fog was lifting and the sun was sparkling off of everything.

It was beautiful.

Nonetheless. Aurelia was so cold she took a bath to warm up. Caius did his duty by the dog and then had hot chocolate and played on the computer. I went to bed for an hour.

At 11:30 we headed out again, this time to get the dog his shots, pick up a book for Caius, buy a roll of paper (and new drinking glasses and a dog bed) at Ikea, then over to a pet store (50 blocks up and 40 blocks over--something like that. I tried to get Aurelia to do the math but neither of us could hold the numbers in our heads long enough.) We got home at 3:15pm. Three and a half hours, again, in the car.

Shortly, we'll all head out again to get the husband from work (I wonder if he'd like to pick a Latin name?), run another errand, and then take the boy to his Tae Kwon Do. I'll get dropped off so I can have supper ready for them when they get home.

This is what it's like to live with one car. On the days I do have it, we spend so much time inside it that it is quite ridiculous. School is cancelled. We are all so tired from getting up so very early and I'm frazzled from driving. We don't have "snow days," we have "errand days."

Whoa, good timing. The husband just called, and I have fresh coffee made--so we're off again. Hopefully I'll be home before another three hours have gone past.

The kicker: we do it all again tomorrow--only we start an hour earlier.