For the last year especially, I have done my best to be thankful. I have a good life, for the most part, and I am grateful for my many blessings. Thanks be to God.
But this morning, after a travel nightmare and another nightmare in which both my best friend from high school and my sister died in the space of a week (although I don’t regularly speak with my high school friend, I expect that dream was about loss from age 17 until the present), I woke to grey skies and rain, which is never good for the soul.
And, really, God? I had less than 24 hours with running water, a legitimate reason to rejoice, before my car gets totaled? Frankly, that stinks.
The first thing in the morning frustrations piled up. I wanted to clean up the kitchen, and went to empty some bagged powdered sugar into a clean canning jar. But though I had packed Sharpie, scissors, paper and tape into a work bag to label jars (since cornstarch, arrowroot, baking soda, and powdered sugar all look like white powder in a jar on the shelf), the Sharpie had gone missing. So that task remained undone.
I went to head outside to use the bathroom. (The doors we ordered for arrival before Thanksgiving have not arrived yet, and so there is little impetus to get a new sawdust toilet made for the bathroom: privacy does not exist. And so we all head outside.) But I had left my farm shoes in the car when I finally arrived home yesterday after 4. Now way was I wearing my adorable Simples, with their blue and white suede exterior and light red bottom, through the rapidly accumulating mud outside the door. So how was I to go to the bathroom? I held it and grumbled internally.
Poor Caleb had finally settled down late last night and slept fairly well. But the frenectomy had not instantly helped him. He was still smacking as he ate more than not (though the promise that he could eat without smacking, occasionally, gave me some hope). He was spitty, and needy.
My good son who had prepared food the night before had done what I also have done many times: not cleaned up after himself. And while I do recognize that cleanup is unpleasant, the reality was that I had bits of food all over. And since my counters weren’t sealed yet, I was facing a long task of scraping, and rings of water damage, and a stovetop that does not look like it will ever be shiny again. (Probably not from scratches, but from dirty pan bottoms, and the residue that causes.)
I realized, too, that the friend who was supposed to visit today, who I had figured could help Phil move the wall unit into the house, was not going to be able to do that in the midst of a rain, when the ground turned to muck. (In the end, the friend did not come down, but Phil went up to town.)
I finally grabbed Phil’s muck boots and went to the bathroom. We had received delivery of a dumpster on Thursday (which Phil had to deal with, too, while trying to manage the insurance and such remotely). But the dogs had torn open dirty diapers and scattered them around, and bags of trash remained here and there.
Our friends’ Suburban was locked, so I still couldn’t get my shoes.
Feeling frustrated and stymied at every turn, I picked up a few bags of trash and pitched them into the dumpster. That was something I could actually do, and finish. And while picking up bits of poopy diaper, in the rain, is not usually my idea of a good time, it fit my mood and gave me a little space to cry for a bit. The thankfulness I feel that my son and I were uninjured still is balanced by the sorrow I feel that my much-loved van is now lost to us.
Most of these things resolved in time. I got new Sharpies. Phil came out with the keys, without my asking. I got the strewn about garbage picked up before the heavy rains came, so our farm is a bit less of a trash heap now. Caleb settled in to eat, and he started to do better with his feedings.
But the lowest blow came at midday. I called police headquarters to follow through with what the officer had said. “Don’t bother to exchange insurance information. That’s all in the police report. Just have the insurance call headquarters with the police report number and they’ll get all that information. It won’t be filed immediately, but probably by 5 tonight.”
“Hi, I was in a collision yesterday, and was calling to get the insurance information for the other driver, so I can get the insurance process started.”
“Oh, well, we don’t give that information out over the phone. We can mail it to you, or you can come and get it. Oh, but that report hasn’t been filed yet anyway. Maybe try again tonight after 6pm.”
Although anger may be my go-to emotion generally speaking, I only remember one other time in my life feeling so blindingly filled with rage. Fury that took over until I was shaking and crying. I had a visual on the other driver’s insurance information, but his hand was covering the name, and he appeared to be having a heart attack, so I didn’t ask him to please move his thumb. That bit of common courtesy (and, really, what else could I have done?) is biting me now.
Not to mention the incredibly helpless feeling of being misled by the person who was supposed to be in control. Why say you will file something that day, if it won’t happen? Why assure me that I don’t need the insurance information if I actually do?
Phil walked by during my call, and when I got off the phone (the call placed outside, as our reception remains poor here), I began screaming. I screamed for some minutes, ranting at the top of my lungs, then called my sister and ranted to her.
When she could get a word in, she suggested I take as strong a dose of homeopathic Aconite as I could. I did, felt myself settle back down to a normal emotional range, and then read to the boys for some time.
The day got better after that. Phil caulked the countertop, so I no longer have to worry about water droplets falling behind the sink. He used wood compound on the two joints of countertop along the wall, and, when those finished drying, sanded the surface.
Then I used mineral oil to seal it. So the countertop along the wall is finished, and it looks great. How lovely to have a functional surface.
I made a delicious pasta for Phil’s and my lunch, with roasted garlic. (The boys ate pasta just with butter, cheese, tuna, and maybe capers. Their loss.) I made a nice chorizo sausage-avocado-cilantro-egg sandwich for dinner, for those who wanted to try it.
I continue trying to put my life in order, and that is good.
Phil had an encouraging meeting in town, worked on engineering, shot a possum, held The Peanut (as he calls Caleb). He had a fine day, too.
Except for his visit to the police station. The receptionist was understanding, but unable to help. “I can’t even put a note in a file to please mail the paperwork, because there is no file as of yet.”
So we are completely in limbo, and just have to trust that the officer will not die before he gets the paperwork filed. Because if he does, will we ever be able to have the other driver’s insurance cover the accident?
That’s too distressing to think about.
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