A day in the life…

This day… I tell you. Definitly a WoopsieDaisey Wednesday!

It was one of those days today that even though I am super tired and it’s nearly midnight, I actually have to spend God knows how long typing this story out because only a day like today would happen to little, ‘ol prego me.

It began just like any other amazing day in the life of MrsWaterCloset. I woke up around 9am. I called Harper, my wonderful Golden retriever into the bed and proceeded to cuddle him while I checked my email from my iphone and caught up on all my games of ‘words with friends.’ Pretty average start.

I then got myself up around 9:30 and fed the guys (and by ‘guys’ I mean Harper and our new addition to the WaterCloset clan: Ruger… yet another Golden retriever… He was somewhat of an impulse buy about a month ago and I can’t say that it was the best idea to add a 7 week old puppy to the 6 months pregnant, living at my mom’s, just got done calming Harper down mix… but alas… he’s darn cute!)After feeding the guys, I jumped on the computer and got my most pressing work done so that I could calmly enjoy my protein shake and ’16 and Pregnant.’

Now, I have to interrupt myself real quick to preemptively let you know that in my six months of being pregnant… I have only had one slightly unnecessary emotional break down! Only one! Not too bad considering I keep reading about how they are just so darn inevitable… but based on the way I’ve been getting choked up over silly things like the season finale of ‘Army Wives’… I couldn’t help but feel like there was an emotional break down on the way.

Well… when I went pee for all of 2 seconds (a very regular occurence for the small bladdered prego), I came back to find that my otherwise ALARMINGLY well-behaved new puppy, Ruger, had chewed a small hole on the most obvious and uncoverable corner of my mother’s nice couch.

I have to say… it’s moments like these that I worry about becoming a parent. They tell you not to act in anger, but how can you not when you catch your kid red-handed doing something as terribly inconvenient as chewing the couch! So of course I grabbed him and he yelped and then  I had to shove his face in his mistake (literally) and he yelped and then I put him outside and cautiously approached the couch to survey the damage.

Que emotional break down.

I have to say in my defense that it’s not that I broke down over just a small hole in the couch. We are trying to buy a house of our own, and our lender keeps losing paperwork, which is moving us closer and closer to the end of our 30 days at our rental and closer and closer to being homeless. My husband’s job is YET AGAIN subject to possible budget cuts (don’t you people want fire fighters to come save your lives???). I’m raising two crazy puppies, while in pretty constant back pain from my random pregnancy symptoms. I’m trying to promote this month to make sure our financial state is ready for a baby. I’m constantly feeling guilty for staying at my mom’s house so much because I’m trying to promote. Oh and it’s 100,000 degrees outside which helps nothing. So it wasn’t exactly just about the couch… but I could tell that there was no way of easily fixing the hole… and so I just assumed that we were going to now be buying my mom a $2000 couch because I went pee for two seconds and left the dang dogs unattended!

Oh and side note… I JUST NOW reached for my cell phone and knocked over the Vitamin water on the table next to me which soaked my phone, the house phone, the table, the floor… just you know… the day won’t end.

So as I said, que emotional break down.

Burny is in a class in South Lake Tahoe, and I am in Woodland… but alas… he is the one who I feel the need to call and unload this tragic happenstance upon. The poor guy got his fair share of crazy prego wife today, let me tell ya. This was only just the beginning.

I was totally freaking out because I ALREADY feel guilty about all the damage that having two puppies at a house can cause (inside and out) and so this was just the LAST thing that I wanted to have to tell my mom. And this was the first really expensive thing that they had in a sense, ruined. I just didn’t see how it would be possible to fix.

So I cried… I texted Burny a dozen times… he tried to calm me down, but that was just not meant to be.

I pulled myself together (of course unable to even look at Ruger who remained outside for at least an hour, despite his complaints) and showered and packed to go back up to Nevada. I had an Arbonne event in Chico tonight, but tomorrow morning I plan to head back home for the rest of the month… and it always stresses me out when I have to try to remember all the things I need to bring from one house to the next. But that is neither here nor there… that was just insult to injury at that point.

Finally, Burny called my mom and told her about what had happened (I just could not deal with having to tell her… I knew she would be upset and I knew I would cry). He basically told her that the dog had ruined the couch, we didn’t think we could fix it, but we were willing to buy a new couch if that’s what it came down to. With what extra money… I’m not sure.

So as I was loading the car, and GRUDGINGLY leaving the dogs behind for my mom to watch while I was at my event in Chico, I started getting the calls from mom. I didn’t answer of course. That’s the reason I had Burny call… so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. But alas, even the missed calls were bringing tears to my eyes.

Finally, while diving to Chico, my mom texted me and told me that I needed to call her. So I gave in and did. She wanted to know everything that Burny had already told her and she wanted to tell me that I would be buying her a new couch, which we had already agreed to… and which I did not want to discuss at that moment.

I hung up: Que emotional break down number two.

Skip forward to about 10 miles outside of Chico. I spent most of the ride up there fighting back the impending sobs, trying to put myself in the right frame of mind to go into a work event… and the Jeep starts making a funny noise…….

At first I wasn’t so sure if I was actually hearing something, or if I just THOUGHT I was hearing something becaues my day was going so dumb. Granted, we had been feeling a little bit of lurching in the transmission recently and it had been lurching quite a bit today on my drive… BUT we had already taken it in to the dealership, been charged $200 and told that the problem was fixed. Well, perhaps not… just as I was considering the driving distance to my final destination… all hell broke loose under the hood!

I mean to say that CLEARLY something had gone terribly wrong and although the car was still moving forward, it did not want to be doing so any longer. It sounded as if the engine itself was just flapping apart and falling out. So I pulled over.

Que emotional break down number three.

I called Burny, who I’m sure had pretty much had enough of me by this point… and yet AGAIN I’m in sobs trying to explain to him what was going on as if he had any way of helping me from hundreds of miles away.

“Have you called a tow truck?” he asked

‘No!” I sobbed.

“Can you drive it the rest of the way?” he asked

“No!”I sobbed.

Finally he convinced me to call my girlfriend, whose house I was headed to and see if she could come pick me up at least. So I hung up, called her… and I will add that as far as she knew… I had calmly and collectedly handled this car trouble without so much as a frown. Clearly, not the case. So once she was in route to come pick me up, I decided to give it one more go at the road, just to make sure that I wasn’t over reacting by calling a tow truck… NOPE… wouldn’t be over reacting! The dang thing was getting worse by the minute!

My darling girlfriend shows up with two hero’s in tow: MEN. Isn’t that just what a girl wants to see when she is having car trouble? 🙂 So one of the guys jumps in just to confirm that my Jeep is in fact, F’ed up! And yes, it is. He confirms that the car even sounds like it’s dying when you drive in reverse. Grand.

So the four of us are standing on the side of the road, waiting for the tow truck (which I finally did get around to calling) and it’s about 200 degrees out and I’m pregnant and sweating and trying not to cry, while seeming perfectly in control of the situation.

Meanwhile, I call Burny to discuss our options. I have to be in Nevada by tomorrow. I have work up there. The Jeep is about to be towed to the Dodge dealership in Chico… and not only do I not have a way home from Chico to Woodland, but I certainly don’t have a way up the hill to Nevada. First Burny suggests he drive down and pick me up and take me home himself (mind you this would be a 6-7 hour roundtrip for him) but we quickly remember that our other car, the one Burny is driving, only has ONE WORKING SEATBELT because of guess who… the damn dog!!!! So that’s not going to work either.

After going back and forth a little bit, Burny decides that the best plan is to get me a rental car. However, by this point it’s nearly 6 o clock and the only place open is the airport rental car which just so happens to have the most ridiculous prices in town AND knows we are up a creek and have no other options… so they say that they will wait, after work hours, for me to come pick it up. Burny is basically yelling at me to jump into action, leave my car on the side of the road and head to the airport to grab my one chance at a rental.

Okay.

So I have to leave the keys in my Jeep, leave the doors unlocked and hope and pray that only the tow truck driver stops to investigate. I guess I did have it working in my favor that the dang car wouldn’t make it very far if someone did try to steal it… talk about Karma! But still, it was a little crazy to just leave my car with the keys in it on the side of the highway.

We drove to the airport, and at this point I was about 30 minutes LATE to my Arbonne event and I go inside to find that Burny, bless his heart, has taken care of every single thing… including the payment… and all I have to do is sign and show Id. When I go to sign… I have to fight off emotional break down number 1000 because it’s going to cost me $350 to get myself out of this pickle!

So now we are buying a new couch for my mom, a new car for us, AND the most expensive ticket home I’ve ever seen… all in one day! Talk about going from financially okay to up a creek!!

Whatever…

I sign. And the guy runs out to get the car ready for me. And just as I’m thinking: “I wonder if I’m allowed to take dogs in rental cars”… cause that is exactly what I have to do… the guys pulls up in the tiniest little silver hatch back car I’ve ever seen. Two dogs, luggage, Arbonne stuff, crates and ME in there? I think not! But don’t worry… it didn’t matter anyway because he made me sign a piece of paper that said I wouldn’t smoke or have dogs in the car. GREAT! Now I’ve paid $350 for a car that I can’t even freaking use!!!

I call Burny on the way to the Arbonne party, which I am now about 45 minutes late for, and tell him that the rental car was a terrible idea. I have to tell you that I don’t deal with stress very well… especially building stress like I was facing today, and even though Burny had gone above and beyond to help me find a quick and easy way out of my problem… I still felt the need to tell him how this was all stupid.

Sorry about that. Not my proudest moment, that’s for sure.

Get to the Arbonne party and get half way through the presentation when I realize that I never did hear from the tow truck driver… did they ever find my car? Did it get towed? So I excuse myself to find out. Yes… it made it to the Dodge dealer safely. At least one thing went right.

After the party (thank GOD it was not a no show!!), Burny and I worked out a plan with his dad that I would be able to pick up their van in exchange for leaving the rental with them! Could this get anymore complicated?

On the way home from Chico at 10pm, I ran into the LONGEST STANDING STILL construction project known to highway 99. However, it did give me time to talk with Burny, digest the day and of course, apologize for my crazy, emotional behavior all day. I have to say that I am not sure how differently I would have reacted had I not been six months pregnant… but let’s not even hypothesize! 🙂

Either way, I finally made it back to WOodland, dropped off the expensive hatch back at my in laws, picked up the mini van and drove to my moms. Lucky for me, my mom decided after seeing the chewed hole in the couch that it actually wasn’t that big of a deal and she didn’t really care at all. Well, that’s good news, but I still felt like an idiot for making such a big deal over it. I think I was just due for a day, ya know?

So here I sit, just reflecting on the most stupid day… and yet I can’t help but wonder… would such a day as this happen to just anyone? Or am I really as special as I think I am. 🙂

When nature attacks

Since today is a ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Thursday’ and I haven’t blogged on a Thursday in quite some time, I felt that although it’s nearly Friday (11:36pm), I really should squeeze in a traveling story.

And since I’ve only really talked about my travels abroad, I think that it’s only fair to bring things domestic this time around. Because after all… I do actually spend more time traveling around this great country than I do in others…

So alas…

This is one of my most ridiculous travel stories.

It takes place when I was about 19 years old, a sophomore in college, living in San Diego. I remember it specifically because we were living in the haunted house at the time (still a blog to look forward to once I can figure out how to put that into words) and I only lived there while I was 19 years old.

Not really important.

It was late December. As a matter of fact, I will go ahead and say that it was 23rd of December. This is important, obviously, because my roommates and I were still in San Diego and needed to be in Northern California for Christmas. This is the whole problem that starts the travel story from hell. The problem, however, was not necessarily that we weren’t home YET. Obviously in any normal world there would be plenty of time to get home in time for Christmas. The problem was that there was a giant, unstoppable, unpredictable, immeasurable, CRAZY storm approaching…

Let’s go back a moment.

KayTown, DMo- my roommate in the haunted house and all around great friend- and I were planning to drive home in a caravan. DMo and KayTown lived in the mountains, while I lived in the valley, but we all lived North. So it made sense for us to travel together because after all… there is safety in numbers…

In most situations.

So KayTown, DMo and I, very aware of the fact that there was a storm on the way, came up with a plan: We were going to stay awake all night so that we would be able to sleep the following afternoon and early nightfall. And then we would be able to wake up around midnight/1am and drive home having been well rested. This was our original, brilliant plan to avoid the on coming, moderate storm.

Stupid Sophomores.

So after we stay up the entire night, KayTown and I were at work, exhausted, and we were checking out the approaching weather pattern…

I am not kidding you… a HUGE, California sized green blob was engulfing the west coast on the doppler radar.  It did not look good. And it definitely looked like A) things were much worse than the weather men had anticipated (if you can believe that) and B) it was coming much sooner than the weather men had predicted as well.

Shit.

So Kay and I thought things out and talked it over with our boss and headed home with only one solution in mind.

DMo, however, was already fast asleep… carrying out the original plan (Sleep in the afternoon to prepare for the long ride home in the middle of the night).

Kay and I, even though we had had NO sleep ourselves, knew we had no other option. We woke him up and we told him that the plan had to be pushed up.

To now.

It took some convincing I assure you, but about an hour or so, and 3 espresso shots later, DMo (very grudgingly), Kay and I were on the road.

DMo drove his convertible SeaBreeze behind  Kay and I (with the top up of course). And Kay and I, and all of our things for the month-long winter break were crammed into her 1938 Jeep, with a tarp for a roof.

Why you might ask?

Because Kay was going to be purchasing a new car in Nor Cal and needed to bring her old OLD car back home, and my car (a new Ford Contour) was missing… yes missing. It had been stolen. But don’t worry… I got it back a few months later.

But anyway… that’s why we were in the Jeep.

So off we went, at about 10:15pm, under what appeared to be a perfectly clear sky.

But the green mass on the doppler was telling us that any moment, things would become really interesting.

Our main concern at that point: The Grapevine closing. Who would have ever guessed that it snowed anywhere in LA ever? Well I guess that the Grapevine gets to a high enough elevation that in some storms, there is snow. And because no one in LA would ever have any idea how to drive in snow, they always close down the road when this happens.

This would 100% insure that we would not be home  in time for Christmas.

The weather man claimed the road would be closed by midnight.

We were racing the clock.

So we took off, DMo in toe, video rolling. Yes, it’s true. Amazingly enough, most of my college career was caught on tape!

We made it to about  Disneyland before we saw any rain at all. However, that does not mean that the trip had not yet become eventful. Please do keep in mind that we had not slept and that we were in a tarp covered car with nothing more than a 6 pound bag of gummy bears to eat.

We realized very quickly that a tarp covered Jeep was not really  meant to be on the freeway. Between the ripping wind and the jolting clutch, it was not a very smooth ride.

And LOUD! Let me tell you… by the time we made it home (11 1/2 hours later) Kay and I had no voice at all from yelling at each other over the sound of the wind. Not to mention, we didn’t have a stereo, so I held a boom box in my lap the entire ride and we sang along at the top of our lungs (when we weren’t in  fear for our lives).

And FREEZING!! If a tarp covered Jeep is not meant to be on the freeway, it’s certainly not meant to be on the freeway in the dead of winter! Kay and I had on sweats, beanies, sweatshirts with hoods, gloves, blankets and we could see our breath in the air the entire night.

So yes, even before the storm caught up to us, we were already having a very adventurous time.

So around Disneyland, the rain started. It was light at first, but quickly got harder and harder.

If a tarp covered Jeep is not meant to be on the freeway and it’s certainly not meant to be on the freeway in the dead of winter, then it is most definitely not supposed to be on the freeway in pouring rain.

Now we were getting wet as well.

As we approached the bottom of the Grapevine, we pulled off the freeway. We needed gas, but we were in a hurry. It was nearly midnight and the storm was ripping. I am not kidding you. It was hard to stand up straight in the extreme wind. The trees were doubling over and the rain felt like pellets. It was actually very scary, but we were doped up on gummy bears.

We got back in our respective cars, and for Kay and I that meant no escape from the piercing cold, and we headed up the Grapevine, which we were hoping and praying would not be closed.

We made it to the top and just as we were about 5 miles from cresting, the snow started…

And it wasn’t just a little snow… it was hard-core, mountain snow, right in the middle of Ventura county. Lucky for me, both Kay and DMo lived in the snow, so they knew how to drive in those conditions. The other drivers, however, did not. It’s no wonder they have to close that road at the first sign of snow. Our windshield was being covered as quickly as we could wipe it, and the lanes on the road were indistinguishable. These cars were shooting by us going the normal 70mph. I couldn’t believe it.

And wouldn’t you know it… as SOON as we got to the other side of the summit, we saw a long line of cars coming the opposite direction stopped along the roadway. It was literally JUST after midnight and the Grapevine was being closed. I couldn’t believe it.

If we would have decided to take our chances with our original plan, or even if we had decided to leave 10 minutes later… we wouldn’t have made it home for Christmas.

So needless to say… we were in a really good mood coming down that hill. And as we were coming out of the snow and returning to the normal, crazy windy rain storm, we were really thinking that the  worst was behind us.

Ha.

That’s not how it works when nature attacks.

At the bottom of the Grapevine we saw, way out in the distance, a glowing light. Now, it is pouring rain and it has been for quite some time. If you have driven up I5 you know that at this point in the journey, there is nothing left to look at. Especially at night. The middle of this busy state, California, is simply empty. It’s very weird.

So naturally, this glowing light caught our attention  and held our attention for the 5 or so minutes it took us to actually approach the glowing light.

As we got closer, we could see that it was off to the side of the road, maybe 50 or so yards off to the left, and then suddenly we realized… it was a fire.

A fire on top of a pole… Assumably a telephone pole of some sort. But there was really no sign at all as to how or why it was burning. No car wreak. No down power lines. No other sign of any damage. Just one large fire at the top  of this one pole.

In the pouring rain.

At that point I got a call from DMo asking me if we too could see the fire. Um… yes. He also had no idea as to what could cause such an unexplainable fire.

We laughed, the three of us, about how random our trip had been. First clear skies. Then rain, then ripping crazy wind, then snow, then fire… I mean, what could be left?

Fog.

Yes, fog came next.

A few hours up the road the rain started to let up and the terrible wind started to die down… which I have to point out, really did nothing for our hearing conditions in the tarp covered Jeep.

And just as we were thinking “Maybe we are through it”, Mother Nature came and slapped us across the face.

All of the sudden, out of nowhere, we found ourselves in the thickest, most dense fog I’ve ever seen in my life. And it was still freezing.

We could hardly see DMo’s headlights behind us and we were sure that at any moment, we were going to smash into the car of another stupid college duo in front of us who we couldn’t see because of the crazy fog.

But alas, we made it through the fog too.

And then we stopped for gas again.

By this point in the trip, all three of us were fried. I mean, haven’t slept, been at a 9 on the stress scale for hours, freezing and annoyed kind of fried. We got out at the gas station, completely empty except for us morons, and we danced. We turned up DMo’s car radio and blasted “Move your body” by Eiffel 65 as loud as we could and we danced. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life.

When we were ready to leave, I offered to drive the tarp covered Jeep but Kay didn’t think it was such a good idea considering I didn’t know how to drive stick. I figured two things:

1) Once I got on the freeway, there would be no more need to change gears and

2) It’s not like I trip could get any worse…

Kay still said no. DMo agreed. There was NO WAY we were going to throw that out in the universe to be screwed with. Clearly, things were not going our way as it was.

Back in the car, we drove right into more windy rain. It seriously felt like the longest, most incredible journey of our  lives. And although we managed to maintain a sense of humor about the whole thing… we were definitely over it by hour 7.

The pouring rain and terrible wind continued the rest of the way. I remember coming into Woodland over the river and across the coz-way. We were trying to pass this huge semi in the rain and wind on that narrow road and the truck kept creeping into our lane because the wind was pushing it so hard and I was thinking… We are going to make it this far, through all that, and we are going to die 5 minutes away from home.

They were both going to be spending the night at my house before continuing on into the mountains.

But  we didn’t die. We lived. We made it all the way home. And we made it in time for Christmas. We got home on the morning of Christmas Eve I believe. Early in the morning. And we were very grateful to have made it in one piece.

I will never forget looking at that Doppler radar picture and seeing the entire state of California being swallowed up…

We lived it.

We survived when nature attacks.