See? This is why I get too tired to post.
So this was my day. Didn't get much sleep last night; joint pain woke me early, although I'm happy to say that that hasn't happened in a while. Still … not a lot of sleep. And this is on top of a week (at least) of going like an over-eager beaver. (I'd been doing more alpaca chores; there was a lot of driving and errand running; worked at the market on Saturday; difficulty sleeping always. Yesterday Dar started her chemo; that ended up being a nine-hour trip.) Our friend Skye had let us borrow her new(ish) Volkswagon for the commutes to the London hospital (Dar had appointments both last Friday and yesterday) because the weather was supposed to be snowy and my 11-year-old Mazda is not great in bad weather.
So today was the day when we were going to bring Skye's car back to her in Kitchener. It's about an hour from our place to hers. First, the car doors are all frozen solid. Dar searches out a long extension cord and goes to work on the driver's door with a blow dryer. Meanwhile, I'm shoveling the porch and steps and getting rid of the (smallish) snow drifts between us and the road. The car door finally defrosts, but I quickly discover that the car battery is deader than dead. It is wicked cold (5F/-15C), strong winds are putting the wind chill at waaaay below 0F and snow squalls are rolling through. I hook up Skye's battery with mine and let it run for 15 minutes before trying mine again. Nothing. Mess around with cables a bit, let it run for another 20 minutes. Nothing. Take all the cables off, we go talk to Deb about using her big-ass truck to jump the car, but she's on hold on the phone. She says to connect the two negatives instead of grounding mine on the engine block. I'm not happy about this because it can be dangerous, so I reattach the cables in the approved manner and hope for the best. Another 20 minutes of letting it charge. Nothing. Fuck this. I make sure Dar is nearby in case the battery blows up in my face and attach negative to negative. Ten minutes later my Mazda battery finally turns over. (Oh, and in between we were trying to affix tarps to the engine hoods to try to keep the blowing snow off the engines. Yeah, that went about as well as you're thinking it did.) Two hours, people. That's how long it took to get the damn car started.
We head out. Mark is driving my Mazda, and I'm following in Skye's car. Or trying to follow. Between the blowing snow and the occasional squall, it's white-out conditions in places. Fortunately it cleared up nearer to Kitchener. We meet up with Skye; I give her the keys to her car, and she hustles off to her dentist appointment. Mark and I slip into a coffee bar to warm up with some fancy-schmancy coffee. And this is when I discover that I have no wallet. Skye is gone, so I can't get back into her car to search around there. The last place I saw my wallet was in London the day before when I pulled into a gas station to fill up the car.
I'm trying not to panic. Maybe it fell out of my purse at home. Fortunately it was a decent drive back home. Once there I tear my room apart looking for my wallet. The same goes for the kitchen and living room. I stomped around all the snow where the car had been parked, in case it fell out of my purse while I was walking into the house yesterday. Nope. Dar hops on Google Earth (I suck at using that app), and we track down the gas station I used. No, they haven't seen it.
I am … upset. My wallet held all of my Canadian IDs. My drivers license, my SIN card (it's like Social Security), my health card, debit card (and one of Dar's, too), credit card, library cards, insurance card. All I have left is my American passport and a work visa that expired in June 2011. Yes, 2011. (Thank you, Immigration. Thank you so very much.) Trying to get all new Canadian IDs based on that is going to be a nightmare given all the bureaucratic hoops I'm going to have to jump through.
Dar cancels her debit card. I cancel mine. I file a police report with the London police online. I'm going nuts trying to find old copies of anything that can help me out. And then the phone rings.
Steven in London is calling to tell me that he found my wallet last night on the ground between a bank and a Tim Horton's. (This is so very Canadian; I can't even begin to tell you.) All the money was gone but everything else seemed to be there. He was going to mail it to me, but then he decided to call just to doublecheck. Can you say yay?
If the damn snow squalls stop, I can borrow Deb's truck and get my wallet tomorrow. Otherwise it'll be Friday or Saturday. And then I'm getting a different purse. And a wallet that gives off a shrieking alarm if it hits the ground. But for now? I'm getting some sleep.
So today was the day when we were going to bring Skye's car back to her in Kitchener. It's about an hour from our place to hers. First, the car doors are all frozen solid. Dar searches out a long extension cord and goes to work on the driver's door with a blow dryer. Meanwhile, I'm shoveling the porch and steps and getting rid of the (smallish) snow drifts between us and the road. The car door finally defrosts, but I quickly discover that the car battery is deader than dead. It is wicked cold (5F/-15C), strong winds are putting the wind chill at waaaay below 0F and snow squalls are rolling through. I hook up Skye's battery with mine and let it run for 15 minutes before trying mine again. Nothing. Mess around with cables a bit, let it run for another 20 minutes. Nothing. Take all the cables off, we go talk to Deb about using her big-ass truck to jump the car, but she's on hold on the phone. She says to connect the two negatives instead of grounding mine on the engine block. I'm not happy about this because it can be dangerous, so I reattach the cables in the approved manner and hope for the best. Another 20 minutes of letting it charge. Nothing. Fuck this. I make sure Dar is nearby in case the battery blows up in my face and attach negative to negative. Ten minutes later my Mazda battery finally turns over. (Oh, and in between we were trying to affix tarps to the engine hoods to try to keep the blowing snow off the engines. Yeah, that went about as well as you're thinking it did.) Two hours, people. That's how long it took to get the damn car started.
We head out. Mark is driving my Mazda, and I'm following in Skye's car. Or trying to follow. Between the blowing snow and the occasional squall, it's white-out conditions in places. Fortunately it cleared up nearer to Kitchener. We meet up with Skye; I give her the keys to her car, and she hustles off to her dentist appointment. Mark and I slip into a coffee bar to warm up with some fancy-schmancy coffee. And this is when I discover that I have no wallet. Skye is gone, so I can't get back into her car to search around there. The last place I saw my wallet was in London the day before when I pulled into a gas station to fill up the car.
I'm trying not to panic. Maybe it fell out of my purse at home. Fortunately it was a decent drive back home. Once there I tear my room apart looking for my wallet. The same goes for the kitchen and living room. I stomped around all the snow where the car had been parked, in case it fell out of my purse while I was walking into the house yesterday. Nope. Dar hops on Google Earth (I suck at using that app), and we track down the gas station I used. No, they haven't seen it.
I am … upset. My wallet held all of my Canadian IDs. My drivers license, my SIN card (it's like Social Security), my health card, debit card (and one of Dar's, too), credit card, library cards, insurance card. All I have left is my American passport and a work visa that expired in June 2011. Yes, 2011. (Thank you, Immigration. Thank you so very much.) Trying to get all new Canadian IDs based on that is going to be a nightmare given all the bureaucratic hoops I'm going to have to jump through.
Dar cancels her debit card. I cancel mine. I file a police report with the London police online. I'm going nuts trying to find old copies of anything that can help me out. And then the phone rings.
Steven in London is calling to tell me that he found my wallet last night on the ground between a bank and a Tim Horton's. (This is so very Canadian; I can't even begin to tell you.) All the money was gone but everything else seemed to be there. He was going to mail it to me, but then he decided to call just to doublecheck. Can you say yay?
If the damn snow squalls stop, I can borrow Deb's truck and get my wallet tomorrow. Otherwise it'll be Friday or Saturday. And then I'm getting a different purse. And a wallet that gives off a shrieking alarm if it hits the ground. But for now? I'm getting some sleep.