Water! My archenemy!
December 15, 2010 - On icy roads, a woman crashed into Chris' car, totaling it, and broke his finger (a shattered knuckle that didn't get operated on for almost a month). A few days after said wreck, the plumbing burst and we went without running water for... over a year. A year and a half? It was a long time.
Fast forward to last week...
December 21, 2013 - On our way to Cincinnati to have Christmas dinner at Chris' mom's home. It's raining like crazy, flash flood warnings all over the place. We're almost to the bridge leading into Cincy, when the car in front of us stops abruptly. We're two car lengths away, but once the brakes hit the wheels we hydroplane right into the vehicle in front of us. A Toyota Corolla versus a Crown Vic. The Vic won. Though the hit didn't feel like it was that hard - and thankfully no one was injured - the front end of our car was smashed enough that the car was not drivable. (We still haven't heard back, yet, about whether it's able to be repaired, but the airbags were never deployed and what we could see of the frame was intact, so we're hoping for the best. Even if said frame was visible from the outside.) His mom was kind enough to get us into a rental car that night, so that we could make it back home, and his brother had his old SUV that we're driving now.
How is this like the incident three years ago? Well, when we got home that night, we found a busted pipe that was spraying water all over the place (under the house) and we have no idea for how long. Chris turned the water off, beat the house up a bit, then was able to fix the leak the next morning.
We decided the Water Gods have something against him.
So this holiday season was much like the one three years ago, just in less severe ways. Fingers are staying crossed that the severity of the car will match the severity of the rest of the fuckery. IE, it can be repaired and won't be totaled.
It has created all manners of stress, but the holidays were nice despite it.
We had that dinner at his mom's, after her boyfriend and Chris' brother came to pick us up from the exit near the wreck. As usual, we didn't have gifts for them but they had some for us. I got some new pajamas, Paul Mitchell hair care products (I missed using this stuff from when my brother worked for Maly's!), a recipe journal type book, and another $25 gift card for my Kindle. We also got some new towels, a portable power bank for our phones/ereaders, movie theater gift cards, and two tickets to go see The Book of Mormon in January! His mom and boyfriend will be joining us for that one. So excited!
On Christmas Eve we had dinner at his aunt's, on his dad's side, where we also did the White Elephant gift swap game. We were instructed to bring two gifts under $10. We did one bag with a package of several washclothes and two matching hand towels that were on clearance, plus a jar of hand soap to round it out. The other bag had two nice bowl-shaped mugs (though still coffee cup sized) with some hot chocolate mix, apple cider mix, and a jar of Mallow Bits. We feel we had two of the better gifts; people were fighting over the washclothes and I was more than happy to win the hot chocolate pack and keep those lovely mugs. Chris won a flashlight set that had 4 small flashlights and 2 headlamps. This gift was also fought over. Chris has already put his winnings into his work bag.
We made a brussels sprouts and pancetta dish to take to that dinner, which was hardly touched. It tasted fine, though it was a little plain. We couldn't pinpoint what it needed. So we took the remaining dish to his brother's the next day, and he found the secret ingredient! Just the tiniest bit, per serving, of sweet chili sauce really adds to it and gives it a full eggroll flavor. Quite yummy. The pan was cleared out at that meal.
Afterwards we stopped in at Dave and Jessy's for a little bit. Got to see little Roxie in her cute Christmas outfit and see Jessy's new and hilarious video game, The Stanley Parable. The repeated "Let's Begin Again" in the trailer is funny because that's exactly what you do, over and over. I don't know that this game has an endgame, but it sure is amusing.
All in all, Christmas was nothing special. The wreck and stress from that really sucks and has brought us down a bit, but we tried really hard to enjoy being with family and friends. And that part of it was definitely special.
Fast forward to last week...
December 21, 2013 - On our way to Cincinnati to have Christmas dinner at Chris' mom's home. It's raining like crazy, flash flood warnings all over the place. We're almost to the bridge leading into Cincy, when the car in front of us stops abruptly. We're two car lengths away, but once the brakes hit the wheels we hydroplane right into the vehicle in front of us. A Toyota Corolla versus a Crown Vic. The Vic won. Though the hit didn't feel like it was that hard - and thankfully no one was injured - the front end of our car was smashed enough that the car was not drivable. (We still haven't heard back, yet, about whether it's able to be repaired, but the airbags were never deployed and what we could see of the frame was intact, so we're hoping for the best. Even if said frame was visible from the outside.) His mom was kind enough to get us into a rental car that night, so that we could make it back home, and his brother had his old SUV that we're driving now.
How is this like the incident three years ago? Well, when we got home that night, we found a busted pipe that was spraying water all over the place (under the house) and we have no idea for how long. Chris turned the water off, beat the house up a bit, then was able to fix the leak the next morning.
We decided the Water Gods have something against him.
So this holiday season was much like the one three years ago, just in less severe ways. Fingers are staying crossed that the severity of the car will match the severity of the rest of the fuckery. IE, it can be repaired and won't be totaled.
It has created all manners of stress, but the holidays were nice despite it.
We had that dinner at his mom's, after her boyfriend and Chris' brother came to pick us up from the exit near the wreck. As usual, we didn't have gifts for them but they had some for us. I got some new pajamas, Paul Mitchell hair care products (I missed using this stuff from when my brother worked for Maly's!), a recipe journal type book, and another $25 gift card for my Kindle. We also got some new towels, a portable power bank for our phones/ereaders, movie theater gift cards, and two tickets to go see The Book of Mormon in January! His mom and boyfriend will be joining us for that one. So excited!
On Christmas Eve we had dinner at his aunt's, on his dad's side, where we also did the White Elephant gift swap game. We were instructed to bring two gifts under $10. We did one bag with a package of several washclothes and two matching hand towels that were on clearance, plus a jar of hand soap to round it out. The other bag had two nice bowl-shaped mugs (though still coffee cup sized) with some hot chocolate mix, apple cider mix, and a jar of Mallow Bits. We feel we had two of the better gifts; people were fighting over the washclothes and I was more than happy to win the hot chocolate pack and keep those lovely mugs. Chris won a flashlight set that had 4 small flashlights and 2 headlamps. This gift was also fought over. Chris has already put his winnings into his work bag.
We made a brussels sprouts and pancetta dish to take to that dinner, which was hardly touched. It tasted fine, though it was a little plain. We couldn't pinpoint what it needed. So we took the remaining dish to his brother's the next day, and he found the secret ingredient! Just the tiniest bit, per serving, of sweet chili sauce really adds to it and gives it a full eggroll flavor. Quite yummy. The pan was cleared out at that meal.
Afterwards we stopped in at Dave and Jessy's for a little bit. Got to see little Roxie in her cute Christmas outfit and see Jessy's new and hilarious video game, The Stanley Parable. The repeated "Let's Begin Again" in the trailer is funny because that's exactly what you do, over and over. I don't know that this game has an endgame, but it sure is amusing.
All in all, Christmas was nothing special. The wreck and stress from that really sucks and has brought us down a bit, but we tried really hard to enjoy being with family and friends. And that part of it was definitely special.