The last few weeks

I know that I have a few FAQ questions that are waiting to be answered, and I will do so (thanks for the submissions!), but the last few weeks have been unusually "interesting," so I thought I would actually generate some content of my own by describing what I've been up to.

First, Grace and I were in a car accident two weeks ago. It was on a Monday night and I was taking her to her Daisy Scouts meeting a few blocks down from our house at the local elementary school. Lynda, Sarah, and Hannah were already on their way to church for one of the weekly Lenten book discussion meetings. As Grace and I were leaving our neighborhood and turning left at the four-way stop onto Spring Road, the offending driver came barrelling right at me. I saw her coming right at me in the corner of my left eye and had just enough to to think that she wasn't even attempting to slow down for the stop sign facing her. I stomped on the gas and attempted to avoid her, but it was too late. She came straight through the sign and hit straight into the driver's side passenger door--right where Grace was sitting behind me. The station wagon spun about 180 degrees and we ended up in the middle of the intersection facing diagonally into the lane that she had just driven through.

In those brief few seconds, I heard Grace scream and then it was over. Once the car stopped, I turned around to see how Grace was doing. She was shouting something like "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" but then she stopped and heard me as I asked if she was okay. She was.

I tried to get out of the car, but I couldn't open my door. I crawled out of the passenger's side front door and tried to open Grace's door. But it was already crushed and the top of the door was sticking out of its frame. I went back around to the other side of the car, opened the door, and crawled inside to get a good look at Grace. I immediately saw that she had a small bump in the corner of her left eye and the beginnings of a bruise that was running down a streak on the side of her face. But she wasnt bleeding and it seemed that she was mostly okay.

I got out to survey the damage and try to figure what to do. And there was another bystander who stepped up and helped me keep calm and make sure that things were stable. It was really nice to have complete strangers take time out to help. We waited for the police to come and I finally located the offending driver's car off to the side, parked on the side of the road past where the accident originally occurred. The driver was staying in her car--either because she was simply waiting, or because she was worried about whether Grace had been injured, or I don't know what. But throughout the entire process of turning in information and talking to the police she stayed away. (It was probably precautionary, but I didn't blame her for staying away. It wasn't because I was mad. I just didn't know what to say to her and I was more worried about Grace. She remained lucid and calm throughout and I stopped thinking that she was injured. But I made sure that the arriving EMTs took some time to ask her questions and make sure there weren't any concussion problems.

Once all the paperwork was done, the tow truck was there to take the car away for evaluation and the policeman drove Grace and I back down the block to the house. I kept an eye on her for the rest of the night to make sure that she didn't pass out or anything that might indicate some concussion symptoms.

And after that it was the ordinary bureaucracy of determining what to do with the damaged wagon (it was determined to be totaled by the other insurance agency), finding a replacement vehicle, and figuring out how to pay for it. Most of this was done during Holy (Easter) Week, helped mightily by Lynda's dad. (Her parents were visiting during that time.) By the start of this past week, we had settled on replacing the station wagon with another (newer) minivan, figuring that our current minivan (main car) will probably also need replacing in the next few years so we'd have another one ready to roll by then. It is a Chrysler Town & Country and has a few nice features that wasn't featured in the Dodge Grand Caravan that we bought from the Thompsons a few years back . . . but still retains all the features we liked about that van.

I enjoy the time spent getting used to a new car, the new buttons, features, radio presets, and such. It is a prototypical "male" time for me and I do my best to live up to the expectation. The only problem is that all cars today--especially the more complicated ones--have HUGE key fobs that instantly make your keys into a snarled mess that reminds me of how girls use to gussy up their keys back when they were in 6th grade. (Something I never did as a 6th grade girl.) But, such is the technological life.

*****

For the past two-and-a-half days, I 've been traveling (as you might have surmised from my Twitter and Facebook posts). It's unusual for me to do that, so I enjoyed the difference. But I am glad to be home and even more glad to have a day off at the end of the week to close our my kids Spring Break. Next Monday everything resets back to normal and I dive headlong in my new work project.

I hope I am able to resurface sometime before Christmas.