Laden with Happiness and Tears

Ten points if you can name the song/musical.

So I'm sitting here right now just about ready to cry my eyes out, mostly from stress. And as cathartic as that will be (because let's face it, I'll get around to it sometime tonight) I'm not quite ready for it now. Which means that you all get stories from my week to make you laugh and cry . . . at least in theory.

So Monday was the first day back to school after spring break. The last day of school before spring break was April Fool's Day. Keep that in mind. Anyway, it's lunchtime for everybody, and I've got a bit of a break and I head to the bathroom. As I'm closing the door I notice there's someone in there, which is a little startling, since I figured the place was empty because, you know, that door was unlocked. So I gasp a little and I'm about to apologize and back out when I realize that this person is decidedly NOT someone I work with. Gray, gross, wrinkly face, freaky eyes, freaky facial expression, and those Victorian style/steam punk/goth-ish clothes - you know the type. Seriously, out of my Unsolved Mysteries nightmares!

So, naturally, my first thought is more or less "oh crap, some creeper has sneaked into the school and into the teacher's rest room just to wait for some unsuspecting female like me to come in and chloroform them or something and I'm going to DIE! Yeah, that's more or less what went through my head in about 3 seconds . . . only not quite that articulate. Then my thoughts caught up to the rest of my brain and I realized it was just a creepy Halloween statue, presumably an April Fool's Day prank that was forgotten over the break. Thankfully, I'm not really one to scream when I'm scared - otherwise I probably would not have recovered my voice yet. And I don't even want to think about the new reputation I would have acquired for myself . . . because they would have heard me in the basement. No, when I'm scared I tend fall under a sort of paralysis, which is generally short-lived, but long enough to not bode well should I ever find myself in real danger akin to the kind I thought I was in for those three seconds.

So after a couple more seconds I can move, but I still just stand there seriously considering walking out and using the other bathroom because this thing is just too creepy. However, my crippling self-consciousness won out and I couldn't bare the thought that even one person would see me and wonder about why I walked out of one and right into the other. So there I am . . . well, you know . . . and the whole time I'm warily watching Mr. Creepy half expecting the thing to suddenly start moving - either because it really is an actual person (completely illogical, and I realized that even as a part of my mind tried to insist it was possible, but I've never claimed to be a very logical thinker) or because of some delayed reaction motion sensor. And maybe it's just the whole two years of living in a world where audio animatronics are all over the place (I'm pretty sure some WDW guests think CMs are highly advanced animatronics . . . ) but I just could not convince myself that that one wasn't impossible.

I can't say I enjoyed it, but now - 4 days later and safe (I think!) in my own apartment I am giggling a little bit because, well, it is kind of amusing. Well played, whoever thought of that. Well played. (but not as good as your brown "E's" Katie, lol!)


And now a bit of a sob story. A very complicated sob story . . . in case you haven't guessed already, this is going to be a long post today - kudos in advance to those of you who make it through. :-)

Anyway.

So we're still in the process of moving, but it's been coming along a bit faster than we'd been imagining. So we decided that Saturday (i.e., tomorrow) we would finish up and sleep at the new place for the first time. Don't you just love plans? Me too! That's probably why they never quite work out the way you plan. Obviously, moving out completely involves moving our bed. Which kind of requires more than the little cars we have. But Luke is a convert and I am, as we all know, a spaz, so while one of our home teachers offered up his truck when we were ready a month ago, we didn't actually call him until yesterday (Thursday, for those of you keeping score). Naturally, he's working all day Saturday so that doesn't work . . . "but I could totally do it now." And Luke says yes. Now, this was about 7:00 last night, and I had been planning on heading back over to the old place in another hour or so to go to sleep, so of course silly little unimportant things like PJs, towels, and morning toiletries are all over there. So I hurry over to get what we need and it's just like going on vacation: I think so very carefully and go through my whole routine in my head and I'm pretty absolutely certain that I have everything we'll need for the next 12 hours or so. But no. I forgot . . . *drum roll* . . . food. We've moved a bit of our kitchen stuff, but not all. Canned foods . . . but not the can opener. Pasta . . . but not the pots and pans. You know. And I forgot to grab my box of pop tarts, my go-to breakfast for weekday mornings. Chik-fil-A never tasted so good as it did this afternoon.

Anyway. Back to last night. Well, actually a bit farther. Some of you may recall my facebook poll about whether we should go to Jason's Deli or In-N-Out on our bi-annual excursion to Layton. (It's really obnoxious that that is the closest Kay Jewelers, but on the other hand it gives us an excuse to get out of town every so often and the change of scene is always so nice. For those who care - we ended up taking the recommendations for Five Guys. It's good, but nothing stellar. Anyway.) So we're driving my little neon and as we're coming out of Sardine Canyon it starts shuddering. More and more. So we decide we better pull over soon. We get caught at the first light out of Sardine and it starts shuddering so bad I wasn't sure we were going to make it to the Walmart parking lot we'd decided to shoot for. But as soon as the light changed and we started going again things were better. Still shuddering, but better. Another light, and it gets all violent again, and we were barely able to limp in the parking lot. Long story short we got it to our awesomely dependable and trustworthy mechanic that we're so glad we found, he couldn't figure out what was wrong, but he cleaned out some air filter or other and it seemed to be running fine, but he didn't charge us anything because he said flat out he wasn't sure he'd actually fixed it. So we drove it home and things seemed okay.

For three weeks. Then last night, when I started my car after picking up the PJs and stuff it shuddered starting up. And while I wasn't especially worried about making it to the other end of town, it was definitely bucking a little again at the lights. We're pretty sure it will make it to Tremonton to our mechanic, and we decided to just not drive it until we can get over there sometime next week. So this morning I took our new car to work. And brought it back home. And Luke and I went to Chik-fil-A. And then I took Luke to work. All along with no problems whatsoever from the car. And then I went to the old place and spent an hour loading it up. And got in. And turned the key.

ZAP-ZAP-POP!!

nothing.

zilch.

nada.

I turn the key and turn the key and I don't even get the little dying cough of an attempt to turn over. No reaction at all. I even wondered for half a second if I was actually turning the key. At this point I'm halfway between freaking out and thinking somewhat calmly about what to do next. And let me tell you, that's an odd feeling. Anyway, I pull out my phone and start going through my phone book thinking who I should start with - who's most likely to be home and available at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon. I go through almost every number I have of people in our (old) ward. No answers. A little surprising, but honestly not that shocking. Of course I could call my dad . . . but I kind of don't want to have to wait an hour before help arrives, especially since I emptied out the freezer this time around. But I put the bag of stuff back in the freezer, and start in on the family numbers. Luck, or something, finally strikes and Ashli is home and able to get a hold of a friend of hers who comes over and takes a look at the spark plugs and fuses and apparently they look fine and I tell him my story and he thinks it's a starter problem, but there's nothing he can do right there. Blargh. And Ashli offers her car so I'm not stranded at the place that's the more empty - conveniently enough, she was on her way to Providence anyway - and I call dad and make arrangements to borrow a car until we can get at least one of ours fixed so now we have one of their cars for (hopefully) not long and instead of the two trips I'd planned on making today it'll be two or three tomorrow to get everything else into our new place and I'm coming down from about a 3-hour stint of heightened emotional . . . whatever that's been pushed down so I can deal with what has to be handled calmly all the while being frustrated especially because Luke doesn't even know about the whole thing (well, he does now . . . he called in the middle of this writing, which is part of the reason why it's taken me a couple of hours to get it all down) and really the whole thing would be so much easier if we could just do the whole "being a team" thing instead of me having to do it all myself and really, can't the part where life is just a cakewalk all the time start already?

*sigh*

On the other hand I'm trying to take the whole "this too shall pass" take on it. And I suppose I'm appreciating . . . well, I think it's irony. I'm not one to get all "churchy" on the blogoshpere (although I hope that doesn't cause anyone to wonder about my religiousness), but some very few of you may recall that at the end of 2009 we were having some major chronic car issues. So as 2010 started we prayed long and hard and specifically for some freedom from car troubles. Perhaps too specifically. We asked for a year of no car issues, and unless you count Luke getting rear-ended back in July and the problems caused (which I don't, since it was an outside force messing with the car, not the car dying of its own accord) it was almost 14 months to the day of problem-free-ness when my car crapped out in Brigham last month. Note to self: start being less specific in prayers. At least in car prayers.

So . . . ummm . . . yeah. The chorus of this song? And this one? Pretty much sum up our life perfectly right now. I want to complain, but I kinda can't.

Of course, all prayers, crossed fingers, rain dances, voodoo rituals, etc. in support of cheap car repairs would be awesome. Between both my parents and Ashli's friend the taurus has had at least three dozen diagnoses, ranging from something that dad can fix for a plate of brownies to something that will cost an arm, leg, and our first, second, and third born. Good times.


P. ost S. cript
Ok, now I feel better. At least this hasn't happened to us . . . yet.