I'd prefer a Friday the 13th next time, please

My husband and I took off from our jobs today in hopes of having a family day at the beach. Unfortunately, it was damp and in the 60s. So, we scrambled for a backup plan.

My car needed to go to the dealer for soome minor recall-related work, so we figured we'd drop it off before we ventured off for our day of family-bonding. On the way to the dealer, my car started acting up. At one point, I couldn't drive faster than 20 mph. This was problematic on the highway. We got it to the dealer and left them our cell number.

We decided to spend the day in Portsmouth. We wanted to see the U.S.S. Albacore (a submarine). That turned out well. Then we were going to visit the local library's used book shop, which was no longer there. So, we headed off for lunch. We planned on visiting another used book store that we'd heard of after lunch. When we located the address, the building had been torn down. We did manage to find a nice independent book store. While we were there, we got THE CALL.

Turns out that my car wasn't just acting up a little bit. Turns out that it needed about $2k in work to even be driveable. The car has 101k miles on it. We could neither afford to fix it, or to buy another vehicle at this point. Dilemma. The drive back home took about 40 minutes. By the time we got home, we decided that we might be able to swing a previously owned vehicle (for under $10k).

We arrived at the dealership at 4:30. We needed to be at our son's school for an orientation session by 7pm. With all the negotiating and paperwork, and what not (lots and lots of what not), my husband was just nearing the home-stretch on the paperwork at 6:50. (It takes 20 minutes to get to the school from the dealership.) The dealer handed me the key and slapped the temporary plates on the new (to us) vehicle, and I dashed down the road.

The most important aspect of the school orientation meeting was finding out about our son's math placement. So, imagine my consternation when I arrived to the classroom just after the math teacher's presentation. Fortunatley, she graciously answered all our questions at the end of the meeting, including telling us our son's home room assignment (which had somehow not been communicated to us all summer, though some folks have known theirs since June).

Amid all the chaos of the afternoon, we missed eating dinner. So, I put some vegtables on to steam and a dairy-free organic lasagna in the microwave. I was so busy ranting about my day on this blog that I let the water run out on my vegtables. The whole house smells like burnt food, though the veggies were somewhat salvagable.

But, hey, I did get to see the U.S.S. Albacore and I have a cute little black hatchback now, which gets 10 more miles to the gallon than the car that died. "Always look on the bright side of life.... whistling sounds"