THE RENTAL CAR DEBACLE

last friday graham, avery and i were involved in car accident. sigh. thank goodness graham and avery are fine - i've got soft tissue damage in my neck, shoulder and knee and our van? a total loss. gulp. the timing could not have been worse. (er, is there ever a good time for these things to happen?)

the accident happened 2 days before we had to leave for seattle for appointments with our doc there. so it was a mad scramble to secure a rental vehicle in order to get seattle - and not just any vehicle would suffice, we needed one that would fit 6 of us plus parker’s wheelchair. naturally, it just so happened that the only vehicle available was an SUV – with literally zero trunk space.

we crammed everyone in – which required a lot of flexibility but thankfully no bones were broken in the process. we were barely even out of our driveway before the moaning and groaning started;

i'm squished... i'm too hot... i'm too cold... i have no leg room.

with barely 10 minutes into our 2+ hour drive, we had to pull over and redo our packing job. everyone piled out. everything was pulled out. with some creative engineering, we finally came up with a seating plan that worked for everyone.

even though they won't admit it, i suspect the boys were thinking that our SF boat car would have made a sweet ride. avery, was greatly disappointed in our rental - but for very different reasons than we had - she was deflated as she had hoped we’d get an RV. oh my! an RV? where that came from no one knows. she is rather persistently lobbying for a motor home to be our replacement vehicle.
and the replacement vehicle ? well we're just having to trust on that one. currently we have no vehicle. with the pitiful payout we’ll get from insurance for our now deceased minivan, it will be challenging to find a replacement. for now, all of that will have to wait until we return from SF.

yesterday (sunday), we left for Bellingham, USA. it’s about a 45 minute drive from our home – across the border. we fly from there as it is far cheaper than flying from Canada to SF. our flight for SF left early this morning, so our friends drove us across the line last nite. thank you dick and tina for the lift! the border line up was minimal entering the USA but it was very backed up coming back – we’re hoping they didn’t have an insanely long wait.

our hotel kindly provided us with taxi service to the airport this morning. much to our amusement, 2 cadillac town cars showed up to whisk us away. we even had a race. the car with graham and parker took one route while mine and taylor’s driver took another.

we won. ridiculous what one finds entertaining in the wee hours of the morning.

our flight went well…and disappointingly uneventful. ok hold up, it’s not that i hoped for any excitement on the actual flight, i'm referring to the security and pre-boarding.... there were no sandeep sightings this time however we did manage to have a completely fruity security guard.
passing thru the first security checkpoint, i asked if it was ok for me to bring my banana thru

"sure, no prob – any fruit is all right." he replied

graham made some reference to some monty python sketch and that’s all the encouragement the security guard needed.

the guy proceeded to start listing off fruit:

oranges
passion fruit
watermelon
cantaloupe
pomegranates

whilst still continuing with his fruity rendition, he escorted us to the second security checkpoint

plums

grapes

pineapple

on and on and on went the fruit spewing guard. last I could tell, he was still reciting every fruit known to man as we departed.

once we were settled on the plane, i asked parker what kind of rental he was hoping we'd get this time around.

“anything but a car boat.” came his immediate reply

taylor said nothing about the matter. in fact, he had no comment on any matter. he slept the entire flight.

lyme exhaustion. one of the symptoms he struggles with the most right now is the brutal insomnia that accompanies lyme. that insanely horrendous insomnia. most nites he does not fall asleep until 4am – having to get up at 5am to catch our flight this morning was terribly hard on him. this extreme insomnia has been going on for months now. last week, when we saw Dr D (our seattle doc) she recommended some additional sleep aids. the melatonin that has considerably helped parker, has had little effect on taylor. DR D put him on a valerian/skullcap supplement and we’re hoping that will kick in. we're sure DR H will be adding in some meds when we see him on tuesday.



we landed in SF just after 10am. how amazing to arrive to find the weather warm - actually hot – piping hot! got all the way up to 95 today. parker wheeled and we trudged from terminal to car rental tarmac. the boys were already wincing at the thought of what the parking lot would reveal.

it's terrible that the first vehicles we passed were a camaro and a charger...having to walk past those was a tragedy for them! – and then much to their profound dismay, the agent pointed out our rental – a florida retiree's car boat

I nearly peed my pants laughing. taylor opened the trunk and exclaimed, “wow. this thing is so massive, i'm surprised there isn't a pool back here.”

parker was utterly disgusted.

soon after getting in the back seat, he muttered, “i’d rather get a PICC LINE than a nasty car. and now I’m getting both.”

once again, we bobbed our way across the san mateo bridge to our hotel.

avery stayed home this time. we gave her the choice - she opted to stay home because she didn't want to miss school! atta girl! my folks and graham's mom will be spoiling her this week. as much as we miss our sunny, joyful little girl and her spirited chatter – we are relieved she is not with us this time. we have 6 hrs worth of doctor’s appointments tomorrow and parker's picc surgery. it will be a long stressful day -

but tomorrow and all it’s stresses and worries can wait. today I'm gonna loll by the pool and soak in some rays. and i’m gonna try to forget that this isn’t a vacation.