I just had to relate my camping experience to you. Since my retelling is very long (and is mostly just about the events of Saturday), I have conveniently prefaced it with a short summary version, so that you can decide for yourself if you wish to read the rest of it. I don’t have pictures yet, but I will soon, and they will be great.

SHORT VERSION:

We (about 21 of us) went up to Bishop Creek on the Eastern Sierras. It was hot, dusty, and at an elevation of 8,000 feet, making it hard to breathe sometimes. On Saturday some freak gusts of wind that were estimated by our camp leader to be between 80mph and 100mph somehow managed to uproot three large gazebos that we had staked down. This would have been exciting enough, except that I was standing inside one at the time, and it literally knocked me off my feet, and sent me sailing through the air several feet backwards, where I landed smack on my back, and was then dragged a little farther. Within an hour after my first “solo flight,” lightning struck within viewing distance, starting a brush fire, and our group quickly decided that we would simply leave our campsite a day early. We did, and by the time we were all packed up and ready to leave the whole campground was being evacuated. We had a police escort through the road where fire was burning on both sides. We made it down the mountain safely, with all our stuff, and then I got stung by a bee. As of this evening, the Forks Fire has burned over 2000 acres. And since I have never been stung by a bee before, I was pleased to note that I did not go into anaphylactic shock, and am therefore not allergic to bees.

LONG VERSION:

We left on our camping trip at 4:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning. We caravanned up there in about 5 different vehicles. Some families had carpooled, but since we had a lot of gear and a LOT of food, we were slow getting up. Plus, we stopped several times for bathrooms, gasoline, breakfast, bathrooms, lunch, bathrooms, and so on. Also, we stopped to spend an hour or two at Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp from WWII. We arrived at our campsite in the early evening, and spent a couple of frantic hours setting up tents, and a central kitchen area with four stoves, three gazebos, two picnic tents, and about a trillion chairs around the campfire.

The campsite was very, very hot, and very, very dusty. Over the next few days we divided our time between cooking, eating, and cleaning up after cooking. Well, not precisely, but it sure FELT like that. Cooking and cleaning up after 20 people is very difficult. Plus, we have actual “food handlers” in our group, which meant that we had to wash all our dishes 3-bin style, like the restaurants, and the temperature of the water had to be higher than a certain degree. Something about dysentery, or whatever.  I guess they were right, because to the best of my knowledge, I didn’t get dysentery. (But Archie just told me that you can get it days before symptoms set in, so I don’t know, maybe there is still time.) 

I spent the first day, Thursday, sorting through five campsites worth of food (everything had to be stored in those bear boxes…which seems to me to be a misnomer, because it sounds like the food is for the bears, and it’s not, it’s supposed to be to keep the food from the bears, so maybe they should call it the “No Bear Box” or the “Bear Free Box” or the “Human Food Box”), compiling a list of all the supplies. By the time I was done, I had a very organized list that was 10 pages long. My very organized and accurate list impressed many people who had been previously unaware of my extreme attention to detail. Also, they were taken aback by the fact that I had brought my own clipboard, and a 5-pack of purple pens. 

To be honest, many of the others spent their time fishing, cleaning the fish that got caught, hiking, talking about fishing, sunblocking, and so on. Since I have never been camping, I decided not to get too ambitious, and I didn’t fish at all (didn’t have a license). I stayed in the camp, mostly, and did THINGS that seemed to need to be done. I spent a lot of time going back and forth between our campsite, and the main campsite. Every time I needed to blow my nose, I seemed not to have a tissue handy. Every time I had to go to the bathroom, I had to go to my tent and get toilet paper, soap, and paper towels. And then I had to put them back afterwards. And all the food was stored among the 5 campsites, and since I knew where everything was, I was often asked to retrieve certain items. (This despite the fact that I had written a 10-page comprehensive list that was available for consultation.) 

I am pleased to report that I did not get any sunburn at all. I spent the pre-breakfast time without sunblock. I wanted to make some Vitamin D, and you can’t do that with sunblock. After breakfast, I sunblocked. But I pretty much just wore a long-sleeve shirt, pants, and a big hat, and then I didn’t have to worry about it. It was probably like 100 degrees, but it was cooler than just burning my skin out in the open. 

Camping seems like a lot of drudge work to me. I think I would perhaps like to camp somewhere that was not so HOT AND DUSTY all the time. And then at night it was cold, and I didn’t want to hang out at the bonfire, because I was tired, and the bonfire smoke dries out my already dry throat. 

Anyway, so the fun really begins on Saturday. Saturday was pretty much like the other days, except that it had started a little less hot because of some clouds overhead. Friday and Saturday had these big clouds passing that seemed to carry the threat of rain that never really materialized. Then the cloud would pass and it would be HOT again. Anyway, so Saturday my parents decided to go up to Lake Sabrina, which was just a short distance away, and we oohed and aahed, and my mom waded in some water in a nearby creek, and then we got hungry and came back to the campsite for Lunch. 

For me, I really needed to eat, because it was already like 1:30. So we are inside one of the gazebo-things, sitting at a picnic table, eating our sandwiches. This particular gazebo had these wall-curtain-sheer things that hang down, like mosquito netting, I guess. Anyway, we tend to play boardgames in there, or hang out, because the insects don’t get in there as easily. 

Anyway, this FREAK gust of wind blows up. We had had a couple gusts of wind before, and we end up chasing playing cards, and losing food, and hanging on to our hats. This freak gust of wind blew some stuff over, and I saw one of Archie’s favorite cutting boards go by. Archie got up to get it, went outside the gazebo, and then didn’t get it. He got sidetracked on something else. So I figured I would get up to get the cutting board. I stood up from the table, and was about one foot from the doorway, when a LARGER freak gust of wind hit. Unbeknownst to me, the first gazebo was bearing a huge brunt of wind, and was in the process of being uprooted. We had staked it down, so it shouldn’t have come up, but the wind lifted it right out of the ground. The gazebo I was in was connected to this first one, so the first one was lifted and flipped over, and it pulled up the second one with it. I was in the second one, standing right in front of a pole when the pole was lifted up. It hit me square across the body and knocked me off my feet. 

I couldn’t see anything, because the mosquito netting thing was all over my face, and my hat was blocking my view, but I knew my feet had left the ground, and I could feel my body going horizontal. All I could think was, “Oh great. This is going to be bad.” According to the others, I yelled, “Ahhhh!” which is a point of pride with me, because I could have screeched a high-pitched, “EEEEeeeeee,” but I didn’t. The others also particularly noticed that they saw my shoes flying by, so I must have been pretty high. 

I landed almost flat on my back, bumped my head real hard, and was dragged just a bit. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it might. I still couldn’t see, because the gazebo stuff was on top of me. So I just laid there, and figured when it was all over, someone would come get me. Truthfully, I was a bit knocked around, so I probably couldn’t have gotten up right away if I had wanted to. Still, I figured I should take stock of what was what before I did anything. 

Almost immediately, though, my mom and my husband were right there on either side of me. They lifted the other stuff clear, and tried getting me to sit up, but I asked them to put me back down because my head was hurting, and sitting seemed like too much to ask of it at the time. 

My mother was hysterical. You know those movies where you see some woman sobbing, and she’s holding onto the body of her dead son, and rocking him? Yeah, that was my mom. She was crying and yelling, “Oh my baby” over and over again (she never calls me that, so I had a strange juvenile moment where I was thinking, “Duh, I’m not a baby”), and trying to rock me. She told me she loved me at least once, which, to be honest is a little disconcerting. Not because I don’t want to hear it, but because it sounded like I was going to die, and she wanted to make sure she got that in before I lost consciousness or something. Archie was better, because he just looked worried, but not like he thought these were the last moments of my life. 

So I put my arms up to my mom’s shoulders and told her several times, “Ma, I’m okay.” I figured short, clear sentences would get through to her best. It took several times, and I added a “Nothing is broken” and she eventually got the picture. They wanted to move me, and I said I’d really rather just lay there for a few minutes, and I put my hat on my face to block the sun. Someone found my glasses, which had been knocked off, but fortunately not broken. 

After a couple of minutes I got up, and surveyed the damage. All three gazebos were upside down, and about 30 feet away, in the middle of the road. The couple that had brought the tent-trailer pop-up thing had set it up, and then staked down an awning. The awning had been uprooted, and the tent-trailer had very nearly been pushed over sideways. One person’s tent had been half unstaked, and was sideways. My father had an injury on his hand where one of the gazebo poles had hit him as it flew over his head. There were few other injuries. 

One gazebo was totally mangled and unusable. It was already on its last legs, so we let it die a dignified death, and cut off the cloth for use later. The other two were quickly righted, re-staked, and reinforced with rope. 

From the spot where I had been standing to the spot where I had been thrown was about 10-15 feet away. I had completely cleared the length of the 8-foot picnic table (although I didn’t go OVER it, I just went past it). I was amazed that I hadn’t hit anything other than ground. I didn’t hit the boardgames that were stacked in the gazebo (that Cranium box is metal, and I would have had a serious bruise if I had hit it), I didn’t hit the axes that were lying on the ground outside the gazebo (they were lying flat, so the worst would probably be if I’d bumped my head on the metal part…they were not facing sharp side up or anything), and I didn’t hit any rocks, branches, or firewood. 

Since I landed almost flat on my back, the impact was spread pretty equally throughout my body. I have no bruises. I have some scrapes on one elbow. And I have some reddish spot/scrapes along my spine (my spine pokes out). The worst of it was on my lower back, I have a large scrape just above my tailbone. Apparently that was the exact spot I landed on, and then the slight dragging part gave me gravel burn, or whatever. Some kind friends wiped me clean, and bandaged me up, since the lower back and the elbow area are sort of difficult things to handle on your own. I now have my own tramp stamp, made by Band-Aid. 

I did have a headache, and I took an ibuprofen, but I was up and moving around rather quickly. We had to clean up the campsite, after all. 

My sandwich had not blown away, strangely, and I meant to come back to it later, but as it turned out, in the commotion to follow, someone threw it away. 

I went back to our tent for something, and had a moment to myself to just cry for a bit. It was seriously only like 5 seconds, but it needed to be done. I didn’t want to have to worry about holding back tears on top of everything else. Then I went back to picking up trash, despite others’ protests that I should be lying down or something. 

Since I was a bit oblivious to everything around me except what I was focused on, I didn’t realize for a few minutes that a fire had started on a nearby ridge. Apparently lightning had struck some dry brush, and a fire had started. There was a single line of white smoke, and the fire itself couldn’t be seen. Interesting, but surely something that happens pretty often, right? 

After about an hour, we watched the fire get bigger, and figured we ought to make a decision about what we were going to do about it. Some of the menfolk went down to the ranger station to get the news, and were told that they weren’t concerned just yet, but campers would be told about it, and told that they could evacuate voluntarily if they wanted. Our whole group decided to be better safe than sorry. We were leaving the next morning, anyway. 

Even if we had stayed, would we be able to eat dinner and sleep, knowing that at any hour we could be called upon to flee for our lives? How could we enjoy the rest of the trip with a threat hanging over us? So we packed. We packed and we packed and we packed. We went at a pretty good pace, but we had plenty of time, so we were being thorough and organized. 

The fire got worse. The smoke was now brown and orange, and began to drift our direction. So we packed a bit faster. 

There was just one problem. Eight of our campers had gone on a separate day-trip down the mountain, and we didn’t know when they were going to be back. They had two vehicles with them, and were meeting up with a third. So if we were going to pack their stuff, we would have to take it with us. 

The ranger finally came by talking about the voluntary evacuations, and he told us that the roads are now closed, and no one was being allowed back up the mountain. 

So now we packed even faster. We had two other campsites to pack up besides our own, and now we felt a real urgency. We threw clothes into backpacks and sleeping bags. We tore down tents and rolled them up messily. We combined coolers and food boxes, and crammed as much as we possibly could into the four vehicles that remained. We stopped caring what belonged to whom, and we just packed it up. 

Some of the other campers were not only doing what we were doing, they were doing it faster, and driving away. But some of the campers must have thought we were being silly. They were just sitting in their chairs, swigging beer, and watching the fire. 

But we didn’t pay much attention to anyone but ourselves. One of the young girls with us, about 8 years old, was so stressed out she started getting a tummyache. I was technically on the injured list, and several others were over-stretching their abilities, but we were all running a bit on adrenaline. We had only to look up and see that nasty brown smoke looming nearer to know that we were doing the right thing. 

We finally all loaded up in the vehicles, and started to head out. The vehicle I was in was one of the first ones to the road, but the road was blocked. They weren’t letting anyone down because they were waiting for a water drop, and some police escort. We waited for probably 15 minutes, becoming more and more upset because we couldn’t see our other vehicles in the line forming behind us. (It turned out later that the camper and the trailer were told to remain at the campsite because of their size, and not to move until word came that the police escort was taking people down.) 

Finally, the police escort started, and we were in the second group. We drove maybe a quarter of a mile with the police escort, right in the middle of the nasty brown smoke. On either side of us was fire burning. A fire rocket was shot into the side of the mountain, and it looked like firemen were pouring fire onto the side of the mountain. I guess they were setting some sort of backfire. There were firemen and firetrucks, and the whole hillside was blackening. Through our closed windows, we could feel the heat. 

And then we were through, and driving briskly down the mountain. We had an arranged meeting place, and so we headed straight for it. Right at the bottom of the mountain, there was a police barricade preventing people from going up, and we slowed down to see if our friends were there. Sure enough, there were three vehicles that had been sitting there for a couple of hours, and the faces were familiar. We were all relieved to see each other, and we all headed for the meeting place. 

About 30 minutes later, everyone had arrived, and we rejoiced to see that everyone was safe, and we hadn’t had to leave a single thing behind. The last group gave us news that as they were leaving the rangers began issuing a mandatory evacuation order to everyone in the campsite. Meaning everyone had to drop what they were doing and leave immediately. So anyone who had not already packed up had to leave behind whatever they couldn’t take. 

We had managed it just in time. If there had been dissent among the families or less cooperation, there’s no way we would have packed everything up and been ready to go. 

We spent an hour in the K-Mart parking lot in Bishop, distributing items. The kids got a kick out of the adventure, and the adults went around trying to claim the things that belonged to them. We separated out food, and we repacked, and we told and retold our experiences.

Then our group separated. Some were going North on the second leg of their camping trip, and the rest of us would have to head home.

But it was already 7:30 p.m., and we had a 6-hour drive ahead of us, after a long, eventful day. So we decided to rent a motel. The motels were all booked in Bishop, even though they had jacked up the price of each room, once they realized there was a wildfire. The motels were all booked up in Independence, too.

So we drove around looking for one of those discount brochure-things that would tell us where we could find a motel. In one of the parking lots in the city of Big Pine, we were sitting around waiting for someone when I felt an incredibly sharp pain, and looked down to find a bee on my finger. I had just been stung by a bee for the first time. I pulled off the bee. Then I pulled out the stinger. Then I just stared at it in shock for a moment, because I was inside of a car I had been in for the last 30 minutes, well away from the campground, and the last thing I expected was to be stung by a bee.

I am not allergic to bees, which is good to know, because I had often feared I would be stung when I was alone and die before I knew what was going on. Now I don’t have to worry. So I jumped out of the vehicle and ran to where my mama was in another vehicle, and I made her roll down the window and take a picture of my stung finger. Then I ran back to the car and stuck my hand in the ice in the cooler.

So back to the quest for the discount brochure-things, we went to several places, and none had them, although several had helpful suggestions on where to find them. Our group had separated a bit, as some people went to one store, and others went to a different one, looking for the brochures. Somehow, each person was told to try Bristlecone Pine Manor (or Motel, or something). Since each one was told separately, we somehow all ended up at Bristlecone Pine, looking for the same thing.

And lo and behold, we found what we were looking for. And more. Bristlecone had a room to rent. And not just any room, they actually had a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom mobile home to rent. It sleeps 9 on the beds and the couches, and it came with a stove, dining room, and living room. Obviously, there was also plenty of floor space in case you had air mattresses or sleeping bags (and of course we did!).

You’d think it would have been rented already. But it hadn’t been rented because the swamp cooler hadn’t been working. By some coincidence, though, the swamp cooler had been fixed just that day, and so not only was the house unrented, it was also nice and cool.

The nice lady rented it to us for $135.

So the 13 of us tired and dusty and hungry travelers found a place for the night. We got to take hot showers. We had a stove, a microwave, a sink, and everything we could need to make dinner for 13 people with all our leftover food. It was already 9:00 p.m., so we didn’t eat dinner till 11:00. By then we had all showered, so we fell into bed immediately after we cleaned up dinner.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who sent up thankful prayers that night that not only were we all safe and sound, but we were well-provided for, beyond even what we would have asked for.

It is now 24 hours later, and I am safe and sound in my own home, in my own bed, while the Forks Fire rages past the 2000 acres it has already consumed. And I knew I just had to tell others about my adventure.

“Ma, I’m okay.”

Yes, my people, I have returned.

I have no idea how long this will last, but I think I will post a few entries over the next several days.

First off, I would like to mention that I have recently increased my hours at work. I had been working part-time at 27 hours a week, and now I am working “full-time” (but not really) at 32.5 hours a week. These are big changes for me, since I have never worked this many hours at once before.

Naturally, you all probably think I am very spoiled or possibly well-off, but the fact of the matter is that I have never needed to work more than part-time. When I lived at home with my parents my living expenses were low. When I got married, my husband worked full-time, and we agreed (and not in a sexist way!) that as long as he worked full-time, I would work part-time so that we could meet our bills, but still keep a modest household.

We have no need for fancy things, and are content to use the saved time, stress, and energy in other pursuits. My goal, of course, was to spend more time in the ministry. But this is not particularly enjoyable for me right now, so it’s kind of like pulling teeth to get me up, dressed, and out in the mornings. Still, I didn’t want to cut down my chances by committing to a full-time job, especially when we didn’t NEED the money.

Well, last year when my husband lost his job, we went through a lot of changes. We restructured our bills, and he used his free-time to start a new career, and we spent several hopeful months thinking things were going to turn around, or at least return to a level of normalcy.

We also discovered that my husband has diabetes. This was very unexpected, as we had no knowledge of a history of diabetes in his family. We were kind of freaked out, and so we started making some changes in our diet and exercise, with good results. But now he has medications and blood work and other “considerations” that need to be handled, and they tend to be spelled out M-O-N-E-Y.

For me, during this difficult year, I have tried to be a supportive wife. I do what I think needs to be done, I tell my husband what is going on to keep him up-to-date with everything, and I kept my job at part-time. All without trying to seem like I was trying to take over and suddenly be the boss of everyone. (Which, if you know me, is really kind of difficult because I am really bossy. It is just another lesson I have had to learn being married...stop trying to boss everyone around, they really don’t like it.)

You’d think that I would have increased my hours then, but I didn’t. And here’s why:

We were still meeting the bills. We had to cut back on some things, but we were meeting all of our financial obligations, and my husband was using the opportunity to start a new career. If I had increased my hours, then it would have seemed like I didn’t believe in him.

It is important to me that people know when I believe in them. And I have learned over the years that you can say the words till you are blue in the face, but a tiny little action may undo all of your work. Changing my work to full-time would have undermined his abilities to provide for the family.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those women who believe that men belong in the workplace and women belong in the kitchen, if they can manage it. I think I would hate being a housewife. And my husband is not the kind of man to resent or feel threatened by his wife’s working and bringing an income that is used for the benefit of the family. BUT, regardless of all of those things, it doesn’t feel good to feel like a failure, and feel that someone else has to pick up the slack for you. And if that someone else is your 85 lb. wife (90 lbs dripping wet…and with a 2-pound weight in each hand) who has never worked full-time in her life, it’s easy to see how a man’s self-confidence and sense of self-worth could begin to decrease.

To me, it was more important to keep up morale than it was to increase our income. We were meeting all the bills, after all, so we weren’t suffering or anything. It cost me very little to continue to be supportive and express my faith that he would succeed, either in his new career, or in another job that he enjoys.

WELL.

A few months ago, after meeting together, we realized that this new career of Archie’s was not going to work right now. He still liked the industry, but now is not a good time for it. So we decided he would try to find a part-time or full-time job that pays hourly or salary and then wait a year or two for things to pick up.

This would have been a good plan, but NO ONE is hiring right now. It’s horrible. People are losing their jobs left and right. Employers that are hiring have huge stacks of résumés to look through, and it has been just frustration after frustration.

And in the meantime our ability to pay all the bills was rapidly coming to an end.

And then I discovered that my husband was not taking his medication except when he “needed to” because we no longer had medical coverage and the refills are expensive.

[GASP] What’s a girl to do?

So, I increased my hours. I increased just enough so that I would qualify for medical coverage at work. Then I increased a bit over that so that the monthly cost of health insurance could be deducted from my check and the net amount I bring home will still be the usual amount.

I thought about this for a long time. I could go to full-time, but I really didn’t want to do that. For one thing, it’s harder to decrease your hours, once you are at 40, than it is to increase them. For another, I prefer to have the power in the dynamic between me and my employer. As long as my employer feels that they are doing ME a favor, they feel they can dump things on me or threaten me with firing me. (Not that they have ever done it before to ME, but I know how the business world is.) As long as I was working part-time, they feel that their hold on me is tenuous, and that I could go out and find me another part-time job if I wanted to, and they’d be stuck with the incredibly complicated job of finding someone to replace me (I type at 99 wpm with 99% accuracy, I am a whiz at Microsoft Excel, I learn new programs in a jiff, I ferret out problems, find holes in analysis, reconcile huge amounts of money down to the penny, and I have cool Star Wars toys on my desk… I do a full-time job in part-time hours). I didn’t want to shift that balance of power. I have seen too many coworkers stressing out about possibly being fired or replaced, being denied raises or paid-time-off, to let anyone walk all over me. Being employed is a contract between two equal parties…you treat me well, I do good work for you. You treat me like crap, and I am out of here.

And in the end, if I went to full-time hours, not only would I be miserable, the bills still would not get paid. I do not make enough to be the sole provider of the family. Archie would still have to get a job. So I made the more reasonable decision, and increased my hours to the best benefit of my family.

We now have medical insurance, which kicks in…in about 5 days. (Thank goodness, because my “pill” ran out a couple of weeks ago, and apparently my body is in withdrawal. I am having PMS symptoms every freaking day.) We will go get our refills, my husband will get his blood checked, or whatever, maybe I will have some dental work done. And THAT will be a huge load off of our minds.

However, we still have the problem of paying our bills. I did several different sets of calculations, and I determined that the credit scores we have carefully protected over the last four years are doomed. We are going to have to default on every credit card we have, our timeshares will need to be repossessed,and, of course, we’ll have to lose the cable TV. I’ll still be able to pay the rent, the water/sewer, the gas/electric, and our phones. Plus, gas and food. Barely.

And let me tell you, when that outcome is staring you in the face, it is very upsetting. The first night I realized how close the end was, I seriously felt like freaking out. My heart was beating too fast, my head was going in circles, I was on the verge of being a very big mess.

And because I know my husband very well, I didn’t tell him. I wasn’t going to hide it from him, I just wasn’t going to tell him right that second.

Instead, I put everything away, and said a prayer. Some people do things like pray for God to fix their problems for them. I’m not going to comment on that for the moment.

I prayed that regardless of what was going to happen, regardless of what I had to do, or the choices I had to make, that I would be okay with it. I didn’t know what the future was going to hold regarding these particular events, but I wanted to be strong enough for myself, and for my husband if he needed me to be. And I prayed that I would get the job done, whether it was filing for bankruptcy or moving in with my parents, or any of a thousand other things that might be in our near future.

And then I waited a day or two. And one morning I woke up and looked at my calendar on the wall, and stared all those facts directly in the face. And all I felt was resolve. I was ready to face everything head on.

So that’s when I broke the news to my husband. And if he freaked out about it, he didn’t show it to me. I like to think that my very practical approach to everything helped him to deal with it a little better than if I’d come to him on the verge of hysterics. I pointed out that we had enough money for food, shelter, and gas. And if our credit scores dropped, and if we were bombarded by calls from collection agencies every day of our lives, those are only inconveniences. They don’t threaten our lives. They don’t threaten our health if we don’t let it. And so we will take one step at a time, and see where that takes us.

I started walking to work, for health reasons as well as for the obvious reason of saving gas and the earth and all that. I live less than 2 miles from work so it only takes me 40-50 minutes every morning. My husband walks with me some days, and so it can only be of benefit to him and his diabetes. We are planning our food much more carefully to save money, but also to stay healthy.

And the changes are very freeing. My body feels better, my stomach feels better, and my mind and heart feel pretty good about what we are doing.

I have my health, such as it is, I have my faith, and I have my husband. And honestly, I only really need two out of the three. And if the world shattered, I could make do with just one.

We still haven’t hit the rock bottom yet. We are nearly there. The trick is paying the rent on July 1st. After that, it will be all touch-and-go.

And then two days ago, my husband got a job offer. Full-time (40 hours, not like my 32.5 hours). $14.50 an hour plus commission sorts of things. In the same industry he has been trying to start a career in, so he gets to keep and utilize the three licenses he went through the trouble of getting. Full benefits. Regular hours, between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday. He starts on July 20th, after extensive background checks.

So, my faith was rewarded. Both in my husband and in my God.

And now all I have to do is figure out how to pay the rent on the 1st.

I did not get my license until I was nearly 21. For various reasons, most of which revolved around the fact that I really didn't WANT to. I was content to take the bus (called "The Breeze" here where I live...I'm not joking, that's what it says at all the stations and on all the buses), walk, or wait for my younger brother to drive me around.

Around the time Archie and I started courting, I buckled down and got my license because I didn't see myself going into marriage without something as basic as a driver's license. What if he got sick, and had to go the hospital? If it was at night, well, you can't catch The Breeze at night. I just didn't want to be a liability (in that area, anyway). So I got my license, and almost immediately started driving the truck that was earmarked for me.

And almost immediately, I hit a series of parked cars. Not all at once. I mean, I went through a series of time in which I hit parked cars. (For my last big adventure, see my post from Friday, May 5, 2006....about 20 or so posts ago, since I haven't been real active on Xanga the last couple of years.) I never caused any damage to any of them, seeing as how I was never going above 3 miles an hour. But, I hit probably 6 parked cars. The worst one being the aforementioned 2006 accident, since that one actually damaged my tailgate pretty badly. (Yeah, most of my parked cars were hit in the process of parking and/or reversing.)

So, today, I ruined my streak. I hit a MOVING vehicle. With a PERSON inside.

That has never happened to me before.

Again, I was reversing from a parked position, so I was only going about 3 miles an hour, and thus the damage is pretty minimal. But I was really sad to have actually hit a moving vehicle.

The problem is that where I live, almost everyone is gone by the time I leave for work around 9:30. (Actually, today it was 10:00, because I was uber-late.) So I am very used to having the carport all to myself. I do cursory checks in the rearview mirrors for cars, because there's not usually any cars there. Occasionally there are PEOPLE behind me, so I am very careful to look for people. But usually, it is pretty deserted.

Today, on the way to my truck, I rounded the corner and caught the couple from Apartment L smooching in front of their car. They broke it up pretty quickly, and I tried not to look at them, because I didn't want them to be embarrassed. What do I care if Apartment L is affectionate?

Anyway, I get in my car, check my airspace, and in my rearview mirror, I see Apartment L's car backing up. So I wait for the car to get out of my zone, and then I start backing up. In case you didn't catch that, I did NOT check my space again after Apartment L's car left. I wasn't expecting anybody to be there. There was no one in the area, and Apartment L had just left. I didn't check my airspace.

Little did I know, that Apartment L had separated and FEMALE Apartment L was in the car, and MALE Apartment L was in a minivan coming out of the side. So what happens? As Male Apartment L in the minivan follows after his blushing bride in her Yaris (or whatever it was), I reverse right into his taillights at about 3 miles an hour.

Boo. My streak is ruined.

Fortunately, Male Apartment L was not too upset about it. He seemed a little frustrated like maybe it had been a bad week all around, and this was just the cherry on his sundae. But he wasn't mad, and he didn't ask for my insurance or anything (although I did reiterate my apartment number, and tell him my name, and he'd obviously know where to find me even if I didn't, because the carports are all labelled by apartment number). He just asked me to check his lights for him while he ran through his braking, reversing, and signalling. Since everything worked, he just fiddled with his rubber bumper a bit (it was coming off), and we were both on our way.

I can only imagine what would have happened if I had hit FEMALE Apartment L. Eek. Her car was much nicer, newer, cleaner, and unlike the minivan, it had not been hit before. (The minivan actually had a big ol' dent where someone else had done the same thing I had in the same spot, too. Which, come to think of it, is probably why the bumper was coming off.)

Note to self, even if you think no one is there, DOUBLE-CHECK anyway.

And in case anyone cares, my truck got away with just a few scratches that can probably be buffed right out.

I am the only person in my family to have never been in an accident with considerable damage done to both vehicles. And I am the only person in my family to have a series of bumper-lovetaps with many and varied, foreign and domestic, unmanned vehicles.

And now I can add this prize to my collection.

Monday, December 29, 2008: wielded my truck as a weapon and hit a minivan with a guy in it while reversing out of my carport. Also, had macoroni wheels and cheese for Lunch.

Well,

After all my talk about curly hair prejudice, I have to say that I am not surprised to see this story from ABC:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=5565719&page=1

I do, however, feel a tad bit vindicated. It is not all in my mind, it is not some paranoia, nor is it simply me being a curly-hair snob. (Although, in point of fact, I probably am.)

People get treated differently based on their hair type. I can get my hair as perfect as possible, but if it is curly, people will view me much more differently than when it is straight. It's not fair (for curly girls or straight girls or in-between girls), but that's really how it is.

Commercials show that girls with curly hair need to "fix" it to be silky, smooth, shiny, suave, sophisticated or whatever other S-words equal to "straight." I recently saw a commercial with this curly-girl who looked all miserable while her hair was frizzing out. And yes, it was a bit on the frizzy side, I would have tried to help her out myself. Then she tried this "magic" conditioner and it was suddenly smooth and straight.

I turned to Archie and said, "No way that's the same head of hair with just some different conditioner. Either that girl had a wig in one of those scenes, or they straightened it for the second one." The shame of it is that so many people feel pressured to change their hair to conform to this idea of what is "pretty" or "perfect" and are made to feel that what they already have could never be pretty OR perfect.

I love my hair. I love it even more now that our love-hate relationship turned into a love-love-all-the-time relationship. But it frustrates me to see the commercials, and the magazine covers, and the Princess Diaries movie (yes, I'm talking about you, Anne Hathaway! You could have rocked the curly hair, and you DIDN'T!) all working to give innocent little pre-teenies (who already have self-esteem issues) the idea that their hair has to be a certain way, or they can't be a princess. (Not that I am pro-princess. I think if I am going to fantasize, I am going to be the sole monarch of a small, but economically prosperous principality. Why be princess when you can be queen?) Worse than not being a princess (which few of us will ever accomplish in our lifespan, even if that WAS one of our goals), is the idea that you cannot grow up to be an attractive, capable, successful woman if your hair is too unruly.

I say "Pfffft!" to all of you!

Now, go hug your curly-headed blue-haired granny.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I could not stop laughing. Seriously. I wasn't a Minnesota Wild fan, really. But I may consider becoming one, just because of Nordy. Ahahahahaha!

READ THIS ARTICLE:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Wild-s-new-mascot-Mullet-wearing-raccoon-bear-w?urn=nhl,112930