What a crazy week!
Tuesday, the Big Day. Not only did Davina's gymnastics class end at exactly 6pm (the swearing in time) but Ronnie's teacher announced a meeting for the German exchange next June, starting exactly at 6pm too. The question is, could I be in three places at the same time? Getting Davina, attending the meeting and watching the swearing in?!?
Davina must have felt something was up because she usually loves gymnastics. She started having a crises at the start of it. She insisted we watch, which we're usually not supposed to but she said there were family members. Sure enough, there were. I talked to the instructor later who explained they were out-of-towners who wanted exceptionally to watch and she let them. I told her it kind of weirded Davina out and perhaps it better to stick to the rule but that was later.
So Davina wasn't being cooperative and I was getting fed up so we left.
I got home and announced to the kids, this is an historic day and I wasn't going to miss it by attending any meeting. I explained what would happen and at the "So help me G-d" we were to jump into the car. We watched, cheered and ran into the car.
I didn't miss that much but made up for it when we volunteered to take a German student coming here in May (not Ronnie's class but the next grade up and they don't have enough families). Ronnie, meanwhile, will go with his class to Rostock, in northern Germany (the part of Germany here speaks too much French) for a week in June and he'll stay with a family. I made it clear to the teacher, my son speaks English, a language widely spoken in Germany and I didn't want my son's linguistic adventure to become a good opportunity to brush up on the host familys' English...
As promised, since it was late, we drove through the good old golden arches. Leaving "Mac-Do" as the French call it, I had a green light and saw a car barrelling towards me. I thought "I better finish this turn..." Well I did finish it but I hit the divider. The idoit coming towards me turns on his blinker very last second and heads off in the other direction. I shut off the radio and prayed that I hadn't done my tire in. About 3 or 4km later, and not far from home, it was obvious I had.
Luckily, the kids don't have school on Wednesdays (nor do we have any early activities). I pulled over in front of a pet food store near home and called the assitance service.
They told me they'd call me back.
I called them back awhile later and explained, I'm stuck in a not-so-great neighborhood, alone with three kids and could we at least get a time frame??
I called back again about half an hour later. I talked to a new person. The first one hadn't even opened a file. Ugh!
"No, we do have a file. Wait...this is from October! Do you mean...you have
another flat tire?!?"
"Yes".
"You can't be doing this all the time. This is the same tire?"
"No, I don't 'do this all the time'. Last October, I drove over something and busted one of the back tires. This time, I hit a divider trying to avoid a speeding car coming towards me. I didn't look because I didn't want to have an accident. Given the choice..."
Then she backed off. I was ready to tell her that I didn't need lectures while sitting on the side of the road...Half an hour to 45 minutes. I gave her the street name, since I was running out of phone battery.
At least the kids had food and no school. Davina fell asleep. Ronnie was panicking, which is strange as Talia, I would have thought, was more likely to panic. I made the mistake of correcting Ronnie's grammar in the car. Ronnie informed me that this wasn't the moment for English lessons...
The temperature was 3C which is just above freezing. I turned on the engine from time to time to reheat the car. Did I mention that Daniel was out of town? I called him. "Why do these things happen when I'm gone?!?"
The mechanic called. Oh boy. A stronger accent than mine! Turns out he was Russian, very nice and changed the tire without removing the kids. I drove home on the temporary tire. I called my friends at Metzger (since I wont put foot in Toyota's shop every again) and they said I was fine for the day. I really didn't want to drag the kids over there.
I did run the flat tire over to them. The guy tells me "I don't have any Bridgestone. I'll have to order it for Friday". Okay, I got the Friday and the fact that he doesn't have something but I had to ask him what it was.
Bridgestone. I honestly didn't recognize what he said with the French accent. I've done this before, not recognizing English words or names in French. He did tell me brightly that he did have another brand. Unfortunately, my other tire was too warn and it's actually against the law to not replace both if the other is worn down below a certain point (I knew this already so I knew he wasn't giving me a story to sell me an extra tire). I wear tires down fast and am not sure why...
Anyway, he promised to do it in time for me to pick up Talia from gymnastics.
All happy with my new tires, I carried on with my week. Thursdays, the girls eat at home. I was out all morning, picked them up and we walked in to a very cold house. The water wasn't terribly warm either.
We have a fuel tank which needs refilling a few times a year. Daniel actually had checked it recently but the cold snap we had last week just burned it a higher rate than expected.
I was telling the kids how we were going to do sponge baths and have space heaters but Daniel wouldn't hear of it. We're going to a hotel. Of course, he had to pick a hotel kind of far, where he has "points" from his travels instead of something nearer to the school.
The kids thought it was great fun. They love Novotel, which absolutely lacks charm. It's a formula chain in European modern design. Daniel doesn't even have to look at the menu since it's the same all over France. At least I didn't have to cook! We had a view of the parking lot and I'm no longer used to having my car out in the elements (spoiled with a 2 car garage). It rained and we had to leave for school earlier than usual, but we gave it too much time and sat in front of a locked school for about 20 minutes.
So now my morning is spent waiting for the CPE fuel guy to arrive, while this poor space heater tries its best.
