"When I was your age..."

THIS TRIP will be one of those things that goes down in the history of my family, retold over and over till it becomes Alexander lore.

DEAR JEN:

I can absolutely believe that Edmonton was unbelievably cold. Because the day (Tuesday) I drove to Calgary to catch my plane, I left Lethbridge a hot, sunny, cloudless paradise of 30 degrees and drove into the darkness and gloom of a rainy, windy, cold-as-a-Chilliwack-winter hell of 10. And we had elected to go to the zoo.

That was a big waste of $70. 

Good thing my gramma [indirectly] paid for it…

Speaking of wasting money, I did the tally today and so far, in spite of the cost of two brand new tires, a tow, and whatever charges come tomorrow, we are still ahead of what we would have paid to rent a U-Haul. Of course that's just ahead financially speaking. It doesn't take into account shortened lifespan due to stress--although going with U-Haul has practically guaranteed mental anguish itself, so perhaps that's a moot point. Anyway, point is that was my terrible segue into letting you know that today, after getting its third flat tire, and having yet another section of the buckling plywood hacked away with a hammer to keep it OFF that darn tire, our entire WHEEL flew off the trailer as we raced on the highway toward Riviere-de-Loup (you can look that up). It was shockingly uneventful--we pulled safely to the shoulder within two seconds--except for the fact that we were by all definitions of the word 

stuck 

on the side of the road, right in the heart of Quebec.

The upside of this story is that I finally had the opportunity to practice my french, which is felicitous because I had just been lamenting that I probably ought to admit to myself that whatever french skill I had as a youth is most probably gone, and will never come back. But you see the police officer that came over to check on us called a tow truck, and the mechanic who came to tow us was as marvellously UN-bilingual as they come. So in my skillfully broken french I became the saviour of the day as I translated between my husband and this kind and knowledgeable man. 

The funny thing is when I later tried to order a few simple items at McDonald's in french, I failed pathetically, although the gracious cashier allowed me to fumble along, only jumping in helpfully when things became hopelessly confusing.

But that's off-topic. Point is God works in mysterious ways. Perhaps this entire ordeal was to provide me with an opportunity to see that I still have as fabulously weak of a french vocabulary as I always had, and not one word less! Except for "hammer"--I forgot that word. But in a strange turn of events Brad knew it (marteau).

Hopefully that's not the only reason for this shebacle. Because that is some point He's making. We lost our wheel at 1:00 pm, and we are still hanging around at 8:00--because it is, gloriously, LABOUR DAY! Why does no one work on Labour Day? It's not even a real holiday.

Seriously.

Oh well. At least my three-year-old didn't jump into a pool with her only pair of pants on 30 minutes before I had to leave and then pee in her brother's diaper, making it necessary for me to take her into public wearing a gender-inappropriate diaper so I could momentarily break my year-long oath of not buying anything new to give her some pants to wear to meet with her grandparents. Can you imagine???


I'm not judging, Jen. I just want that to be clear. I'm empathizing (I just had to change that from "emphasizing", which would have completely changed the meaning of my sentence. I guess Brad has good reason to tell me he'll be mad if I'm not in bed by 8:30. That's right! I have a curfew).

Anyway, don't worry. Our kindly french mechanic from the quaint and appropriately-named town of Saint-Alexandre assures me that the whole thing will be an easy fix, and he can certainly get us another eight hours out of that thing.

Eight hours! Eight hours! C'mon little chicken-coup-to-be, that's all we're asking!

I have this incredible lack of stress and worry, so I am certain all will be well--especially with all the fervent praying we'll be doing before going out tomorrow!

Updates to come!

Love, Jacqui.