Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So last month we had the fire and our lives were dedicated to paying through the nose to clean up our house. Apparently this month, the theme is paying through the nose to fix vehicles.

Last night, KingofHearts went to go to an appointment and as he pulled out of the driveway, the truck stopped. Not stalled, stopped. And. Would. Not. Start. Again.

Greeeaat.

We've had really terrible luck with vehicles since we've lived in Washington. Between the oh so common wrecks in the area (our insurance company actually GIVES YOU BACK money every so often because 'hey you haven't had as many accidents as we expected you to this year'... of course this hasn't happened recently to us), and the crazy fan - belt - snapped - sending - the - fan - off - free - wheeling - and - into - the - radiator - and - causing - $700 - worth - of - damage kinds of incidents, we've pretty much had one repair job/search for a new car butt up against the next for the last 8 years.

Anyway, I tried to soldier through last night and not be all "We're gonna have to pay MONEY and it's MONEY we don't have and where will the MONEY come from and we'll have to move out of our house because we don't have the MONEY to pay the mortgage and we'll be living in a van down by the river with no MONEY" about it. KingofHearts groped around in the dark for a fuse or some other simple cause and when that didn't work, I calmly pulled out the AAA card and suggested that he have it towed to the local repair shop and we just let them fix it because, who has the time? And I was okay with that.

The next morning, we went through the ridiculous rigmarole of getting up two hours early so we could get Dormouse to preschool, me to the metro and KingofHearts to the east end of BFE, where he works and there's no public transportation, only an hour late. (And while we're on that subject, why, when we live 10 miles away from the city where it's more statistically likely to find a job than anywhere else in the entire country, is the only job available to him 45 miles from said city? Just would like to know who we pissed off that day.) Later he called me at work to inform me that basically the truck was now a very expensive, very heavy paperweight. Turns out the timing belt had snapped while it was running and because they pretty much build disposable vehicles these days, it caused the entire engine to, um... break. (Trying to spare the technical language for those who don't care... but then I guess they could just hit the little X in the upper right hand corner too.)

And, of course, we both had horrific days at work after that. (I won't go into that, but I did want to see just how many parentheses I could squeeze into one post... that's not enough for you?) (How about some more?) I have to go to Kansas City on Friday, so I had to bum a ride to the airport off a colleague, which means I'll be needing to get up two hours earlier for that and I still don't have a way home from the airport when I return because $70 cab ride? Unsavory.

The ride home on the metro was unusually crowded and uncomfortable and I felt like passing out and I had to stand amidst a crowd of high school boys who talked non-stop, loudly and in graphic detail about all their sexual conquests - imagined, I'm sure. When KoH picked me up, Dormouse was cranky, KoH was cranky and not surprisingly, we snapped at each other, which made Dormouse cry, which made me feel guilty and we argued over what to do with the shell of a truck we now own and how to replace it without selling Dormouse to the auto dealer. By the way, it's soooo much easier when someone crashes into you while talking on a cell phone and the insurance company cuts you a big fat check - not that I want that to happen or anything and I'm glad KingofHearts wasn't in a wreck and possibly hurt... I'm just sayin'.

I had to go to the bank and put a deposit in before 7 checks bounced and to top it off, I had totally forgotten until this point in time that tonight was the first rehearsal back after our summer hiatus for the orchestra I play in. So I had 20 minutes after the bank to come home, stare at my dinner before deciding I just couldn't eat anything because I'm fighting a cold/flulike thing too, and then grab all my stuff and head off to rehearsal and get home at around 10:30 pm, not getting to put my kid to bed or see my family awake, and miss Project Runway!! (Because watching it on tape the next day simply does not do.) And I sacrifice like this because I luuuuuuuvs the music.

I managed to get myself there on time and sat in my chair tightening my bow and feeling sorry for myself. My stand partner came in and sat down beside me and I asked how her summer was.

"Oh," she said, "I've had better. But today is a pretty good day because my husband just had the last treatment in his seven week course of daily radiation. He has prostate cancer."

........

Um.... yeah.

So now I am going in to kiss my sleeping child, hug my sleeping husband and tomorrow... we are going car shopping. And I will try very hard not to complain.