Car repairs, ulcers and politeness

I am really tired. Just worn out. This week at work I have been getting my hands into the playbill(yay!)for our Christmas show and coordinating a photo shoot for publicity shots and creating the poster and sending off the elements for the ads in the local newspapers. At the same time I have had an appt with the plastic surgeon and a check-up with my Oncologist. And have been dealing with car repairs, car repairs, car repairs.

My car needed breaks and was running with a shimmy and just needed work. Transmission flush and spark plugs and all that. So I have been driving my mom's car while mine is in the shop. Except...except...I really don't want to type this. Don't want to confess it to anyone. I don't want to talk about how a fucking dumpster jumped out in front of me while I was driving my mom's car. I don't want to talk about how extremely crappy it feels to have damaged the car my mom loaned me for a week while my car is bleeding the money out of my bank account. And I don't want her to have to deal with it. So I got an estimate on it, and I think my insurance will cover it minus my deductible. And I can get it in the shop maybe Monday and have it fixed for her.

My car is still at the dealership. I went after work and paid them for their part and left it there. In the morning I am taking it across the street to the Firestone to get the break job that it needs. I can save $100 by having Firestone do it instead. Maybe I could have saved more if Firestone had done everything, but I have had such good experiences with Hyundai finding things to fix that were under warranty, I just wanted to give them an opportunity to do so again. No such luck this time.

But they did find that one of the lug nuts on my tire was either over-torqued or mis-threaded. They couldn't get the tire off without breaking it. So they broke it, then fixed it. $100. Yay! They told me that I should go back to Firestone, who put the tires on, to get them to pay me back for that. So I will attempt that but anticipate the run around and don't really want to argue about it. I am somewhat meek in the high maintenance bitch department. (Unless you are married to me ;)

So to sum up: I am exhausted, broke and fully engaged in the operations of the Palace and getting the Christmas show Collateral ready.

Jackson is having his first experience with cancer sores in his mouth. He was complaining this afternoon that his 'teeth' hurt and was really distressed. So when we got home I had him lean his head back into my lap and he let me take a look in there with a flashlight. And sure enough, he has cancer sores. Which actually made me happy to see since it explained his pain and I was afraid we were talking cavities and the horror of fillings on a three-year-old. Poor baby was hurting though so I gave him some Tylenol and put on a paste I got from the doctor way back when I had bad sores from chemo.

At the dealership this afternoon, all the new cars had big yellow happy face balloons tied onto them and Jackson really wanted to look at them. When I realized all the cars in the show room had 6 or eight balloons tied to each of them so I decided to go in and see if they would give one to the small boy. They did. You can't resist a small boy with balloon hope in his eyes. And he was so polite. "Thank you for the happy face balloon," he kept saying. They all laughed at the death grip he had on the string. He won't let you tie it to his wrist. "Don't tie it, don't tie it," he chants any time he is handed a balloon. I assured them that the boy knows what happens when you let go and he won't do it. It is starts to get windy, he cried out for me to take the balloon so it doesn't blow away. He is well aware of the consequences of letting it go.

He is such a polite boy sometimes. And caring, how did he get such empathy and caring? Elaine had dinner with us on Tuesday before her soccer game and she was taking the photos for the Palace on Wednesday. She came to get me so we could go to the Palace and the very first thing Jackson said when he saw her was "How was your soccer game?" He remembered that she was going to play the night before and somehow has learned the social skills to ask her how it went. Shit, I didn't even ask her how it went. I never ask and I know she plays every week. I am an asshole and my son has apparently outstripped me on the social skills. So if you are reading this Elaine, How were your last 50 soccer games since I failed to ask and was called out by my three-year-old?