Small Victories

I've been wanting to write about last Saturday since, well Saturday, but just the thought of that day exhausts me.

We had too many physically & emotionally demanding tasks crammed into one day.
Sold 1/2 our property, 1/2 our sandbox, making us mortgage-free - for the time being.
Bought a car. Took the boys out for dinner to celebrate.

Not in that order and not, unfortunately, even in the same city.

A few weeks ago Kim was rear-ended when he stopped at a crosswalk for a pedestrian. He's fine, aside from a sore neck, but the moron (& he really was, but that's a whole other story) who hit him must have been going pretty fast because he managed to write-off Kim's car. Just what he needed to deal with right now: looking for another car in the middle of our property transaction & finishing up his floor-plans for the house.

That's why we found ourselves running a rally race all over the Lower Mainland & Fraser Valley last Saturday:
First to Mission (from NW Richmond) to pick up the new-to-us car and drive it to Abbotsford for a quick "it'll only take 1/2 an hour" repair under the previous warranty. Naturally, it was 2 hours before we could race back to the dealership in Mission to finish the purchase.

Running late for our next appointment and we now had 2 cars to take on the long drive back to Steveston. Me in my decrepit, underpowered little Toyota, Kim in his shiny (almost)-new Maxima which "goes like stink".
We stayed together for the first long stretch of highway, then realized we were running so late that it would be better if at least one of us were not embarrassingly late so Kim blew off, leaving me in his dust.

Kim loves to drive. It's one of his passions; something he does for the sheer enjoyment; the reason we don't fly anywhere for holidays, we drive.
Me, I'd rate driving somewhere between doing laundry & cooking on the enjoyment scale. Its something you do because you have to. I think I have a reputation for being a bit on the pokey side when I drive. (don't choke now)

But we were very late for a very important appointment - with the notary to close the sale. So I drove fast, but my version of fast is no-where near Kim's and I could relax a bit knowing that at least one of us would get there soon.

I was about a mile from our destination when Kim called. "Oh good, he's been there a while already & is wondering where the heck I am" I thought when he asked where I was.
"I'm almost there, at 2 & Steveston Highway"
"You mean 5 & Steveston"
"No, 2 Road"
"You mean you're ON 2 Rd, going TOWARDS Steveston Hwy"
"No, I'm ON Steveston, now between 2 & Railway"

"YOU CAN'T BE! THAT'S WHERE I AM"

"Oh, you're coming up to that red light?"
"I just stopped at the light"
"Oh yah, there you are. I'm two cars behind."

Must have got caught in some kind of time-warp, or maybe it was that 'Twilight Zone' short-cut I took.

Signing the sales agreement that will finance my fabulous new house was almost anti-climactic compared to seeing Kim's face when I caught up to him on the road.