Today was a day of a lot of running around and hither-and-yonning. It all started yesterday, though.
Last night, Jacob wanted a fizzy run, and since we had instituted a screen lockdown, children were BORED. I decided to take him as well as Ruben and Ellie out for a drive that was to include a little night-time park play, after which we would go get that fizz. Only not long after we arrived at the park, my battery died. A quick and remorseful call to my hero brought Paul, riding to the rescue in Tom Truck to give me a jump start so the van could make it home again. Unfortunately, the rest of our evening’s destinations were deferred, since I needed to drive straight home with Paul following in case it died again in transit.
This meant that, number one, Jacob got no fizz. Number two, my dear husband had to go out early this morning, buy, and install a new battery, so that by the time 10:30 rolled around, we could leave for our usual Saturday lunch date. After Chipotle, and much useful discussion about many, many parental things, we drove by the college and picked up Natalie after her class and brought her home so she could join the joyful chore brigade.
The middle of the afternoon was a bit of a blur, but then it came time to take Natalie to a friend’s birthday party – only she had to stop at Walmart to get a gift. Ellie, still bored, was desperate for both a QT snack and any excuse to get out of the house, and suggested a photo-shoot to “earn” her snack. I’m always down for that P.O.A. so off we trekked, dropping Natalie at Walmart, then heading over to the nearby QT to take care of the munchies. Trying to get back to Walmart at 4:30pm in that neighborhood (near the stadium, you understand) was crazytown. In order to make the left turn I needed to make, I had to turn right, cross a major intersection, turn right and drive through the Home Depot parking lot, make another right again onto the road I was aiming for the first time, and then scoot across 3 lanes immediately to get to the left lane so I could turn left by the Walmart. A whole lot of silliness, that – but I am nothing if not up to the challenge.
Back at Walmart we pulled up to the front door just in time as Natalie was coming out of the neighboring Dollar Tree and hopped right in. But THEN it was a whole lot more route calculations on the fly, starting with another right/right/right to go left; drive a mile and a half east, see the red light up ahead, turn right into the corner Walgreens parking lot, drive past the pharmacy window and around the side and right onto the southbound street, which, because it has 3 lanes going south instead of the two southbound lanes on every other road I could have taken south, meant the traffic would be easier, and then breathe a sigh of relief at the comparatively easy-peasy 6-mile drive from there on to the birthday house.
Driving home was a straight shot north after all that hullaballoo, and while we were on the road, Ellie was conversing with her neighbor friend about getting together when we were finished with our little photo shoot. We decided to go to a different park than we’ve gone to before, but still in our neighborhood – but a drive-by nixed that option as it was absolutely SLAMMED with humanity, with nary a parking space to be seen. Plan B had us pulling up to the curb at our usual haunt right around 5:30. Before we could disembark, and as I was getting my lens on my camera, Jacob called to ask if we might be able to do that fizzy run today. Since Paul was likely to be home from Saturday mass by 6, and I was sure I’d be done with photos by then, we planned to commence the fizzy at that point.
We didn’t spend too long, maybe 15 minutes at the park, and then drove the half mile home, pulling up to the driveway right behind Paul who had just arrived ahead of us. Ellie went in, Jake came out, and off we went.
Arriving at the QT, I reached into my camera bag for my wallet, opened it up, and found therein – No Debit Card. The de-ja-vous of it all is really getting quite tiresome. I knew I had JUST sent Ellie into a store a few minutes ago with the card, and I knew I’d seen it on the armrest between the front seats, but couldn’t remember the next thing that happened to it. Thinking it had fallen down to the floor behind the front seats, Jacob took a look back there amongst all the blankets and other debris. No card. Next I said it may have fallen between the arm rest and the passenger seat. He got out his phone flashlight and peered down there, and saw just about 1 millimeter of what appeared to be the corner of a credit card. After further investigation and reaching farrrrr under the seat he pulled out a card — which turned out to be the card I had cancelled when it got lost a month ago, and had to be replaced. I KNEW that dang thing was in the van this whole time, I just KNEW it! Daggum cotton pickin stoopit lost cards…
Anyway, through aggravated LOL’s I continued searching and eventually found the missing (current) debit card in the outside pocket of the camera bag. So finally the Fizzy was achieved, a mystery was solved, and after it all, and most importantly, my current debit card was carefully returned to my wallet where it belonged.
Whew.
I came home to a well earned sit-down at my computer and fiddled around and had fun with filters, presets and edits in lightroom, resulting in some pretty photos. I could have done better with the jumping pix if I had remembered to increase my shutter speed, but they weren’t too awfully blurred when all was said and done.
