I chose the wrong day to not wear a coat

We've had a bit of a rough week.  Well, mostly Danny has had a rough week and I've been dragged down with him.  Mostly it had involved cars, tires, and Pittsburgh roads.  Of course I'm not complaining about Pittsburgh.  I'll take their roads over Philly's any day. 

The trouble started on Wednesday when Danny was late getting home from the hospital.  I called him to see why he wasn't home yet.  He told me it would be another 20 minutes, he was waiting for the police officer to finish writing him a ticket for running a red light.  He gets so frustrated sitting in traffic for an hour and he was just trying to make the left turn light...but obviously was a little too late.  He considered going straight to fill his car up with gas, but decided to turn left instead.  The ticket came to $105.  There goes his birthday money.

Thursday brought more car troubles.  Danny has had a slow leak in his front left tire for several months.  He has to pump up his tires every couple of weeks now.  He was due to pump up his tires as well as to fill up his car with gas. On his way home, just as he was about to enter the liberty tunnels his car started sputtering.  He didn't want to get stalled in the tunnel, so he took a detour up Mount Washington.  Probably not the best idea to try to make it up a huge hill when you're out of gas, but luckily he made it to the top and right into a safe spot where he could park.  When he got out of his car he realized his tire was almost to the ground.  That's why he ran out of gas a lot sooner than he expected.  All of that wouldn't have been such a big deal on its own, but to make matters worse Danny was in a huge rush to fax his rotation choice for 4th year to his pathway coordinator in Philly.  He stalled around 3:20 and had to have this form turned in by 4.  He called me just as I was leaving my school to tell me what happened.  This wasn't the first time he had run out of gas and I've had to come rescue him.  I started to scold him for always waiting until his gas light turned on to get gas, but I could tell he was very frustrated so I decided it wasn't the time.  I drove straight there, but it took me 25 minutes.  Luckily he had an empty gas can in his trunk from the last time we went through this, so while he was waiting for me he started running through the neighborhood in his dress clothes looking for a gas station.  By the time I got there it was 3:45 and he was frantically trying to get the gas in his car so he could find a fax machine.  The "lottery" (where they put in everyone's rotation choices and decide where everyone will go which block) was going to start at 4 so his form couldn't be late.  He wants to do pediatrics, but if he doesn't get his picks he may have to choose a different specialty.  He kept trying to start his car before we had finished pouring the 2 gallons in his tank but it wouldn't start without more gas.  Finally we got it to start just so we could move it out of the way of someone's driveway.  We hopped in my car to search for a fax machine.  I saw a school a block away, and I thought if we begged pitifully enough they would feel sorry for us and let us use theirs.  We parked in front of the school but didn't see very many people around.  We ran up to the doors but they were locked.  We stood there for a minute and then started running back to the car to try to find a library or post office to see if they had a fax machine.  As we were getting to the car the janitor opened the door to see if we needed anything.  We explained our situation and she said we could come in and ask the principal.  The principal thought it was all very strange, but she finally conceded to let us use their computer.  We ended up just scanning the form and emailing it to the guy.  They asked us if we had help coming for the car.  We had been so worried about getting the form sent in that we hadn't even considered what to do about Danny's car.  He hit the send button at 3:55 and got it to him just in time.  Back at Danny's car again we decided to drive it -flat tire and all- to a gas station to pump the tires up.  We drove to the same gas station Danny had been to earlier and pumped up his tires, filled his car with gas, and put a couple gallons in my car since I only had about an 1/8 of a tank as well.  (We make quite the couple, don't we?)  We then drove another 40 minutes to a Walmart because we didn't know where else to take his car here in our new city.  All the way down there I talked to my wonderful dad in the DR to get advice on what we should do about the tire.  We figured we would have to buy a new one which would have cost us $75, but he told us we could just get the tire repaired and it would be fine.  The repair only ended up costing us $12!  I've never paid that little when taking my car to the shop.  We were very happy.  While they were working on the tire we decided to make a date out of the night and treated ourselves to the only thing we could afford - Taco Bell!  We got the NBA "box that rocks with lots and lots for only 5 bucks."  (You had to see the commercial)

It was a successful day overall, but a little stressful.  Danny ended up making it to his beloved weekly basketball, but in all the commotion I completely forgot about book club that night!  They were talking about The Hunger Games which is one of my favorite books.  I was so mad when I finally remembered.

My brother's birthday was on February 3rd.  He was driving on the freeway on February 2nd and wasn't able to see the stalled car until the car in front of him swerved out of the way.  It  totaled his car.  He spent his whole birthday on the phone with insurance companies trying to get everything sorted out only to be told he wouldn't be covered.

My sister-in-law's birthday was on February 26th.  She is 7 months pregnant.  She had just gotten out of the hospital for kidney stones when she tore the meniscus in her left knee.  She had to have surgery for her knee on her birthday.

Obviously this year is not going to be a good one for birthdays.  Hopefully it's just February birthdays.