Glass half full

Today my mother and I were headed to the temple. We want to go regularly, but we have been having a hard time. Not only do our weekends fill up fast, but she is so often not feeling well.

The arthritis is a factor, but it goes beyond that too. There are other aches and pains that show up in places where she isn’t supposed to be arthritic, or it hurts in different ways, and we don’t find much that helps. At this point, it requires a different approach almost—that instead of hoping she will feel well enough, it is more like planning on just playing through the pain.

I have found recently that it seems to work best to plan a date, give her advance notice, and then remind her a few times so her mind just gets set on it, and that was how we ended up going today. Perhaps I should say how we ended up leaving, because we did not actually get there.

As we turned on to Murray (near Murray Hill), well, it was like the texture of the road changed. Things didn’t sound right, but it wasn’t engine noises or anything like that. I know some stretches of road do sound weird, but it was keeping on. The most obvious solution was a tire, but the car didn’t seem to be pulling at all, which I thought would have been happening.

Anyway, Mom was getting very freaked out, and not sure what to do, but her driving was fine and I gave her a place to pull over so we could check. Sure enough, the front driver-side tire was completely flat, and it had been fine when we left. We didn’t see any signs of something going into it, but something had happened.

We did the normal things. Called AAA. Called Julie to let her know what was going on. After the assistance from AAA, drove to Les Schwab. We did not have to wait long for the truck, and by a stroke of luck Misty was at McDonald’s right when we were at Les Schwab, so she picked us up and took us home (their wait time was an hour and a half).

At the time it was disappointing, and we kind of felt like the day had been ruined, but even then I saw how much worse things could be. Mom did not lose control of the car, she does have AAA, and he arrived within twenty minutes, and had us on the way pretty quickly, plus we got a ride home quickly. Also, I knew that it was good that I was with Mom, because she freaks out easily, and psyches herself out, and I was able to calm her down, get her safely parked, and find the AAA card which was in plain sight in her wallet, but which she nonetheless could not find.

If it had to happen, it could have been much, much worse. However, assuming that we had driven over something pointy, when we were just trying to do the right thing, was, again, somewhat disappointing. We did not drive over anything.

The AAA guy had looked at the tire and been unable to find anything, but he said the guys at Les Schwab would find it. What they found was a valve problem. They replaced it for free, and replaced another one that was on the verge of the same problem. Apparently, it did have to happen, and given that it probably did happen about as easily and conveniently as possible.

We’ll go next week.


36 minutes walking outside
Crunches
Luke 6 – Luke 10