Unexpected

Today was one of those days you just can't predict.

We had an early appointment for my Monkey this morning. Normally we don't go to the doctor unless we're sick--which is rare. But the Monkey needs dental work done (he has four badly chipped teeth that are beginning to go bad and need to be surgically removed, poor little whelp!), and we had a pre-op physical scheduled two towns over, in my hometown. Luckily, my mom still lives in the house I grew up in, and was happy to watch the Pickle and the Reepicheep while the Frog came with us to the clinic.

We got to Mom's (Nana's) in plenty of time, got through the three thousand questions at the doctor's office relatively unscathed, and were even in time for a breakfast burrito from McDonald's (yummmy!!). Everything was going fine, until....................

Two blocks from Nana's house, I braked for a stop sign and was alarmed to hear grinding. You know, the kind of grinding that you hear after a long, soaking rain...that is supposed to wear off after four or five stops. Now, I'll admit it's been rainy--after all, it is April. But I had driven 25 miles already this morning when this ominous noise sounded from the nether regions of my van. Rats!

I called my Darling, and he instructed me to take the van to a place we've had repairs done before (last time was an alternator in our old van, for Pete's sake). Suffice it to say we spent nearly all day at Nana's house, with my brother shuttling to the store to purchase lunch supplies for my babies. We finally returned home at 2:30 this afternoon. And me with multiple loads of laundry mocking me from my living room floor! I could literally hear the unpaired socks and kitchen towels all those miles away...

Here's the beauty of it: the problem was that some substance had been sprayed (near as we can figure) on the brakes. The rust or brake dust, instead of falling into the drum, had adhered to this substance, forming some kind of...crud. The crud then stuck to the brakes, which is what we then heard grinding. The lovely gentleman who was kind enough to repair my van said they had never seen anything like that before (I'd rather hear that at a vehicle repair shop than in a doctor's office!), and that they had to scrape the resulting sludge off the brakes. EEeeeeewwww. But the best part: it only cost me $44.98! (Insert Hallelujah chorus here)

So now that we're home, I'm so tired that I want the kitchen towels to fold themselves, and the unpaired socks to find their mates and march up to the drawers so that I can take a nap, for heaven's sake.

It could have been worse. It could have been raining. Or snowing. We woke up to an inch of new snow this morning. In March, that's fine. But it's April. There are daffodils and tulips and crocuses up already, for Pete's sake. What is with the snow business? May flowers, indeed. We'll be lucky to see them in June!

I guess sitting in my living room, folding towels and pairing socks is a better fate than frozen gardening.....