Fender Bender

I was rear ended yesterday afternoon. I am fine and luckily I was alone. I am never, ever alone so that was actually amazing. I had driven to the nail salon that I used to go to until a couple of months ago. I have been going there for a couple of years and really like the women. They translated a couple things for me when I was waiting for news about Sasha, taught me how to pronounce her Vietnamese name, oohed and aahed over her pictures when I was sent new pictures of her while waiting to go get her, were excited when I brought her in to visit...but the lady who does my nail had her own baby and only works on weekends now. You would think I could get my nails done on the weekend, but it just doesn't work. I tried it a couple of times and it was too hard. I don't know if it is Ray or the kids or if the kids just work him when I am gone, but he really can't do it. So I usually got several phone calls for help while I was gone and was a nervous wreck during it. No joke. And it is supposed to be a relaxing thing. I found another woman closer to my house and get it done during the week. Anyway, the lady who used to do my nails is a single mother of a baby girl. So I have been giving her a lot of things as Sasha outgrows them. Sasha was taking a nap and Brayden and Brookelyn were watching a movie so I decided to run the things over to her store. I was slowing down at a red light, getting ready to stop, when I saw a SUV behind me in my rear view mirror and it was going fast. I knew it couldn't stop in time and was going to hit me. I couldn't avoid it because there was a car stopped in front of me. It hit me pretty hard. I am fine, though I admit I was shaking as I wrote down my info, but the van looks bad. The back door is really messed up and looks like a part of it is just going to fall off at any minute. And of course the woman doesn't want me to call my insurance because her insurance will go up. A friend of ours who owns a body shop is going to fix it up. We've had him work on our cars before and he does good work. It's just a hassle to rent a car, move all of my car seats and junk into it, figure out the details of her paying for it...no one has time for it. I do feel really lucky though. First of all, that the kids weren't in the car. Also, that after she hit me that I didn't hit the car in front of me. Luckily for me, the light had just turned green before or while she hit me, so the car in front of me was already moving when I got hit. I got in a really bad car accident the spring before I graduated from college and had to have a ton of stitches in my face and leg. I had broken my nose, so it had to be re-aligned (painful) and a plastic surgeon told me he put over 100 stitches on my face. My leg hit a metal plate on my car and has a huge scar on it. I had to be in a leg brace for a while afterwards. I guess the campus police had seen a man stealing things on campus so they were chasing him in their squad car. I was just leaving my neighborhood in 5 Points, South Carolina It was spring break of my senior year of college. My younger sister and her friend had flown in from the Midwest to go to Myrtle Beach with me. I think we made it two blocks away from my house. I was driving my trusty Pinto and the guy being chased by the police was in a huge Lincoln or something like it. We were headed down a two way street packed with parked cars on both sides, so it really only left room for one car to pass through at a time. They were being chased by the police, so were really fast and hit us head on. We are all lucky to be alive. Were we wearing our seat belts, you ask? What seat belts? This was 1986. Don't make fun of my trusty Pinto either. I bought that with my tuition money when I lived in New Jersey for a semester of college. $1000. Then I had to quickly get a job and pay my tuition in installments since I hadn't told my parents I had moved to New Jersey or that I bought a car. I wound up staying in New Jersey for the summer and fall and then move back down to South Carolina. I drove from Bergen County, NJ to Miami (my dad lived down there) and then back to South Carolina with no car trouble. Actually, it was raining when I left NJ and the sound when the door is open came on a half hour into the drive and didn't go off for hours. And my muffler fell of when I was going through D.C. But otherwise, it was great. I went on a ton of weekend trips my last two years of college in that car and it was great. It was totalled after the head on accident with the Lincoln though. So instead of the trip backpacking in Europe, I went on a two month camping, hitchhicking trip through the US with a few friends. We started out in a VW Bus and ended the trip hicking. We started in DC and drove to the West Coast. I finally stopped in Estes Park, Colorado. I had a great time traveling in the VW Bus and camping at night, but I really didn't like the hiking and hitchhiking thing. It all sounded good until I put the backpack on. Then I wanted to be done with it. It was heavy and too much work. And the reality of hitchhiking almost every day was pretty darn scary. And I was pretty sick of eating peanut butter and jelly. I think I lasted for two weeks of hiking before I called it. Which I have to say, is really good since I knew within two seconds of putting on the backpack that I didn't like it.
Anyway, back to my poor minivan...I am bringing Brayden, Brookelyn and Sasha down to Sea World tomorrow, so having to switch all of the stuff is a pain. We need to go though. I keep meaning to bring them and something comes up. They don't know we are going. I rarely tell them until the morning we are leaving in case something changes.