Tresa's Blog

My dear friend SquirrelQueen (aka Judy) says she’s ready for the tire story so here goes even if no one else reads it.  We were coming back from TX, it was an easy trip in the big truck and enjoyable since some friends of ours were running with us in their trucks.  Yes my girlfriend drives a truck by herself but she can back up, I don’t back up.  We are all going from “the valley”, McAllen TX to Chicago  Tuesday to Thursday evening for us a piece of cake…walk in the park… so easy even I could do it!! Yeah right.  The only worry was the vicious cold and snow that was going to hit the Midwest this week.

So we have gotten to Arkansas, it’s Wednesday noon or so.  I’d been doing my new

Obsession, sudoku (sudoku kingdom—tresa).  I had just put the laptop back in the sleeper and a guy came on the cb and said our front tire was sticking out a foot (never a good sign)  I was really hoping it was a trailer tire but I looked out and it was the front passenger tire, a steer tire which is what you do NOT want to blow on a truck and hope like hades you have an experienced driver if it does blow.   About that time as I was gently calmly and coolly screaming slow down slow down pull over pull over I can SEE THE TIRE (husband was already pulling over and he really was calm and collected) the tire and wheel came off.  Now the tire coming off is enough of a disaster but the tire and wheel?  There’s not much left to go down the road on.  So we slid down the shoulder for about 100 ft.  Really wasn’t bad, the worst was when it fell down and hit the pavement.  My husband said to call our friends who were like an hour behind us and he jumped out and said something about fire.  I thought the truck was on fire but did I get out?? NO, I called our friend, my husband was outside taking care of the fire so I wasn’t worried.  It was actually in the grass where the hot rubber or the wheel had caught it on fire.  Also the truck was leaning so badly I wasn’t much in favor of getting out the passenger door.  My husband also found the tire and wheel about 50 ft up an embankment across a ditch.  What caused all this?  Some of the newer axles are what they call throw away.  In other words where you put grease or oil in an old type bearing or whatever you call it this is a sealed unit.  Meant to go so many 1000 miles and then you change it.  My husband had just had the other one changed not long ago but they said this one was fine no need to change it and since the part is like $750 we didn’t do it for fun.  I blame it partially on some HORRIBLE rough roads in Texas.

I got out eventually after we had found a number for a truck stop on the internet.  Thank goodness for internet and laptops.  Our friends showed up and we stood on the side of the road and repeated “it could have been SO much worse”.  It could have happened in tight construction with concrete walls or cars nearby, we could have been going around a curve on a mountain road.  Then we started saying how we were going to miss the snowstorm. (little did we know).  The tow truck driver came and we REALLY lucked out there, the bill was $250 for 7 miles, I’ve paid $200 for 200 feet so that wasn’t bad @ all.  Then the mechanic was simply wonderful.  They found parts quickly and cheaply and were just as nice and helpful as they could be.  Prescott AR, SE of town, I’ll give the name and phone number to anyone who needs it.  Just ask tcscarlet at yahoo dot com.

Damage to the truck?  We  had to have a hub, brakes, tie rod, wheel and tire and had to have the oil filler tube straightened a bit.  It should have taken the turbo out by rights when it hit the oil tube but we were just lucky there.  The bill was in the thousands as it was but less than we thought it would be even WITH the tow bill!!

So we got a motel.  Our friends stayed in the motel too.  The truck was MAYBE going to be ready Thursday night.  Our friends went on Thursday  to Chicago and another friend stopped by on his way back to the pipeline so we took his pickup to check on the semi.  It was Thursday afternoon and it was DONE!!!  We were only 11 hours late for our appointment!  Then they didn’t want to take it off but that’s part of the continuing saga of rotten luck combined with dumb luck.

So that’s the story of the tire.  No ones fault, my husband actually heard something and kept asking me what I said (it must have been a high pitched whine LOL).  I smelled something when I opened the window a bit earlier but since I quit smoking I smell all sorts of things and ignored it.  No ones fault and we are good on our front axle for another 750,000 miles.  You can bet if we have the truck much longer it’s getting a normal axle that you can check.

For my part I wasn’t frightened until I called our friends and then I was like shaking so I couldn’t hardly hold the phone.   We could have been dead or hurt so easy it’s not even funny so I’m just in one of those glad to be alive moods which was good when you consider what’s happened the last couple days SINCE then.  More about that later……..

I am sorry I didn’t visit blogs or write while I was gone.  I had internet service.  I am lazy.  lazy lazy.  But I did think while going down the road.

I was thinking about how this is my blog and I write what I want and how because it’s MY BLOG.  Sometimes people don’t understand I use sentences that run together and And @ the beginning of a sentence or aint because it suits my purposes.  (OK sometimes I don’t know any better but we can pretend I catch all my mistakes can’t we?)

I also use hyperbole, rhetorical questions, allusion, illusion, preparation h, simile, and ky jelly if necessary to get my point slid across.

I also tilt @ windmills, the rebel without a cause, I spawned two conservative children and I have NO idea how but they think I am nuts.  BUT I play Don Quixote sometimes here BECAUSE I CAN, because it’s MY BLOG!!  And yes I had to look up how to spell Quixote.

I know the last 3 paragraphs have nothing to do with thanksgiving but I thought of the ky jelly line and it seemed too good not to share? I also thought of a blog post about how I lack the farming gene and my families ability to tell the crop and planting date of any field while I’m doing good to even notice them much less identify them but we will save that for another day.

What I’m grateful  for Thanksgiving day 2009:

The ability to blog and to read others blogs and my dear friends I’ve “met” blogging.

The free internet, news services, and press we have in this country.

Of course family and friends, I do have friends, I was just having trouble remembering some of their names because I hadn’t seen them since July?  LOL

Our family having survived the ups and downs of the previous year.  It’s been triumph and tragedy.  Some lost companies because of lost contracts through no fault of their own.  Some lost jobs because they were too temperamental.  (sorry if I scoff @ that one, they spoke up and told the truth and it hurt so they lost their job, imagine my relative having a big mouth? Moi?)  It was over a year ago that I started but I worked outside the home @ a job for the first time in 19 years.   Anyway I did a “real” job and I took orders from people and was a good employee which is not easy after years of “self” employment.  My husband also got a “job” for the first time in 20+ years when he leased his truck onto construction.  From what I hear he was a model employee (except for the time he asked permission to knock somone’s block off from the foreman, foreman said OK?) and was always ahead of everyone else even though he was the oldest one doing what he did. We are back to self employed but you always “work” for someone, if you are boss you “work” for the employees sometimes I think.   Also my brother is shall we say a senior citizen, I don’t know if he’s in like in his second childhood or what (I have doubts he ever left the first) but for an old man he’s not old.  Maybe it’s the race car he has?  He doesn’t drive it anymore but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.  My husband is of an age where I remember my parents well and I was going through my teenage rebellion.  He’s not old.  I’m thinking we are oblivious or just not aging like previous generations did (due to superior health care or the bilssful oblivion of many drug trips, JUST KIDDING)

Basically we have triumphed over adversity and turned around and made life better and realized what was important and what wasn’t  because of it and I’m thankful for the opportunity and the ability and the health to do it, especially during this time of financial difficulty.  (this is starting to sound like one of those bragging Christmas letters, little Johnnie is now the president of the cub scouts in North America and little Sally has been voted high school prom queen while in kindergarten and they will both attend Yale next year on a full ride scholarship, those kind of letters)

I’m grateful for my home and the ability to not live too close to people most of the time.  I’m grateful for all the “luck” and blessings that have enabled me to enjoy some(most) of lifes riches.

I’m grateful our relatives are still with us this year that were with us last year for the most part. I will miss Lester and Louella (my moms first cousin who married the widow of my dads best friend, got that?) because they were one of the links to my past.  I’m grateful that I was here when one of the closest family friends died.  I’m glad I got the opportunity to know our dog Mugsey.

I’m grateful I’ve sort of beat the fat genes that run in our family and have never seriously been over 160.  I shouldn’t say that because I will blossom (my brother has called me squatty body (say it it rhymes, he’s sometimes amusing, this isn’t one of those times) for years, we cant all be 6′4″ BRO!).  The last time I had a skinny woman ancestor was my great grandmother and her having no teeth may have had something to do with that?

I’m grateful for the man who is sleeping in my bed, (it’s my husband silly) and the dog who is sleeping in the chair, the dog sleeping on the porch, and the cat sleeping in the log cabin.

I’m grateful for the ability to overcome the health problems we have faced over the past year and the ability to “get healthy” disgusting and boring but we are doing it.  No drink, no smoke, no fatty foods, vegetables, very few sweets, sleep regularly, walk, drink water, blaaaahhhh.   BTW I never said I ever quit drinking, I’m the type of person who can have one and quit, or one potato chip.  I’m a sick sick puppy I know.  My husband will tell you how healthy he is and now he’s losing weight.  Did I mention the term ad nauseum?  I would never say those words? 

I’m grateful for the ability to go and stuff ourselves silly tomorrow with many of our close relatives and talk to the others. I am also grateful I can now distinguish most of  my grand-children’s voices over the phone and not call the boys by their mothers names which makes me NOT favorite grandma.  I’m also thankful we all have a way of making a living and/or our driving privledges left.  You know who I’m talking to.

Donnie Osmond won Dancing With The Stars and we missed it!  Sorry but I just couldn’t get behind Mya, I even sent a text vote for Kelley, first time I’ve ever done that and Johanna was GOOD and I think Derek is my nephew, that’s good and clean isn’t it?  When the show came on I thought it was the stupidest thing ever.  Now I’m usually pretty close with guessing how the judges are going to score the couples and how they will criticize them.  I know NOTHING about ballroom dancing or didn’t.  Just thought I”d throw that in there.

I’m grateful I learned how to spell quixote.

I’m on an angels on twitter list! Thanks Starlingpoet!  My family would say if she only knew me……..

I’d better quit.

Happy TURKEY DAY amigos!!

I wrote about Dispatches truck trip on animals that give pause.

I was cleaning off the patio (used to be garage apron) tonight and my cousin’s husband stopped by.  Nothing unusual in that because I’m surrounded by cousins.  We were talking about his wife who has survived liver cancer for over two years.  It was bad, not long after she found out she had cancer they called the kids in to say goodbye they thought.  Then they gave her one shot with chemo and it got a bit better……She’s taught school the last two years!

I had blood clots earlier this year which is nothing like cancer and they weren’t even bad blood clots, I now live healthier and my husband gave up smoking not exactly because of the blood clots but it was a wake up call to us both.

So that is what I”m thankful for other than a loving husband, a great familiy (sometimes), a few good friends, and the ability to enjoy it all.

What I’m NOT thankful for is the TV commercial down south they have for the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” monitors for elderly people, there is a discount for people over 50, grrrrrrrrrrrr.  70 maybe but 50??  So I just finished cleaning about 100 ft of grass growing in cement cracks and then cleaned off the concrete, discount on I’ve fallen buttons my royal red… well you get the idea.

So what are you thankful for or not thankful for today?