Not a moment I want to relive. I turned a corner too fast, ran over a little bit of curb, and blew out a back tire, which might not be such an issue if it were 104 degrees and on a cobblestone street. The problem with cobblestone? My jack kept slipping. Thank heavens for a cell phone, Dan and Kat on the other end helping me trouble-shoot the situation, and intervening runs into the car to turn up the a.c. and cool down enough to try other things. When I couldn’t find the lug wrench (it was there, but I was almost seeing double by this point), I had to give up on changing the tire myself.
Within an hour, the miracle man from Hillcrest Wrecker showed up with all the right equipment and was able to beat the tire off (which is what was needed — I think the tire may have melted onto the axle by this point), and at the same time, Dan and Kat thankfully brought me water. I spilled as much on me as I drank, and soon, they were talking me through a lot of ice water and the miracle of wanton soup when you’ve been in the sun too long.
Given the week — the global large-scale tragedy of the terrorist attack in Norway to the loss today of Amy Winehouse, and locally, so many of my friends going through everything from loss of a parent to serious illness to the end of a marriage — I have nothing to complain about. It was just a flat tire in the wrong place at the wrong time in inopportune weather. But after two weeks of always-100-degree (or more) weather, I’m refreshed not just from ice water, Chinese food, and dear friends, but the simple falling of night (I think it’s down to 88 degrees!) as the Davy Crockett theme plays on the radio.
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