Elgan speaks
...and her words thunder across the land

All’s well that ends...

Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
9:14 p.m.
You know when you have a premonition that you should or shouldn’t do something, but of course you don’t realize until after disaster has struck that it was actually a premonition and you should have paid attention to it? That happened to me when I was a teenager, biking to a piano lesson. I thought before I left the house that perhaps I should take the subway that day, except I didn’t. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, it was a beautiful summer day, and I rode my bike wearing nothing on my feet but those flimsy Indian waterbuffalo sandals that were all the rage back in 1975, only to have my right foot slide off the pedal and get caught in the spokes of my front wheel, which meant that I went flying over my handlebars, landing on the road, my foot a bloody mess. I had the presence of mind to pull myself and my vehicle off the road, and an old man who had been on his way to get a newspaper took one look at me, turned around and returned forthwith with his wife. They took me into their apartment where I bandaged myself up, then somehow got myself home again. I can’t remember if I actually rode my bike or not, but I do remember taking a cab to the emergency room at the hospital to get a tetanus shot afterwards. And of course, I had not paid attention to my premonition, and I really should have taken the subway.

It happened again tonight. Even before I got ready to go to belly dancing, I thought that it would be so nice to stay home. Then I thought about taking the cell phone, and decided against it. Hubby had taken the Subaru to a rehearsal because he had loaded it up with his guitars and amp, so I was left with the Volvo which has had a slow leak in the front driver’s side tire. It looked good enough to drive on tonight, but coming around the corner from the lights in L’ville, I heard the unmistakable noise that only a flat tire can make.

I pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and called CAA from the payphone in their vestibule. It took the whole 45 minutes allotted for the guy to come. He removed the flat, replaced it with the spare, all this in freezing cold weather (it’s -4°C right now, but feels a hell of a lot colder) without gloves, and by the time I’d signed the paper, I had missed an hour’s worth of class. So I came home instead. The ladies will just be starting their cooling off exercises now.

So, yeah, I should have paid attention to my first thought, which was to stay home tonight. Silly me. Look at the aggravation I would have missed out on, not to mention standing around in sub-zero temperature. Now I have to go to my mechanic tomorrow to get this flat fixed (if it can be--I probably ruined it by driving even as little as I did on it). Stuff and bother.

In other news, I was supposed to meet a young man in the choir, a bass who was having technical trouble with a certain passage in one of the choruses and whom I had offered to help (out of the goodness of my heart), and he never showed up. Then Ms. Piano and I only rehearsed for an hour because she was feeling premenstrually bloated and uncomfortable. My mother phoned this morning complaining that she’s shrunk so much nothing fits her anymore and she’d like me to come to her for a few days and take her shopping for clothes. She also offered to come to me for the same purpose, and I think I actually prefer that. I have no idea where to shop in Toronto anymore, and perhaps she and Buddy Boy could travel together when he comes home on December 4. Memo to self: Discuss this with your son.

And that’s it. What else can go wrong today? No, don’t answer that question.

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