Ending the year with a BANG!

Proof that the universe hates me: I got rear-ended tonight. ON THE WAY TO CHURCH. Priceless, ain't it?

So Wanda and I were headed up to the service at Trinity Cathedral (their New Yea's Eve is wow. Seriously cool music), and about a half block east of Powell's, on Burnside, the car right in front of me put on their 4-way flashers. Not knowing why, I slowed down. Turns out they were picking someone up from the sidewalk in front of Powell's. I stopped behind them. The guy behind me wasn't paying attention- and according to a witness, was following way too closely. So we got the BANG!

We're ok, though Wanda is a bit sore. No damage to the other guy's pickup that I could see. My right hand rear lights are gone, and the back hatch is smooshed in a bit. Looks like he connected with the latch bar/handle. If it had been a car they would have hit the bumper and we'd be fine, but nooo, it had to be a pickup. So probably the first order of business Monday will be to call Adam and see if I can get Zippy in to get the lights fixed at the least. And find out if he can do anything with the hatch.

In other news, we had Christmas. Dan and Ellen and Carol and Chappie were here, and James made it up for a couple of days. Wanda and I have been down with Virus #267, and can't seem to shake it. Seems to be sort of cyclical- I'll miserable for several days, then I'll start to feel better- and then it knocks me down again.

And now it is after midnight, so- HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Let's hope that 2010 is the best ever!!

I really needed one of these:

Friday night, on south-bound I-5. I got all the way to Albany without incident, and then suddenly traffic came to a grinding halt. The road was a solid sheet of ice- all the way to Creswell. About 25 miles of slick-as-glass roadway. We were crawling along at about 15mph through most of it. Didn't dare change lanes or take an exit. I thought about bailing and stopping at David and Lydia's, but then I remembered the exit to their place- very tight uphill curve. Not even.

I was actually ok- Zippy handles really well on bad surfaces. It was the people around me that I was afraid of, especially the epic idiot in front of me who kept hitting his brakes (yes Mr. 'I have an SUV so I am impervious to weather!', I'm looking at YOU!) and then fishtailing. I really wished I'd had a bullhorn- crank it up to 11 and yell "Stay off your brakes, you cretin!" Alas, I missed my chance.

Investiture was interesting. About half of the usual suspects made it- the rest were holed up and waiting for spring. HRM bailed and went home after a night in a motel. Rustam and Suvia were almost late to their own investiture! I was very glad I stayed up most of the night finishing Rustam's caftan- he wore it and it looked good. I was pretty much good for nothing though, and when they offered a very short fealty court so that those who needed to leave could- I did. James and I went back to Ashland where there was a pillow loudly calling my name. After I had a nap we went out for Chinese. The Kung Pao chicken failed to clear my nose though, and the next morning it was clear that I was too sick to drive 300 miles, so it was a good thing that I'd packed an extra dose of meds just in case.

Bera ran the peerage meeting again- she rocketh! I wish she would run the kingdom meetings too- we might actually get something done. :-/

The last Rivers council meeting was here at our house- Wanda had just recovered from the plague, and I was thankful for modern medicine (fought off a kidney infection), but the meeting was really good- talked a lot about theory and standards and the sort of thing we need to talk about occasionally, rather than just blowing through the candidate list.

Plan is to go get a tree tomorrow. Yay!