And curses ring out instead of the psalms

Today is a day that will live in hilarity.

I got up this morning at 5 in the morning in order to leave my beloved Desert home. After going from Tucson to Las Vegas to Tulsa to St. Louis, I ended up at my mini van around 4:30 in the afternoon. I had the cutest old man drive me in the shuttle - he told me, "Now, I only have one rule, and that rule is that women are not to take their luggage. That's my job. Just so you know." Love it, as Vanessa says. Anyway, 4:30. I got in my car, called Emily to make sure I knew how to get to Litchfield (east on 70, north on 55), and was on my way. That is, I was on my way for 5 minutes - after that, my tire exploded. You may ask why a car that had all new tires would have tires that didn't work... and you may ask why I didn't freak out, but calmly, albeit in a very annoyed manner, pulled my car into the shoulder and called my dad, then Triple A. Seriously, my tire was in shreds. It had slashed the entire circumference of it, leaving me to drive 70 miles per hour on the rim. So that was scary.

While I was waiting for AA Roadrunner to come save me, a Berkley police officer drove up. It was strange - he seemed so nonchalant; not that there was anything to be... chalant... about, but I didn't even feel like he was trying to be helpful. He pulled up, and kind of waited for me to go to him. That was fine, but he made me sit in his car and wait for the triple A guy in there. Having never been in a police car before, I tried to observe cool police gadgety things, but all I saw was his laptop, and on his laptop? Solitare. "This is all we really do," he commented in a bored tone. Weird. So after the guy showed up, changed my tire, and told me a better way to Litchfield (north on 170, east on 270, then north on 55), I thought once more I was on my way.

About half an hour later, I was once again foiled in my attempts to see Emily. Illinois has this weird thing where it'll be all nice and sunny out, and then all of a sudden the heavens shoot hail and water bullets at your car and try to kill you. I had to pull over twiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice. It took me an hour to go 18 miles. I kept praying, too, that I wouldn't die. Now we know that God answers prayers.





Oh life.

P.S. The Monroe babies are adorable. When Iain yells, "Let's run!" and then laughs really loud in a kind of fake way... I just want to scoop him up and take him to Greenville with me. I don't think the Monroes would mind too much.