deer me

"It's a great place to live," said Bird, who drives 80 miles a day to his job as a roofer in Davenport. "But you can't work here." Unfortunately, this is as true in my county as any other beautiful rural location. On Friday, on the way to work, I hit a deer. I limped the not-supposed-to-be-functioning jeep ten miles back home, where David and I surveyed the damage: a broken radiator, a/c compressor, pulley system, power steering, bent frame, headlights and fog lights were immediately obvious. There is other damage as well, of course, and the mechanic called to let us know that it will take three weeks to fix. Three weeks. Work is 50 miles away. Never mind the (mind-reeling) cost to fix, even with used parts; this is an inconvenience of serious proportion. We had been planning on picking up a smart car to add to our collection just as soon as we could reasonably do so. But with a wait time of six months, this had been put off for a bit. In other news, I was looking at the National Hurricane Center's forecasts for Gustav and Hannah. You have to wonder what the folks in southern Florida are going to experience, with a hurricane on each side of the peninsula this Sunday. For our part, the annual family reunion has been scrapped as Aunt Barbara, the reunion's standing hostess, is having surgery and I think maybe we'll simply take a pass for most of the weekend, enjoying the time at home together over the holiday. Maybe we'll get around to designing more of Space Colony One, or the hovercraft. We are overdue for some serious family project time.