Well, it’s that time of year again – BURNING MAN! Jon and I stayed home last year since we had a new baby, but this year Jon is going back on his own. I would like to go but I’m not comfortable with leaving Jeremy for so long yet, and I don’t think it would be very much fun for him to drive for 2 days straight just to camp in the desert for a week and then have to drive back home. So it’s just the 2 of us until September 9th or so.
Jon left at 7:00 am on Saturday morning, and when I carried Jeremy out to the front porch so we could kiss and hug Jon goodbye, I felt something squish under my slipper. I knew instantly what it was. One of our cats (Indy) has become a pretty prolific mouser, which is a good thing, but she likes to leave mice and half-eaten mice all around the front door as “gifts” for us, which is not such a great thing. We call it “Indy’s Killing Field” because some mornings we’ll find 3 or 4 mice all at once. Gross. So I knew, even without looking, that I had just stepped right on one of those dead mice. I lifted my foot and took the quickest glimpse I could, and I didn’t see much but I saw enough to be able to confirm that’s what it was. I kind of started hopping around and huffing and puffing a lot, and shrieked, “Jon I just stepped on a dead mouse! AAACK! ACK! AAAAACK!” He took a look and got a disgusted look on his face and I said, “I didn’t look closely, but that’s what it is, isn’t it?” And he just said, “Uh, yeah… you don’t want to see this…” Then he went and got the shovel and scraped the mouse off the patio, and threw it into the woods. A colorful smudge was left behind on the cement. My slipper was miraculously clean but I still felt ill.
After Jon put the shovel away, we did all the hugs and kisses over again and he got in the truck and drove off. I was sad to see him go, but excited to know he’s going to have a lot of fun!
The next day, I had planned on taking Jeremy to the library. We got in the car and went down the driveway to the gravel road that leads out to the highway, and I noticed the road sounded VERY loud even though I was going pretty slow. Then I noticed the car was pulling hard to one side. I got out to look, and sure enough I had a flat tire. Totally flat, like a pancake. And the hubcap had gotten a little bit chewed up. Ugh. I slowly drove back to the house, and our neighbor Eric helped me put my spare tire on. Then I went to WalMart to see if they could patch my tire, which they couldn’t. And they didn’t carry a tire that matched my others. I decided to try my luck at Tires Plus, and they didn’t have the right one either. (This part of the trip was a lot of fun for Jeremy, because they had a toybox FULL of trucks to play with!) He cried when we had to put them away and go home, but was happy again when we got in the car and I gave him his Truck book. 
I called Jon, who was driving through Nevada at this point, and he told me to go to TireRack.com and order a replacement tire there. He told me that’s where he ordered the current set, and the price was good. I was able to request my tire be shipped to a shop near my office, so when it arrives on Wednesday or Thursday, I can go straight there to have it mounted. The spare should get me through until then.
This morning went pretty smoothly. Usually Jon drops Jeremy off at daycare, since he puts up a fuss when I drop him off, but today he did really well and went right for the trucks when we got into the room, no clinging or crying! I got to work on time, and nothing has gone wrong yet today… so far! I hope the rest of the week goes smoothly, and I hope the time goes quickly because I miss Jon a lot.
