Friday, September 15, 2006

Summer Vacation, Part the Second

Possibly the Longest Post Ever…

Where we left off:
4. A drunk driver smashed into my car, doing $6400 worth of damage but thankfully only hurting himself. The car was parked and no one was in or around it.
5. School is about to start soon
6. I will be engaged soon

Poor, Sad Scion


I love my car. It is zippy, small and cute. It is the first car I have ever bought, and I’ve had it for just over a year. A friend of mine recently asked what car I would get if money were no object. Honestly, it’s this car. I know it isn’t expensive or fancy but I love it and it is me.

We don’t have a garage spot, so I park on the street. Sunday evening, I parked on Grand Avenue, not far from my front door, when I park very frequently. Monday morning, I was leaving to take Hank to daycare. I started walking down the sidewalk and I saw a car blocking the sidewalk. It was one of those moments where your brain just doesn’t quite register what it is seeing. It was like this:

After a couple steps, I stopped. “That’s my car.” I started walking forward again, confused. I stopped again. “ “ that’s what I thought. Nothing. What? I called B, who was still upstairs. “Someone hit my car. It’s up on the sidewalk” I started crying. He said he was on his way. I sat down on the stoop of the building next door and just started bawling. My brain just couldn’t quite figure out what I was supposed to do. It was awful. I sort of forgot about Hank, who was also confused. Thankfully, he is a very mellow dog and, when something is wrong, he just stays quiet and sticks by your side. He's really wonderful.

There were pieces of car all over the sidewalk. There was antifreeze all over the street. Naturally, I assumed it was all from my car.


When your car is in an accident and the police are called and you aren’t there, they leave an accident report on your windshield. I know this because, about two years ago, a garbage truck hit the back of my old Subaru and ripped the bumper off.

So, I started to look at the accident report. There were four cars involved in this accident, but only mine and another one were listed. Turns out, only two cars fit on one report so I had one page of a two page report. I called my insurance company and a tow truck showed up – he had already towed the other two cars involved. I’d show more pictures, but I don’t know how to fuzz out the license plate and that makes me nervous.

To make a long story slightly shorter, I got the full accident report and discovered that some guy, driving someone else’s car with no license and no insurance had sideswiped the car behind me, hit me and shoved my car up onto the sidewalk and into the car in front of me. The body shot says it is going to cost about $6400 and take 80 labor hours to fix. It has been three weeks and my car is still in the shop. Thankfully, my insurance company is covering it. Unfortunately, I have a $1000 deductible and I’m working part time because I’m in school. So that sort of sucks. But the car is being fixed and eventually I’ll have it back. In the meantime, I’m taking the bus to work and grocery shopping with B. It is frustrating, but it could have been worse.

Back to School

School has started back up. I’m taking a class about teaching writing to second language writers – basically non-native English speakers. I’m a little nervous because I have no teaching experience and this will sort of give me a sense of whether or not I’ll like teaching. I also think it will be pretty challenging.

I was supposed to take two classes, but the only ones available were one in Milton and one in 18th Century and Restoration Drama. Not great. Plus, working three days a week severely cuts into my paycheck, no matter how long I work on those days. This class will not be offered again until 2008. Since the majority of community college students are ESL students, and since I will most likely be teaching community college or high school, I figure I should take it.

Engagement Pending


The other night, B (for “boyfriend” I can’t figure out how to refer to him here. He doesn’t know I have a blog [I just haven’t felt like telling him.] so it doesn’t seem fair to name him) told me that the ring I've been planning on using - the engagement ring my dad gave my mom - can only hold what it holds now - .5 carat, oval shaped stone. He was telling me this because he wasn't sure if I still wanted to use that, since .5 carat is kind of small and you know how I like the bling. Seriously, though, I had thought you could put anything in there. In my head, it was slightly bigger, maybe .75 to 1 carat and princess cut. I'm not crazy about ovals. He said they have a jacket that fits well and looks good that we could use as a wedding band, which would bling it up. He already ordered the stone, but wanted to make sure it's what I wanted before he has it put in. He said that I could have something bigger if that's what I want. So, on Saturday we went to look at it.

I was torn. I've never even thought about what kind of engagement ring I might want because I always thought I already had my engagement ring. It is small, but it has a lot of sentimental value. I was leaning towards just getting it sized for my right hand with a ruby (what was in it – my birthstone) and then getting something else for my engagement ring. But that makes me a little sad, because I thought I'd have this great sentimental ring. But I don't want to spend the rest of my life wishing I had made a different choice. It's tough. In any case, he had already ordered the diamond, which means that he is 100% sure he's proposing and fairly soon.

So we went to look at the diamond he’d already bought. It was beautiful. Shiny and Sparkly and all the wonderful things that diamonds can be, only way more so than I’d ever expected. I was enthralled. I tried on other stuff, just for to be sure. However, the salesgirl? Not so helpful. I wanted to check out other solitaires with stones in them for size comparisons. I like white gold, she brought me yellow. The diamond B bought was pretty high quality – she brought me cubic zirconium. All the other settings they had seemed like a lot of … stuff. I mean, they seemed really big and I have little hands. PLUS the settings they have in jewelry stores don’t have stones in them, which makes them look weird. So, I was overwhelmed and the one I had was so pretty and sparkly. So, I said I wanted it. Yay! They said it would be ready Monday. Yay! I asked them to put the ruby that was in my ring into a basic pendant for a necklace.

Then Sunday came, as it often does after Saturday, and we saw some friends who were recently engaged. Her ring was one carat, as were most of the rings of the women in my office. I started to think “my ring will be half that size… with no side stones… nothing else. People are going to think it’s dinky.” It isn’t that I was looking at my ring solely through the eyes of other people, I mean, if I really loved it I don’t think that I’d care. But I felt like I would always be explaining that it was my mom’s setting and it has great sentimental value and … I didn’t want people to think that B was cheap. I didn’t want to feel like I had to explain. I felt greedy and ungrateful.

Once our friends left, I went to fold some laundry, trying to figure out how to tell B that the ring he’d already paid for, that would be ready the next day, wasn’t what I wanted. I started crying. He started laughing at me. He was glad I wanted something else and said he was going to try to talk me out of it anyway. I knew I liked him for a reason.

So, now I have a new necklace and I’ll probably get something else to go in my mom’s ring and we’re starting over looking for a new ring. I have no idea how or when he’ll propose but he has said that one we have the ring, I won’t be getting it right away. It’s funny, but I have been so nervous and sort of anxious wondering when he will propose but, now that I know that he will soon, I’m not anxious at all. It’s cheesy and you’ll have to just excuse me, but I just feel so happy. I’m looking forward to getting married and starting our life together – even though we’ve already lived together for a while, I feel like this is the real start of things.

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