(no subject)

About a month ago, I walked out to the car one morning to take myself to work, only to discover that one of my wheels was gone. Stolen right off my car. What the hell? No other damage or theft, just apparently someone wanted/needed a Camry wheel. I filed a police report and an insurance claim, yadda yadda. The police are unlikely to do anything, since it wasn't a break-in, and since the cost of replacing said wheel and tire is less than my deductible, we'd end up paying out of pocket anyway. Grr. Luckily, my spare is full-size and not a donut. So we threw that on and carried on driving the car until we could save up enough to replace the spare.

Yesterday morning, kiwifruitbat and I are ready to head off on his birthday adventure (in another post), and discover THE SAME EXACT WHEEL MISSING AGAIN! This time they at least left the car on the jack. Thanks, assholes, that's real thoughtful of you.

Thank God mom had chosen to stay the night before and take the baby home with her in the morning instead of just taking him that night; she let us take her car so we were able to still do my "evil plot." If she hadn't been there, there's no way we could have made it in time and the entire day would have been shot.

But seriously, who steals a wheel off a car? JUST TAKE THE GODDAMN CAR. Other than Morgan's booster seat, there was nothing of value inside, and pretty much any damage incurred would be enough to total it out. But no, it's just a wheel. "Just" even though it's $100+ and even that's a big imposition on our budget.

Birthday adventure

Despite an inauspicious beginning, yesterday turned out pretty well overall.

kiwifruitbat loves airplanes. Like seriously. "It's the one thing I might give up roleplaying for." So when I got a LivingSocial deal last month for an introductory flight lesson, I jumped on it and told him I would need him on Saturday the 15th (but wouldn't tell him why). I put "Alan's Birthday Adventure" on the wall calendar in the kitchen, and he put "Sierra's Evil Plot" on the calendar on his phone.

It was soooo hard not to tell him, because I knew how excited he would be and I couldn't wait to see that big cheesy grin and know it was because of something I'd done. The problem with having a low-maintenance husband is that it's really really hard to do big awesome things for him, the way he's done for me on two birthdays now. So I've spent the whole past month just absolutely giddy at the idea of returning the favor.

And it was sooo worth it. We drove up to Placerville (in Mom's car) and made it there in time, and the instructors even let me walk around and listen as they taught the other students about all the flaps and lights and I-don't-even-know-what about planes, which was neat because I thought I'd just have to sit in the office for those three hours. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed inside, since I wasn't expecting to be in the sun and thus didn't have any sunblock or hat or umbrella or anything. Oops.

Turns out Alan had, in fact, had lessons before, a long time ago in New Zealand. So much of what the instructors were teaching was jogging his memory, and things came back to him as he was in the simulator. And after lunch when the time came for each student to go up with an instructor and fly for half an hour, since he remembered the basics, his instructor had him do a little more than the other students were able to do. Like LAND THE PLANE BY HIMSELF. omg

So he has an official Pilot's Log Book now and that half hour counts toward the 50 or whatever he needs to get a private pilot's license. Which unfortunately may have to wait a while because it's a damn lot of money. But as I said, the shit-eating grin that hardly left his face all day was worth every penny.