Oh life is so adventure filled sometimes! While I was down in Medford for a few days, my husband was house-sitting/dog-watching for our friends, the Guidry's. On the first night, around 11:30pm, Alex let the dog out before bed - like a responsible sitter. The dog starts barking down by the fence. Alex calls to him but the dog does not return. After a minute or two, the dog obeys and comes inside. Alex takes him over to his bed and goes outside to make sure everything is alright. That's when he smelled it. That invasive, burned-rubber, evil, death smell of skunk. Immediately Alex takes the dog into the garage. It's too late, the small is already all over the dog's bed and wafting through the rest of the house. The quick thinker that he is, Alex looks up a recipe for eliminating skunk smell (directions here) and scrubs the dog for an hour. Finally the odor begins to fade and Alex takes out the dog bed to the garage and leaves the windows open all night so the cross-breeze can air out the house.
So my husband had an awesome night without his wife. Oh, and then the dog woke up at 2am and decided to barf on the carpet - lovely. Poor guy.
We've wanted a dog for a long time. Somehow this experience hasn't deterred my husband's love of canine companions. Big softy.
On the other end of the A to Z duo (me) different sorts of adventures were ensuing. The reason I was back in Medford was to return my dad's truck, say some more farewells, and pick up the few stragglers I had left behind of our possessions. I needed a ride back to Portland. Conveniently, my friend Mary was making a day trip up for some appointments and to visit with us on Saturday. I couldn't have planned it better.
Now, Mary is a special person in our lives. It was at her birthday party in July of 2 years ago that Alex and I met for the first time. We always tell her that it's all her fault we're together. Mary is also special in the sense that...well...frankly, she has bad luck. I don't know if that's a real thing but if anybody has it, Mary does.
Saturday morning rolls around and Mary picks me up in her silver VW Bug. We stop for coffee and head onto the freeway to make the 4 1/2 hour drive. We're chatting away, catching up and whatnot. Mary is coming up on a truck in the right lane and starts to merge into the left lane to go around. Well about halfway into her merge, Mary realizes there's a Mazda in the left lane that she's going to hit! She corrects and moves back into the right lane but unfortunately it gives the Mazda enough of a scare to swerve off the freeway to the left and then over-correct back onto the road. That's when she slammed into us. BOOM. The Mazda hits the back right side of Mary's car and bounces off - the Mazda then spins out of control in a full 360ยบ circle and comes to rest on the side of the freeway. Mary pulls off to the right and we take a moment to breath and calm down. The Mazda was able to drive to our side of the freeway and we checked to make sure both cars could drive and that everyone was ok. The driver's exchanged info and after about 25 minutes everyone went on their way.
To reward ourselves for surviving, we stopped at Taco Bell. Don't judge. It was delicious.
So, eventually, we made it Portland safe and sound.
Life is surprising. I hope I remember to take the bumps as something to laugh about. Otherwise, I'll end up having a much more miserable time getting from point A to point Z!
