Adventures with a Tow Truck

Well, I am in Bend.

I have to say, our trip truly epitomized the name of this blog. When I chose the name Learning How to Bend, I can't say that I ever quite thought it would be as true as it was last night.

I have unfortunately not seen much of Bend yet, so can't comment on the city itself, but that was because I had to come into Bend in a tow truck at 1 in the morning. Not quite as scenic that way :)

Now that I've got your attention, I'll start at the beginning, lol/.

Left at 1pm, weather was super bad in Siletz. M said that she had trouble breathing too. Ah

Ok focus I cant focus

We left the very hard to breathe in Siletz, found Newport similarly hard to breathe, and even Yachats was bad , and there was a campfire or somethign so air was smoky and bad. All in all, the Oregon coast is beautiful, but man is their air hard to breathe, at least this time of year.

We got to Eugene around I dont know late, much later than we had planned on but oh welll. M's son let us use the bathroom in his house nicely solving the MCS safe bathroom problem.

M was just so great and so accomodating and really tried to make the trip as easy and stress free as possible for me. She helped me get all my stuff into the car. She let me spend way, way more time in Eugene than she had originally planned especially considering we got there hours after we thought we would. I really do think I like her. I am really amazed to have found two people who I seem to be able to get along with so well.... it's still early yet of course but..... I think I like her. More about that later though.

Anyway, Eugene. Thought it might be more humid there but was less. Wasn't bad at all - the air was pretty good comparatiovely speaking . The city was very green. And the radio station, oh, it was great to hear a big city statyion again , with DJs who actually talked, liners, listener interaction etc. So, after bathroom, we tried to decide where in downtown we would look at as we wanted a quick look at Eugene/. Found a place.... beautiful cobblestone walkways, art and interesting sculptures everywhere, trees and sun, murals, Eugene is a pretty cool city from wha tI can see so far. It felt good to be in a city again!

I think I'm much more comfortable in (small) cities than rural areas. I wouldn't want to live in a big city. But a medium one, yes.

I walked around eugene taking pictures for 10 minutes or so. Found a cafe - LUCKY we got LUCKY in the whole city of eugene we found the one place that was accessible, quick, and had exactly the two things I was looking for - and I got an asian chicken salad for dinner as it was dinner time, and I was hungry and worried about where we'd get food as I'm pretty picky. I was also craving ice cream but even though their menu promised gelato the woman said they were out. So I resigned myself to a chocolate chip cookie. Then M came out and said they had expresso gelato (or ice creamn ot surwe which)!!! That was the best expresso gelato I have ever had, much better even that the really good stuff they had in Newport. The flavor EXPLODED in your mouth. I had to make sure to stop eating halfway thru so I didnt get too hyper :)

We tried to go to Trader Joe's but the smell was way too bad for either of us. Huge one - twice the size of the ones I;m used to -probably why.

Anyway I was feeling reasonably content because of my expresso ice cream, and halfway away from Eugene getting into small sleepy mountain towns, thinking of going to sleep myself, M said "There are lights on both the battery and (something else)." She looked at the instruction manual and i t said not to drive it. She went back into the small sleepy towns to see if anything was open but nothing was, it was 8pm, to ask a mechanic for advice or help.

So this is where it starts to get interesting. We found the only bar open for miles and miles, and there was a woman and a man hanging outside it. M decided to ask them if they could help. The man had tattoos on his arm and a beer and on first look he looked like a picture perfect redneck. I admit it, I judged him and I judged him wrongly, but he made me nervous at first!

It turned out, though, that he was a mechanic. And he immediately started trying to trouble shoot our problem and talk to M about it. He thought it was the alternator, in which case he didnt think it was safe for us to drive to Bend. He offered without a second thought "Come to my house, a couple miles away, I'll hook things up and check to see if the alternator is working for you." He was as friendly and kind and considerate as could be. I was blown away that some random stranger would even give us the time of day, much less interrupt what he was doing to drive back to his house and help random strangers fix their car problems on his offtime for free.

Like my friend D says, Oregon is magic and I haven't met a single person here yet, I don't think, that I don't like.

When we get there he offers me a soda ! - just as I'm trying to think of what *I* can give *him* for being so nice to us - and gets to work on looking at the car.

That's when it got bad, the alternator was dead, and we were stuck. I was actually perfectly calm up until this point, thinking the worse that could happen is we got towed back and we got to sit in the car and listen to our music while they pulled us back. Obviously, I had no idea what towing actually meant.

It wasn't until I heard M ask on the phone with Triple A, "Can we have a driver who doesn't wear cologne" that I had a sudden lightbulb moment and realized what towing meant. THEN I start panicking, big time. I am fine with minor schedule changes and inconvenicnes but I completely panicked at the idea of getting into some random truck for 2 hrs, who knew what could be in there? air fresheners galore, probably, how the hell was I going to tolerate it? How would I deal wioth the stress of moving after 2 hrs of that? Sit in a small truck cab for 2 hrs and be toxed out - it went beyond anything I could imagine enduring, or at least on such short notice!
And then, thank God to hell it wasn't a new car because there was no way I could toleratre that .

We talked about other options for staying over night somewhere but because of MCS there wasn't any, so.

I was hyperventlilating and just really not having a good time of it. But pretty quicklly, probably within 20 minutes, I passed the "crisis" stage and into the "Okay I have to make a plan" stage and figured out a plan of how to deal with it.

I decided to change clothes into ones I didnt like as much so the clothes I was wearing wouldn't get ickified as much and that calmed me considerably. M had an extra mask that I could wear and that also calmed me. And then I just framed it as a challenge to get through that would make a good story to tell, and challenged myself to mobilize all my coping resources and be calm enough to get through it. And I did.

Mr. Helpful, the guy whose house we were at, kept coming out to offer food, drink, computer, bathroom and what have you. Which I kept refusing politely as I needed time to think! :)

M asked Tow Guy if he liked or would play country in the tow truck so I'd have spomething to calm me, and he said yes. We found probably the only tow guy who liked and knew every country station from Eugene to Bend, which was good as I forgot my sheet of paper that listed them.

BUT, we had lost reception to Eugene stations half an hour ago or so and Radio Locator showed no stations between Eugene and Bend beause of the mountains. And Tow guy had no cd player.
So Helpful Guy - get this- actually loaned us his mp3 player. Oh, I forgot, he had George Strait on when we got there. He was a country fan too. Guess we must have been in the boonies :)

I about fell over when I heard that, couldnt imagine someone doing something so nice for a stranger. I am so impressed with the people in this state!

We are going to mail it back of course.

So the truckl - no artificial fragrances or new car but the exhaust was horrible - I remembered just before we got in that was my experience of the only other 2 trucks I'd been in. But that wasn't as bad as air freshener or fragrances and M's mask helped a lot.

AND, when we got in, surprise, surprise, Tow Guy had the Eugene country station BLARING.

93.3.... Eugene's best country.

Apparently, I was right when I told M her car had crappy radio reception, lol. He could still get it.

And we got it, I swear, three quarters of the way back to Bend.

Benefit of a tow truck, I guess. Look on the bright side?

Mechanic is here he just brought car back fixed thankfully dog is barking tyoh

Also got 99.9 from Albany .... I can get that in Siletz.... amazed to get it so far...... Albany is in the middle of the 2.

Dog is barking trying t o finush this

Okay. Where was I. Perils of tryign tio write in the day time.

So, I sat there w/ one hand holding the mask on my face and just focused on the music. Whcih sounded good. So it was tolerable on that way, as longas I didnt try to talk. It was very loud. But I was just thankful it was tolerable.

Got Bend stations about half an hour out of Bend. One of them, plays After Midnight which makes me happy but seems to be different DJ now.

Got into Bend at about 1 am, 12 hrs after we started.

Was all foggy and afraid of reactions from exhaust so waited to go into house and took walk down street in pitch black to get air.

And, oh my god. It felt AMAZING. Like, in 5 minutes, I was laughing, it felt so good. The air was dry as could be, warm enough with coat, crisp, clear, and it SMELLED beautiful- juniper I think M said it was - it felt like heaven. It felt so good to walk down the street. And I could tell even in almost pitch dark - this was a NEIGHBORHOOD. With huge, long, paved ROADS. And OMG even a SIDEWALK. lol It's been too long since I've lived in civilization - I've always wanted to live in a real neighborhood ever since my mom moved from our hometown about 5 yrs ago.

All the places I've lived have been really rural and basically not neighborhoods to varying degrees.

Siletz no place to walk from her house, huge hill

So I was happy about thjat. Neighborhoods = easy walking access .

So I felt good and actually better after a short walk.

The house is beautiful. Wood floors everwyerhe. Elegant, beautiful, tasteful but entirely comfortable.

My room is beautiful, I have my own bathroom, and there's a garden outside with a stream/waterfall thing running from a pond.

Pretty to watch

I did have signifcant problems with the tap water but I am not going to talk abou that right now.

Focys on goosd

Use ethernrt cabler to grt on computer put blankets on floor to sit on temp solution

felt icky when got up but a little more stable no i think but disoriented still ovciously

It could be a good thing. I am worried mostly about health stuff. But what else is new? It culd be a fgood thijng/

I xcan tupe anymroe as you can see

I was wrong about the impression of M that I got throughy email and phone - she is much better than what I thought she would be. She is understanding of my needs and calm - that is the biggest thing - she stays calm. I haven't met a lot of people in my life who manage to stay calm thru, well, meeting me, and thru things like a car breaking down and whatever. I thought she might be the kind of person who'd get really worked up about things and we wouldn't get along well and she's not like that at all. She says that I don't overwhelm her - (at least so far!) - and so besides K that would make only the second person in my life who has ever felt that way - and THAT feels magical. That feels really good. I simply amazed and so relieved, and so grateful. I felt very grateful last night. I think if we have patience w/ each other and communicate well it will be ok. I don't know but I think it might be.

Today is actually a bit humid. Yes, it does apparently get humid here although M says it didnt used to be that way and will stop - who knows. It gets good at night I think - last night was good. Thunderstorms clear it away I suppose. I don't know - I'll just roll with it. It's not as bad as Newport was or Maine would be, so, that's good. And inside is fine. Inside feels much better - I think it was the mold that was getting me in Newport and K's house - so far at least the fogginess and out of it ness feels MUCH better - there's no question - I didnt really know what mold was or what it smelled like - but that was definitely mold. I just didnt know I reacted to mold that much or that the coast had it so much.

Anyway there are problems but they will hopefully be worked out.

If the weather gets better I'll go for a walk.

Taking things one thing at a time or trying to very hard!!!!

We have to go to whole foods now to get a few things so i have get off

i will be back on later i hope....

Ok....I am reminding myself to have patience with all the problems I already have, and have patience with the new things Try to appreciate the good and not freak out over the others. As best I can.

I do feel proud of myself for getting thru the tow truck thing so well. It makes ,me feel a little more confident aboyut myselkf. Hardest thing Ive had to do in a long time - well - Seaport was more traumatic and harder, yes, but in terms of the actual FEAR of something that I had to overcome, since I didnt know Seaport would be so bad, then this was harder and I did a better job of overcoming the fear, is I guess what I mean.

Edited to add: please do not say anything about me being "happy" as that will make me have severe cognitive dissonance again like last time and im trying not to apply labels to things this time if i can! (to a certain degree)
rushed buthopefiully makes sense
Kate