"It's raining, it's pouring, the old man ..."

Someone mentioned to me yesterday that "When it rains, it pours." We're in a bit of a drizzle right now. Just when we'd decided to purchase a white noise generator to try to help Rory sleep and maybe help Ceana concentrate when doing homework, my PDA died. And my cell phone has been acting strangely. OK, so Santa is going to deliver some electronics to the Baxter parents a bit early. Then on my way home from work late last night, I got a flat. I'm talking a blown-out sidewall jobbie that Mr. Schwab isn't going to be able to fix. Too bad it happened way after dark, on a rural highway with no lights or shoulder, in the rain, and I found I didn't have an adequate flashlight in the truck. Thankfully I was close enough to home that Rory drove out with the van to shine some light on the situation. I was trying to clench one of those keychain LED lights in my teeth while placing the tire jack under the truck frame, while at the same time dodging cars since I was laying in the traffic lane.

So I find myself still at home this morning, waiting for the local tire shop to open. Not looking forward to the sticker shock when the tires (which were nearing the end of their useful life anyway) get replaced. I'm guessing Santa will be about tapped out this year, and it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

At least it didn't rain ON the Veterans' Day parade yesterday. And actually, it didn't start raining on the early-morning memorial ceremony until just when the 21-gun salute started (quite appropriate). And when I went to bed at 11pm last night after helping Ceana with math, then got up at 4:45 to head to the gym, Ceana was STILL UP DOING HOMEWORK - she REALLY wanted to get caught up so she could regain her GMAIL / Facebook / friend party / high school football game priviledges. Yes, she made it.

Are we having fun yet?