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Last Monday wasn’t normal from the get-go. Instead of taking the time for breakfast, I just had a small container of yogurt. Then when I headed out of the house to my car to deliver three dining room chairs to be reupholstered, I didn’t make it to my car for a half hour. This was when the first of two strange things caught my attention.

There was a giant tree limb down in the driveway that Carole, my renter downstairs, uses. It was mostly dead. She always backs in and the limb was between her car and the mailbox. It was about 18-20 feet long with lots of branching. I’ve never seen such a large limb come down from one of my trees. The trees where it came from were worked on earlier this year. I wonder if that had anything to do with it. I’m glad it didn’t hit Carole’s car; it would’ve caused damage.

As it turned out, Carole had gone out to the garage she uses about 10 p.m. the night before to get something. And she heard the crash when the huge limb came down. She went out in the storm to see what had just happened and was very grateful it had not hit her car. And she was grateful to see that someone had cleared it away when she headed for work the next morning.

I cleared it away. I got my Christmas tree cutting saw from the garage and sawed off about six branches before I could move it. Where it broke off from the tree, it was about five inches thick. With many of the smaller branches cut off, I could handle it.  I carried a couple of loads of branches to my debris pile and then drug the remaining big limb to the same place. I’m glad it wasn’t any larger.

Then I headed for my car and into town. After dropping off the chairs, I went to the eye clinic. I had been there last Friday for my every other year eye appointment. Good news! I don’t need new glasses. Bad news! Both eyes are almost ready for cataract surgery, which I’ll schedule for next year.

After the appointment, I went home with my cool, stylish wrap arounds under my regular glasses, since I had had my eyes dilated. When I pulled into the garage and stopped, my glasses fell into my lap with one handle still on my ear. They had just come apart after seeing the eye doctor. How ironic is that!

So I collected both parts, put them in my pocket, and went in the house. I called the eye clinic and told them that my glasses had just broken. They asked if they were really broken or had just come apart. I checked and they had just come apart. So they said to bring them in Monday.

I also discovered that no screws were missing cause no screws were used. However, I saw two tiny prongs and poked them in. The glasses appeared to be fixed; I wore them all weekend with no problems.

On Monday morning, after the stop at the upholsterer, I stopped by the eye clinic and the gal said I had done a good job of putting them back together. She tightened everything and fitted them to me better because they had been sliding down my nose the past few months. Now, I won’t be constantly adjusting them.

Here’s the second strange thing: After my two appointments, I pulled into the garage and the low tire pressure message appeared. It hadn’t appeared before. One tire looked a little soft, and the other three looked fine. I figured that later I would go to Les Schwab. Right then I was hungry and wanted more breakfast. I fixed it, ate, and then became quite sleepy. I hadn’t slept much the night before. So I lay down for a nap and actually slept for a couple of hours.

It had been quite stormy with terrific winds most of the night. So after I got up from my nap, I swept all the tree debris off the deck and balcony and the driveway. Then I picked up downed branches in the front. None were very big, but there were lots of them. 

That was when I finally checked my tires again about 3:30 p.m. Surprise, surprise, one was totally flat. And it was one of the ones that looked fine before. I called AAA. They said they could be there in an hour. So I went out and emptied my trunk to make it easier to get to the spare.

When the tow truck driver arrived, I told him the story and he said that it sounded like a slow leak. He suggested that he fill the flat tire with air and if it held, he would follow me to Les Schwab. That made sense to  me, so that’s what we did. The guys at Les Schwab discovered that it was a fairly large piece of metal that had punctured the tire. And it had done enough damage that I needed a new tire. So now, I have a new tire.

Who knew when the day started that I would have to deal with a huge downed limb in the morning and a flat tire in the afternoon!  Neither were on my daily to-do list. . . . You just never know what the day’s going to bring!