Accident revisited

I have to say that everyone has been great (well, except for the cab company/driver) in helping me deal with the accident. The policeman stayed until the tow truck came and asked the dispatcher to call me a cab. (The cab, on the other hand, took an hour and a half to get there, and the driver didn't seem too thrilled to pick me up.) Last night, I filled out a claim online for my insurance. This morning, the claim representative called and arranged for a body shop to do an estimate on the car and arranged for a rental car for me. All I had to do was call the rental place to pick me up and sign a few forms. The rental agent knocked off some of the usual price of the car so that it would be completely covered by my insurance.

I'm not thrilled with the rental car, but I won't have it for long. It's a Chevy Cobalt, and it's like a Honda Civic only with really lousy usability. The driver's seat belt is farther back than it is on the Civic, and you need to contort yourself to reach it. I'll probably have the rental car until early next week. I'm debating whether I want to drive that car to San Jose or not. I'm dubious about driving it through all the twists and turns of Pacheco Pass.

Needless to say, my eyes were glued on the road today -;)

Of course, I'm very sore today. Unloading groceries was kind of painful, so I'm going to stay on the computer (and I won't spend the whole time on LJ, right Adrienne?), take a hot bath, and go to sleep early.

Halloween memories

The area in Evanston that I grew up in had a mixture of apartments and houses, which had lots of families with kids. There was an area of about two blocks by three blocks in which I did Trick or Treating as a kid.

Lots of people in the houses went all out on their decorations. Nancy Murray (I can't believe that I remember her name!) had the really scary house. The door creaked open with no one standing there. There were sound effects of screams and manical laughter. There was a witch holding a cauldron, which held candy. The first time that we went trick or treating, I was so scared that I thought that taking the candy would spring some sort of trap. As I got older, Nancy Murray's house was the high point of the evening.

When I got older still, we moved into a house and decorated for Halloween (though nothing like Nancy Murray's house). One year, my mom created a harvest decoration on our front porch with a huge uncarved pumpkin and some gourds. Someone stole the pumpkin, and we were rather annoyed.

Then the pumpkin reappeared on our porch, carved, with a note: "I'm sorry, but I just had to carve that pumpkin. The Mad Carver."