A lot of stuff happened last week. For starters, on Monday Beth decided to take the girls to FW for something to do before she's stuck at home post-surgery. They never made it, though. Somewhere out past Pierceton the left front tire on the van rather suddenly went flat. Beth called me, and I quickly checked the time (because I had to take Alex to work at 5), decided I had time to run out there, change the tire, and run back to do that. WRONG. I got out there ok, and everything started out all right as I was changing the tire, but then things went wrong all of a sudden. Problem 1: the van was sitting at the side of US30 on an upwards slope. Problem 2: I forgot to loosen the lugnuts before jacking up the van. Problem 3: I managed to slash my hand open on the lugwrench and bled all over. So I got the front end raised, yanked on the wrench a lot to get the flat tire off, then couldn't get the spare tire on so I raised it some more - at which point the van rolled backwards, toppling the jack, and fell. I was afraid we had just done some real damage to the front end, but the spare was in the wheel well so I think it kept the wheel from crashing onto the pavement. I was able to get the jack out because of that, set it back up, and lifted the van a little bit again, but I was afraid the van would roll again (the parking brake had been set, too) because of the slope. Plus, the van being at the side of the road meant that it was also listing to starboard some, so I was also afraid it would tip over. Regardless it didn't feel safe to raise the van enough to put the spare tire on, so we called roadside assistance from USAA. By this time, Beth had to run home to get Alex to work, so the girls took the truck home and left me there to get some help. I got things arranged for a tow truck to come take the van to Ab & Tom's (since I didn't know if the front was damaged after falling off the jack), then waited. I didn't want to sit inside the van while it was on the jack but after I brushed ticks off my leg 3 times I decided to just be careful about it. Beth eventually made it back to me (she needed to because the tow company can't take passengers any more....covid rules) and we waited for the tow. And waited. And waited. This is the one area where I've always been unsatisfied with USAA; it takes forever to get roadside assistance to you. By around 9:00, when it was getting dark, we finally got a clue and called Reichert & Knepp ourselves. They had a truck out within about 15 minutes. The guy told me that what had happened with the van rolling off the jack wouldn't have caused any damage, and he just raised the van and put the spare on, apparently unconcerned about the van tipping over (there was at that point a block of wood behand the back wheel for a chock). So I guess I could have done that. And all I had to do was submit a claim to get paid back by roadside assistance. So that's the lesson: call the tow yourself.

Tuesday was the big day for Beth's knee. After months of crazy knee pain she had her surgery early in the morning. I took her in to KCH and she went on through without any problems. However the doctor did say that there was a lot more arthritis in the knee than it had looked like on the MRI, and the meniscal tear was actually pretty minor. It seems like the arthritis is really the problem in there. So he cleaned up everything he could and repaired what he could, and probably there will be significant improvement in the amount of knee pain she has, but she's going to have some sort of bad knees until they get replaced. 

Also Tuesday there was a major panic event. I went in to work a little while after Beth went home, then back home again, and sometime around 4:00 I found Beth's wedding ring in my pocket, because she had given her rings to me to hold on to before going in to surgery. But, the anniversary band was not in there, and I didn't know where it was. I looked all though the van and the house but couldn't find it, went back in to work and found nothing. I told Beth and she was surprisingly the calmer one. I ran back in to the hospital, looking all over the parking lot (nothing) and went back inside; the receptionist called back to the surgery center, talked for a few minutes, then told me they had it back there. The nurse who brought it out to me was very sympathetic...she told me they knew someone would be coming for that ring sometime today! Apparently it fell out of my pocket when I took my keys out when I went to bring the  van around and pick up Beth after her surgery. So relieved they had it. 

Laura arrived here Saturday evening around dinner time. She's on the way to Chicago to visit her friend Monica and stopped here for a few days first. Wanted to see Alex before he leaves in a couple weeks...we took her out to Oak & Alley for dinner, then La Troje after church today. In the evening today, we all went on an evening cruise on the Dixie through Lake Webster. Interesting note: there is a music professor from Tennessee that has a lake house, and when he's there for the evening cruises, he plays the trumpet as the Dixie goes by. He played the "Popeye" music on the trumpet with the boat blowing the whistle to make the toot-toot sounds. That was fun!