I originally had this week off for vacation, but since I had no vacation plans and I’m hoping to save up enough days for a long trip to China next year, I gave the days back except for today (since my judge isn’t here today, either) and Friday, so I could get a jump start on the weekend trip to Hearst Castle with Mr. W.

Original plan for the day: have breakfast, shower and start laundry, get an oil change, attend a goodbye luncheon at the courthouse for the presiding judge who is transferring downtown, go home and finish laundry, drive out to Vanessa’s house to meet her kitties, the two of us would carpool down to bellydancing back at my neck of the woods, then carpool back to her neck of the woods (same city as Mr. W’s house), and I’d drive to Mr. W’s and spend the night over there.

What actually happened: This morning, I tidied up around the house, vacuumed, and started laundry. Then I drove off toward work , but I quickly changed my mind, turned the car around, and went to get an oil change instead. I thought I’d have time to do both, and thus almost regrettably drove to my cousin’s car shop in Diamond Bar.

It was a good thing I did that — I needed not just an oil change, but my scheduled maintenance. His shop was also so busy that he turned away 4-5 cars before I got there, but he managed to squeeze me in. Family connections are great. My cousin took almost 3 hours to do the job, during which time I walked down to a nearby sandwich shop and had a delicious lunch of a chicken sandwich on sourdough, a fruit bowl, and a smoothie. Perfect lunch for a hot humid day. (The high was supposed to have been 87 degrees Fahrenheit, 20 degrees cooler than what it had been the past few weeks.) I also chatted on the phone with Jordan for most of that time. When my cousin drove my car out, he told me the rear brakes were almost completely worn, so he’d replaced them, but the kicker was that my alignment was so far off on the front tires that the inside of my front left tire was worn down to the threading. He turned the wheel to the extreme right and pointed out the baldness of the inside half of the tire. “You’re about to pop that tire at any time. This is considered an emergency, get a new tire and get your alignment fixed TODAY.” I paid my cousin the $200 for his work (he charges me almost nothing for labor and wholesale for parts, so I’m sure this is already a deal), then drove down to Brea looking for the place I got my Yokohama tires a couple of years ago.

But because I can’t remember the name of the place nor the exact location, I pulled into the first reliable looking tire place that seemed to do alignment on Brea Blvd.. It was 3pm at that time, good thing I skipped that luncheon. The guy who helped me out was sooo nice. I hoped I wouldn’t be too ripped off, but I figured about $100 a tire, and if they don’t carry high-performance Yokohama tires in stock, I’d have to buy 2 tires so that my front tires match. Turned out, he looked at my tires, marveled at the severity of the damage on my front left tire, explained to me what he would do, educated me a bit on tire maintenance, then gave me a price estimate. He said he didn’t have Yokohamas on hand, but had this other brand that in his opinion is almost as good as Yokohamas, I would indeed have to get 2, so with the tires, alignment adjustment, mounting and balancing and all that jazz, it’s just over $200, is that okay? Wow, I was totally prepared to fork over something closer to $300. I happily gave him the job and he immediately had a young apprentice looking kid take off my tires. The kid was trying to roll my bad tire to the side of the large shop, and the thing was so lopsided (it looked like a trapezoid from the side) it wouldn’t roll right. “Wow,” he said. “I know, I know, I’ve been hearing that all day,” I said. The guy helping me out said it’d be about an hour and a half and he’d call my cell when they’re done.

Since I was mere blocks from Birch Street Promenade, I walked out and went shopping, after first having a nice long phone chat with college roommie Diana. I wandered around the shops on Birch Street, noticed they now have a Lucy women’s athletic store (I LOVE that store, but only know of the locations in Northern Cal), and went in. They’re the only store I know of to carry women’s athletic wear in petite sizes, and they have GREAT sports bras, supportive, comfortable AND slightly padded. I could never find that combination anywhere else. Turns out I wear Lucy pants in petite small, so I was happy about that. I also bought 2 other pairs without trying them on. At the register, I suddenly remembered that while I was in San Jose for my bday last month, I had also had the great timing to have gone thru a Lucy’s on Santana Row right after meeting up with Mike and Christi, but I didn’t have time to buy anything since Diana and I had to rush off to her gym to get ready for that night’s comedy event, but that at the gym I’d picked up a Lucy’s coupon. I happened to have that in my purse! I pulled it out, the girls at the register, who were also soooo nice, looked at it and realized it’d expired. They told me that’s okay, they’ll still honor it, and they re-rang my purchase with the 25% off. I was so happy.

While I was in the dressing room, the car guy called and said my car’s ready, and as I was at the register at Lucy, Mr. W called and said he was in the area having gotten off work, so I walked out, jumped in his truck, and he drove me to pick up my car. The guy at the tire place explained some tire stuff to me, and then said that he didn’t realize my Yokos were directional tires so he put in more labor to turn them around, but that he didn’t charge me for that labor.

Mr. W and I parked at the far end of that lot and walked over to a nearby Italian restaurant, Pane e Vino, had a nice tasty dinner, and he went home and I went off to bellydancing. During our dinner conversation, I remarked on how lucky the day had been. If I hadn’t skipped the luncheon, I would’ve been unable to fit in all the car stuff I had to do. If I hadn’t decided to get that oil change and maintenance, I would’ve never known about that bad tire and it would’ve blown on me and Mr. W when we drive it this weekend up to San Simeon for Hearst Castle (a 5-hr drive). I don’t have AAA, so the tow would’ve cost an arm and a leg, and depending where on the freeway we were when the tire popped, we may not even have been able to get a tow truck out there to tow us. That surely would’ve ruined our weekend. And it was great I happened to find the Lucy store and that I remembered I had a (expired) coupon, and the people were so nice to honor it anyway. Everything worked out perfectly. And I still made it to bellydancing on time and got to hang out with Mr. W. And then it hit me that a lot of people may have seen this day completely differently, i.e. “I had to spend $200 big bucks on the freakin’ maintenance, AND now I find out I have to blow another $200+ on freakin’ tires, because this retarded tire place doesn’t carry Yokohamas so I have to buy TWO damn tires?! CRAP! And I have to waste an entire freaking day waiting around for my car to get done at 2 places?!” That makes me wonder… is the glass half-full vs. half-empty thing an all-applicable thing? Maybe people who seem to have bad luck don’t have bad luck as much as a bad perspective. I know some people who turn everything around into “Boo hoo, poor me, why me?” instead of counting their blessings. I’m not saying everything can be seen in a positive light, but maybe a lot of things can, and maybe sometimes people have to work to feel sorry for themselves.

I think my day went perfectly, much better than I could’ve planned for myself.