Astrological Cold Spots

Here in Pork Smith we have entered what mr. delagar and I wryly call astrological cold spots -- places in life where one must begin to walk carefully, as everything that can go wrong begins to do so. So far this winter, I have been in the shop for three separate medical conditions, and now, lately, this tooth; he's been in for two, including lately, some mysterious shoulder malady; and now, yesterday, in the middle of a rainy, cold, wet Pork Smith rush hour (Pork Smith NEVER has rush hours, but the rain and some idiot in an SUV turning over his vehicle caused one) our one car that actually still mostly worked reliably overheated, for no reason that we could discern. We took it to our guy this morning at dawn, and he said he couldn't fix it, but maybe this other guy (Al) could. We drove it there (still raining, still cold, the kid whining in the backseat, and she hardly ever whines) overheating all the way and Al said maybe he could fix it, maybe he couldn't, but probably not before Christmas - this is the car we were driving down to New Orleans in, mind you, since the other is a bucket of junk. The kid begins to sob.

Al says he'll try to fix it before Chrismas.

Sobbing kids are good for something, apparently.

Oh, and my tooth still hurts. The dentist says to let it go for a while. See what happens. Now there's a good plan.