Lets start from the beginning shall we? After the Christmas concert, stress levels at school were considerably lower, with only the afternoon class parties on Wednesday and packing up for Christmas break looming in the distance. Wednesday after school I went to Marsha's for a delicious dinner of fajitas which in typical Aidan style I spilled numerous times on my favorite shirt, staining it forever. It was there I began to feel a little "coughy". Nothing big but taking a deep breath made my chest hurt a little. No biggie. When I got home later that night the cough had gotten worse and I didn't feel so good. Flash forward to the next morning. I have a fever, my cough is much, much worse and I sound like a wheezing donkey. I have aches, pains, chills, headache and a wicked cough. I have...THE FLU. Yes, I like to exaggerate, we know this as a fact. HOWEVER I am not fooling around this time. I did, and still do have the real flu. Sick as a low down dirty dog. Just in time for my beloved, much anticipated and well-deserved Christmas Break!! Remember when I said I had the karma of a kitten killer? Lets take that up a notch (especially when you hear my next story). I have now graduated from kitten killer karma to karma of one who pulls the legs off spiders or someone who scams old people out of their life savings. That's me! Okay so I caught the flu (which was going around school, bound to happen) and was looking forward to a very long and uncomfortable drive. I could deal with that. At least all I had to do was sit in the same position and keep my eyes open for that one. I had some good company for part of the drive so that made things a little easier. The drive itself was pretty good all things considered. The James Bay Highway was predictably icy but the skies were clear and as long as we kept to a reasonable speed we didn't fishtail or run into any trouble. Not the case for a few of our other traveling comrades! Anyways, we saw a ton of caribou (who to be honest are pretty dumb seeming animals) which was really cool!
This brings me to the second part of my version of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". I woke up in the glorious Amosphere Hotel early Friday morning after a restless night. I packed my car up with the hammies and we were on the road. I was visibly on death's door but ready to get home!! Lots of snow and icy rain was predicted along our route home so we (Brandi, Carmen and I) wanted to get a move on. The drive to Amos the day before had already taken a couple hours longer due to the reduced speeds (for safety). All was going well until we left North Bay. About 20 minutes south of the city my low tire pressure light came on and at the exact same time a rock chipped my windshield. I was like WHAT!!!! Then I heard what sounded like a rock getting stuck in my wheel well. I kept driving for a minute until it got kind of bumpy and a little hard to steer. I texted Brandi and Carmen and told them I needed to pull over because I suspected I had a flat. And oh a flat I did have. Like, "flat-driving-on-the-rim" kind of flat. Soooooo awesome. Brandi, being the awesome person she is told me to get my jack out and to find the spare. Well I immediately shot her down and told her that there was no way in this frosty hell I was LIFTING MY MINIVAN and changing a tire on the side of Highway 11 in the snow. So I rolled up my sleeves and did the next best thing which was call CAA.
CAA came within half an hour which was awesome and advised me that given the weather conditions, it would not be safe for me to drive with a donut tire all the way back to the GTA. They suggested they lead me back to North Bay to a tire shop where they could repair or replace my tire given the severity of the damage. They pumped up my tire enough to drive on and we stopped about every 5 minutes to refill it until we got to the tire place. I have to tell you, these CAA guys were so helpful and reassuring, I felt totally safe and very well taken care of. Anyways turns out the tire was beyond repair and I had to buy a new $200 winter tire. So there I am, -$200, deathly ill with the real life flu, and ready to punch the next person who looks at me sideways. I had sent Carmen and Brandi on their way earlier, knowing they needed to get home and avoid bad weather. I have the route home and back pretty much burned into my memory so I was cool with driving the rest by myself. At least now I was in civilization and if anything else happened I would be able to get help quickly.
So I took off from North Bay at around 5:30 and made pretty good time back to Oakville! Making only one stop for the ladies room and gas, I got home around 10ish. There was only some medium-to-heavy snow between North Bay and Gravenhurst, no icy roads and very little traffic which made my travel much less stressful, and I made good time despite not going over the speed limit!
So I got home, crashed and have been trying to nurse myself back to health ever since. Having my mother home and able to take care of me has been exceptionally wonderful and I have been basically in bed for the last 2 days with Bobo and bowls of hot homemade chicken soup (my mother!) and homemade vegetable soup (Katherine!) keeping me company the whole time. Lets hope I beat this before Christmas so I can really enjoy the day!
Enjoy some photos from my trip etc. Caribou photo cred goes to Shauna!
Oh PS crazy ice storm happened last night and while it has left Oakville in a beautiful frozen state, many are without power and tons of branches are down. Crazy!
How I felt on Friday
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