AAA sucks.

Mr.P is a genius to plan our trip to Mexico during the worst snow storm Seattle has seen in more than 10 years! We got really lucky. The cruise was great, it was relaxing, and we met a lot of nice people. Mr.P loved it, I don't think I've ever seen him so happy! It was nice to visit a few places in Mexico, and the people were very friendly, but the peddlers trying to sell things were beyond aggressive. If given the choice, I would much prefer Hawaii for a warm/tropical winter vacation because at least there you can relax on the beach without being hassled every 30 seconds!

We bypassed the snow since we had already arranged to fly from LA to Idaho after the cruise. We spend 5 days in Idaho, and came home late on Christmas night. It was an OK Christmas, with minimal drama and arguing, but there was enough of those things to make me not want to spend Christmas with my side of the family for a few years. My mom is the most passive-aggressive person I've ever dealt with. She holds grudges and tries to manipulate other people's feelings by bringing up old issues. I don't tolerate that very well. My father is an absolute mess, he takes horrible care of himself and it's hard for me to sit back and watch as he contributes to his own demise (he's got congestive heart failure and he's a hard core alcoholic. Not a good combination).

On Friday morning we attempted to dig out my car that was buried under more than a foot of snow! Our neighbor had borrowed our shovel and hadn't return it and was nowhere to be found...so we had to dig the car out with a dust pan (let me tell you how efficient that was). But after digging it out we realized it was dead. Battery dead. I'm not sure why this happened (the car is only 3 years old!) We called AAA, and after being on hold for over a half hour, we were told that they could not come jump start our car because they were only responding to real emergencies. Um...isn't that what the police and fire dept are for? We PAY for AAA to help us with car problems. At that point we were angry and hungry so we set out on foot to walk to the grocery store. A few blocks from our house, we passed an autobody shop. I suggested we stop in and ask if they had a portable jumper kit. Guess what? They did! The guy gave it to us to borrow without even asking for ID or money or anything, he just said to bring it back. So 5 minutes later our car was up and running.

It's nice to be home and back to our normal lives...but I have to work all weekend to catch up on stuff so that is not very much fun. Otherwise, nothing else to report!