We thought we were going camping yesterday

I bounded out of bed – first day of vacation! I got my coffee and checked my phone and…drat. Fraud alert. My bank had texted and emailed about a recent credit card charge. “Was this you? Please reply, ‘YES’ or ‘NO’.”

The charge was for $1.00 from Amazon web services. It could have been anything. Could have been us, sure. Or not. Am I an Amazon customer? Of course I am. Who isn’t? Amazon practically rules the world. Do I use Amazon web services? Might they have made a monthly small charge for something? Possibly.

Do I even care about $1? Yes, actually, because it’s not uncommon for a compromised credit card to be used for a very small amount to test it, before crooks try something larger.

Bummer. I hit the “NO” button, knowing that this now means a phone call with my bank, and a disabled credit card until they eventually send me a new one, at which point I’ll have to update everything with the new number.

My bank’s advice was to call Amazon and ask them specifically what it was for. I thought that was about as naive as saying, “Call Brazil to check if you dropped your watch downtown.” As if there’s one number that quickly gets a cheerful “Amazon” on the line. As if I could make it through a phone tree without knowing an account number or anything about the mystery charge.

I had a vacation to go to! I told them to stop the card and I’d deal with it later. Now I have a useless card and will need to get another. I had to do that already recently, so the currently compromised number was actually a new one that I haven’t even updated in most places. It’s like changing your address twice in a row in one month, before you even had a chance to send out change-of-address notices the first time.

But just to make sure, I did call John. Maybe he had gotten bored and ordered a $1 streaming movie or something (I was still in Santa Fe – the traffic was a snarl on Friday night so I figured driving would be easier in the morning). He did not fess up to any pay-per-view charges, but he did note that it was raining.

Raining? Typically I can hear rain hammering my skylights, but it was softly drizzling. Drizzle! Drizzle never happens in New Mexico! We have intense sun, which is sometimes, in the summer, is followed by dramatic thunderstorms late in the day. But drizzle? We’re supposed to be going camping!

I was also supposed to be going on my morning jog. But I was suspicious that I might be getting a migraine. That’s one of my tough calls every day. Usually I can’t tell first thing in the morning whether I’ll be getting a migraine that day or not. But if I am, I really shouldn’t go jogging, because it will make the migraine significantly worse. So every morning it’s a guessing game – can I go jogging or am I likely to be getting a migraine? Talk about discouraging me from exercising! It’s hard enough to get myself out the door to exercise without there being a very real chance it could make an oncoming migraine way worse.

I decided that drizzle + potential migraine = I shouldn’t go jogging that morning. Which turned out to be the right decision, because it did turn out to be a migraine day.

Then Darren, who was flying out to go camping with us, sent me a text. “Engine trouble on ignition.” What? Apparently they started the thing up and one of the engines didn’t start. He said there was a heavy smell of fuel in the cabin, and they all disembarked. He got to wait several hours at the airport while they fixed his plane.

Meanwhile, John and I had both noticed a funny smell around our camping van. I hadn’t said anything about it, because everything smells wrong to me when I’m getting a migraine. I had already accused the kitchen of smelling like dog puke. But John had also noticed the odd smell around the van. His first guess was packrats in the engine compartment. And yep, he found packrat nests in the engine compartments of both the van and the Jeep. Oh, the joys of desert life.

But in addition to packrats, it turns out the battery was hot and off-gassing! Our battery had been overheating when the engine wasn’t even on! It could have spontaneously caught fire some day when he was at work, ignited our one lone pine tree on the entire property, which happens to be wedged tight between the van and the house, and burned the entire house down!

Actually I would probably have been more upset about the loss of the camping van than the loss of the house, but I am trying to have a better attitude about this house, so I didn’t say that. I’m also fairly fond of our one lone pine tree.

When John turned the van on, and smoke (or sulfuric acid laden steam) started pouring out. By the time we had discovered the dangerous battery issue, it was already late afternoon and there ways no way we could go camping that day. John went to go buy a new battery and we figured we’d go camping the next day.

This is the second time recently that we’ve taken time off from work for a vacation, and failed to actually leave on our intended day. I guess that’s why it’s good to have more than a long weekend off sometimes. Because life is complicated and doesn’t always turn out as planned.

It’s beautiful out this morning. No more drizzle. You probably don’t even believe there was drizzle, and I didn’t take any photos of it to prove it. These photos are from this morning.

On this particular morning I love this house. And that’s the truth. Some days I love it, and some days I hate it. I do not have a relaxed and consistent perspective about this house. This morning there’s no wind; it’s peaceful and beautiful.

But never mind that now – we’re going camping!