I ran a few errands in the morning, including a trip to the courthouse where I discovered "Probate for Dummies" [not its real name, but exactly its description] had been checked out. Well, that's really all right, all I needed for sure was one form, so I used the reference copy to photocopy it. I also got a couple of balls of yarn that I will need, and so home to type up this form and send it to the heir in Reno. All it is, actually, is to say that we can waive a financial accounting. Really, I'd rather. I do have all the receipts, but what a pain if I don't have to, and the heir is happy with things to date. I've let him know what's been going on, and now it's time to close the estate out.

So, I was typing this out and listening to the radio about a multicar accident being cleared at Whitney and Walnut. *Whew*, thinks I, I'm well out of that. Then it turns out that our neighbor was in it, and was in the hospital getting a horsecollar. Rich took the husband and son (I did volunteer to stay with him) to the hospital to pick her up. Later, he took dad off to get all the stuff out of the totalled car. It looks like they've been Quackenbushed (my own verb, from the corrupt former insurance commissioner for California) by their insurance, so that even though she's entirely blameless, they'll get blasted.

Their son had an accident the same day, in Utah. It does seem like accidents happen in groups. That's certainly the way it has happened with us.

First, in 1978. I was bopping down Watt, on my way to get the older girls, who were on a Girl Scout mystery tour. I was thinking that I had a few minutes, so I might stop first at the library down there. I merged in ahead of this guy when my lane disappeared. I was stopping for a light, the third car back, and looked up in the mirror in time to see the guy smash into the rear of my VW squareback. I pancaked into the car in front. The first thing I did, while we were waiting for the cops, was to ask one of the neighbors to use her phone so Rich could go fetch the girls. Then I watched the cops check my brake lights and told my story. Turned out the guy who hit me wasn't insured, and no fault applied to me, but the car was totalled. Rich and the girls came by, and I made a checkup visit to Kaiser. They gave me a horsecollar for whiplash. It wasn't that bad... I know sometimes this is really painful, so I guess I wasn't knocked around all that badly.

So, we're down to the big white van and my Mom's 64-1/2 Mustang. (This is the car we honeymooned in.) Roni had a Girl Scout camp in the Sierra near Fresno, so I took her (and Bernadette) down the night before and stayed in a motel while Rich coped with everyone else back here. I got her on the bus in time and came home, to find my Mom in a swivet. Rich and our son had been in an accident and were walking home. I went out looking, and picked them up about a mile away. He had taken S. to a swim meet in Auburn, and on the way home noted a little smoke on the median. (There was an arsonist who set a number of median fires.) Suddenly it was a lot of smoke and they were in a multi-car pileup. Rich remembered about the Ford cars with the exploding gas tanks, and got them out the passenger side. Eventually, it all got sorted out and the car was totalled.

My Mom was getting stiff, blind, and slow, and we tried to discourage her from getting another car, but she did eventually buy another.

Then there was the time Bernadette was starting second grade, a new school with a Rapid Learner program. She was so excited about it she dashed toward her bedroom and ran right into the corner of the doorway. She got a terrible bruise on one side of her face and it swelled up and practically shut her eye. I put her in a sleeveless dress the next day and explained at school what had happened (yeah, she ran into a door. I really expected to have a CPS investigation!) So, it was beginning to fade slightly by Friday and I was braiding her hair for school when the phone rang. Monica had been hit on her bike by someone leaving a driveway. I dropped B. at the bus and hastened down the block to the accident. Monica got to go to the emergency room for this, and missed a couple of days of school. Her face was scraped. I was pretty numb about all this.

The next pair of accidents was in 1984, both on the same day, both on the same street. Roni was driving the little Chevette, a second replacement for the VW Squareback, to a Bank of America contest for a nice scholarship, and she was thinking about that, and ran a light and hit a PacBell truck. She called me all in a panic, then went to the contest. I called Rich at work and he came to pick me up and we went down to the hotel. Roni was still a wreck (she nevertheless did get a scholarship!) and we took Rich back to work and stopped at the video-game place, our home away from home, to unwind, to tell them all about the accident, etc. The phone rang. S. had been riding his bike (helmetless, we were stupid in those days) along Arden Way en route from school to a movie, and was hit by a car. The bike was in pretty bad shape, but the boy was just slightly scraped and totally freaked out.

Finally, we had the little red car in 1988, and Rich had already been hit by a hit-run driver and it had been fixed up. I think it was May, and our son was riding his motorcycle en route to work at the Penney's catalog telephone center. I'd positively reamed him out about not wearing his helmet earlier in the week (thank goodness!) and so he was protected when the teen came out of the gas station and hit him. He wasn't protected from the idiot bystanders who MOVED HIM out of the street! So we got a call from one of the witnesses who knew him and so we were on our way to the hospital when they called. This is where I realized he was an adult... they had him sign the permission forms for the operation. His leg was shattered and they eventually put a titanium rod in it. (Will he ever get to fly?)

He'd been home for a few days after a week in the hospital and was doing OK. Rich had talked to our lawyer and been advised that he could do it himself, and get the 30% commission for the kid, so he was dealing with the legal ramifications of the insurances. I was driving home and stopped behind another car at the light near our house. Suddenly, they started to back up toward me. I honked the horn and attempted to back up myself but too late, right into me! The light changed and they pulled to the side so I could talk to them, and I was so enraged I didn't dare, but just drove home. The grille and front bumper were dented and eventually we got it fixed, but I was so furious for a week. I knew it was displaced anger/stress over S's accident. I'd remained calm throughout most of that problem, but all the emotions came out with the relatively trivial one.

It does seem, with us, that things happen in groups. It also sometimes seems we shouldn't even leave home.