How Many Witches Does it Take to Change a Tire?

The past week has been action-packed.  Aside from the "great migration" out of the Dead Man's Watertown store, it brought with it three Tangled Pines/Tangled Woods events...and there is yet another one to come tomorrow.  On Thursday, Coven of the Tangled Pines had our regular full moon meeting.  We did a silent water ritual in the pool at the home of one of my coven sisters, and it was amazing!  It was a very trance-heavy ritual, and there was definitely a moment at the height of my altered state of consciousness and the peak of the energy when I felt like a mermaid (or some other not-quite-human being) gliding through the swirling waters, and gazing up at the swirling clouds above to see them part and allow the silvery light of the full moon pour down over us.  It was beautiful.

On Friday, I had my second class with my new student, which was also great.  Since we're only 2 classes in, it's still a little early to fully know how it will go, but so far she seems very enthusiastic, and that type of student is always a joy to teach.  I can tell that she's really looking at the material to see what she can get out of it, rather than just going through the motions, and she comes to class having really read and prepared, ready to discuss the material.  So I'm looking forward to continuing on with her and seeing how things evolve over time. 

Saturday was this month's Tangled Woods Community Circle, which was where the trouble came into paradise.  I left the house in enough time to make a couple of stops and still get there early, but as I hopped on the interstate, I had a blow out.  It was actually my first time to have a blow out, and as it turns out, while you're still in the car, they sound and feel like something much more serious than what they really are.  But they're still a pain in the ass, especially if you don't have everything you need to remedy the situation.

In answer to the question, "How many witches does it take to change a tire," my answer is one, and I'm sticking to it.  I would say any one of us could have done it under the right circumstances.  However, apparently it takes 3 to round up all of the needed equipment.  Fortunately, the community circle was being held in my neck of the woods, so there were a handful of people around to help.  While the spouse is the natural first choice for who to call in a situation like this, Matt had played a show in Louisville the night before, and still hadn't made it back into town.  So I had to call in some witchy reinforcements!

I had a spare tire stowed under the van, and even an air compressor to make sure it was as full as it should be.  What I didn't have was a jack and a tire iron, which rendered the spare completely useless.  So I called one of my coven sisters who lives out my way, who was happy to stop by with a jack and a tire iron on her way to the park.  Still relatively confident that this wasn't going to be that big of a deal, I waited patiently for her arrival.  I didn't even go to the trouble to get the spare out from under the van, not wanting to be dealing with that in such heavy traffic without the added shielding of another vehicle behind me.  Little did I know that this was going to turn out to be the perfect storm of problems.

She showed up with the jack and tire iron after about 30 minutes, and I proceeded to get the tire out while she started to set up the jack.  I had been told, at some point, that the way to get the tire out was to unscrew the thing holding it up from the bottom, so I laid on the ground and weaseled my way up under the van.  Wrong.  I had never needed to do anything with the spare before, and after trying and trying to unscrew this oddly shaped retainer holding on the tire, only to feel it loosen but never come off, I began to get very frustrated and really feel like there was no way this was right.  So we consulted the owner's manual, which fortunately was still with the vehicle, which is over 20 years old.  

Just a quick aside about vehicle owner's manuals...especially those for older vehicles...they are completely idiodic.  I had to fish through about 4 or 5 sections about tires and safety tips that said something along the lines of "Safety Tip: check your tire tread and pressure" before actually finding practical information about how to remove the spare.  It turns out there is a hidden bolt on the inside of the vehicle, under the carpet, that you have to turn with the tire iron in order to release the tire.  OK, at this point, I was a bit annoyed.  If only I had known that head of time, it would have saved us a good deal of time and worry, but I still thought that we'd be out of there in just a few more minutes.

We loosened the lug nuts on the tire, and some of those really put up a fight.  But we got it done and proceeded to jack up the van.  And it didn't go up far enough.  Her jack was made for her car, which is much smaller and closer to the ground, so it just didn't quite give us enough clearance.  Try as we might, we couldn't quite get the tire off, so there was no chance of getting the other tire on.  Defeated, we called yet another coven sister, who was driving a truck and had a jack for the truck.  We felt sure it would be big enough, so she packed up her things at the park and headed to our rescue.

About another 30 minute wait ahead of us, we decided to sit in her car in the air conditioning.  As I got into her car, I got stung by a bee.  Seriously?  Where the hell did that come from?  Was that really necessary?

After an otherwise uneventful wait, coven sister #2 showed up, and proceeded to get the jack out of the truck.  But it wouldn't come out.  It was stowed in a spot under the seat in the extended cab, and though it looked like it should be pretty straightforward, it just didn't want to come out.  Having been foiled by a similar situation once already, coven sister #1 and I thought to consult the owner's manual much sooner on this one, and it turned out that yes, there was a trick to it...and out it came.

We got the van jacked up, with plenty of clearance, and I slid the busted tire off.  As I turned to retrieve the spare, I heard "Whoa, whoa whoa!"  I turned back around to see that the van had rolled off of the jack.  We were on an incline that was slight enough that I didn't notice it before hand, in order to think of putting the emergency brake on, but could see it after the fact.  Fortunately, nothing was broken or anything, and we just had to start back at square one with jacking up the van.

It was about this time that a state trooper appeared, no doubt laughing to himself about 3 girls trying and failing miserably to do a simple tire change.  I guess we probably looked pretty incompetent, and I guess that I can admit that at least I was.  It wasn't because I didn't know how to change a tire.  Under other circumstances, I would have been able to do it completely on my own.  But I wasn't prepared, wasn't equipped, and wasn't familiar enough with my own vehicle.  So we ended up with things getting messed up every step of the way, and a few frazzled Witches.  But the state trooper kept the teasing to a minimum and provided some decent moral support.  

Once we got the van jacked back up (emergency brake engaged), we got the tire changed in short order, headed on to the park, and showed up closing in on 2 hours late to a handful of very patient tradition-mates and students.  We had sent word that they should start without us, but they chose not to, and it turned out to be a nice circle.  Community circles never really have the same intensity as a circle with your own coven that you meet with all the time and have developed a closer bond with.  They do, however, do their intended job and foster a sense of community amongst our local tradition members.  We had members of a couple of different covens, a solitary member, and our current crop of students in attendance, and though I entered the situation completely fried, I really enjoyed the company.

I also learned a few lessons that day...

• Be prepared for emergencies.  We have things like jacks and tire irons, but they often get moved around, and sometimes find their way out of the vehicle.  That needs to change.
• Know your own car!  I really can't believe how much easier it was to remove the spare than I thought it was, and how much time and frustration simply knowing that could have saved me.
• Even if it doesn't look like you need to, always put on the emergency brake, just for good measure.

So yeah, even though it isn't usually my style, I totally had a "bumbling girl with an automobile" moment, and sucked a couple of coven mates into it.  It's a good thing to have friends who love you enough to help out in such a sucky situation!  If not for them, I would have been completely screwed!

Sweet & Sour

Sometimes when  you do a great number of things, it leaves relatively little time for things like blogging.  Right now is a particularly weird time, because I'm in such a time of transition.  Some things are ending while others begin, and making all of those things happen smoothly requires a lot of time and a lot of work.

Since I last wrote, I've been up to the usual stuff.  I've been teaching hoop classes, working with my Tangled Woods students, working on making things for Dead Man's, and trying to keep my house in some semblance of order as things are removed from the store and have to find some place to go.  I have also started to do some work for a neighbor to bring in a little extra money, and am doing all I can to keep up with my responsibilities for the Watertown Chamber, even though my attention is really elsewhere at the moment.  I also celebrated Litha with the coven, which was fun but weird.  Litha is the summer solstice, which marks the first day of summer and the longest "day" (in terms of daylight hours) of the year.  This year, however, it was stormy and overcast.  It's always a bit odd celebrating a sun festival on a cloudy day, but the gods definitely have a sense of humor, so we try to take it all in stride!

Probably the biggest thing that has happened since my last entry is that Matt and I have begun the daunting task of packing up the store in preparation for the move.  We have been putting it off for a while, probably because it is an overwhelming task, but maybe even more so because it's a bittersweet thing to have to do.  I think we have both gone through a period of feeling a sense of defeat, and I think we both needed time to step away and process that before we could muster the motivation to jump in.  However, now that we have started, things are moving along super-quickly, and I think we are both feeling a sense of relief.  Surprisingly, having taken the plunge, there seems to be no more lingering doubt, and everything just feels positive.  There is still a lot of uncertainty about the re-opening in Nashville part of things, but this part, at least, feels absolutely right.  We had reached a point with the store where our options, basically, were to try it somewhere else or give it up entirely.  We are nowhere ready to give up on it yet, and while we have no way of knowing what giving it a shot in Nashville will ultimately mean for us, we just couldn't stick it out in Watertown anymore.  It was beginning to drain us dry...not just in terms of finances and resources, but also in terms of energy and enthusiasm.  We got a fair amount of criticism there towards the end, but whether or not it was apparent to the outside world, we know that it wasn't because we weren't working or trying hard enough.  It was like managing a 3-ring circus trying to keep a store going that not only had nothing, but that consistently lost more and more money.  And there were no more hoops to jump through...at least not that would make any difference.  We still believe that what we want to do will be powerful and well-received somewhere, and I think we'd be doing ourselves a disservice not to at least try it somewhere else, sink or swim.  We can tell that there are some people in Watertown who think we're doing the wrong thing, and that's tough.  It's always hard to stick to your guns when people are telling you you're making a mistake.  We would never be so bold as to say that we don't think Watertown will ever improve in terms of business and prosperity.  I don't even really believe that.  We just don't have the faith anymore that that change is right around the corner, and can't really wait any longer.  This isn't a hobby for us.  We are throwing literally everything we have into it, and it was starting to feel like if we didn't do something to make a change we would just be throwing it all away.

And so, ever onward we move!  I think that's why it actually feels surprisingly good to be bringing this chapter to a close.  Even though we will have a period of down time and recovery before we'll be able to re-open, it feels good to be taking some action.  It does suck to feel disenchanted with Watertown, but hopefully we have taken this step soon enough that we won't feel bitter about Watertown.  Since we don't live directly in Watertown, we won't necessarily just be there all the time, so I'm sure it will appear that we have disappeared.  And for a while, that might be the case.  Our focus really is elsewhere right now.  But one thing we'll never regret about starting Dead Man's there is the people we have met and the friends we've made, and hopefully once it's all said and done, we'll be able to stay in touch with them.

And now it's on with the rest of the day!  I have to get some work done for the neighbor, and I really need to catch up on some housework.  I also have a Chamber officer's meeting today, and a Tangled Woods coffee night at Cafe Coco this evening.  I'm looking forward to that, because I'll get to see some tradition-mates I haven't seen in a while, spend time getting to know some of our students a little better, and meet some new seekers.  After that, Matt and I are going to see Nick 13 at Mercy Lounge.  So it will be a full day!