Just outside of Glenn’s Ferry, Idaho, I saw a huge raccoon in the road. I swerved to go behind it, but the critter turned around and ran right in front of my car. THUNK! THUNKETY THUNK THUNK! I felt bad for the poor little guy, but I didn’t stop. A few miles later, my car started making weird rattling noises, so I took a nearby exit to check out the damage. As soon as I got to the stop sign, my car died and wouldn’t start again.

I got out and saw fluid pouring out from under the front of my car. When I looked under the front of my car, I saw a little bit of fur stuck to my bumper, some bumper damage, and some bent metal. I also saw that my exhaust system was hanging down. Who would have thought a raccoon could do so much damage?

I called Meg to ask what she thought I should do, and she suggested that I call AAA and get an emergency tow. They signed me up for coverage and took me to Glenn’s Ferry. There were two motels there, one of which was open, so I stayed the night and got up early to survey the damage. The AAA guy had dropped my car off at Main Street Garage, so I had the owner, Jimmy, take a look at my car. One look was enough for him to decide he wasn’t equipped to handle the damage. I called my insurance company, Pemco, and they said I needed to have my car towed to a body shop in Boise.

Boise! I had wanted to get about an hour past Boise the night before. Apparently it was not to be. The tow truck got me to Boise at about 1 in the afternoon and took my car to Parks Royal Body Works. The owner, Matt, took the front of my car apart and told me the compressor for the air conditioning unit, the radiator, the bumper, and the metal parts holding the radiator in place all needed to be replaced. He was super nice, doing all the negotiating with Pemco, getting parts overnighted from Portland, putting his guys to work on my car right away. I was hopeful that I’d be on my way by Friday evening.

Well, Friday evening came and Matt had some bad news: They fixed everything they thought needed repair and then tried to start my car. Nothing. They pulled out a spark plug and looked underneath and saw fluid where there shouldn’t be fluid. Matt said that indicated that the head gasket had gotten overheated and warped, letting radiator fluid into the engine. He had the car towed to the Honda dealership to have work done that his shop couldn’t handle.

So I’m sitting here at Cabana Inn (very cheap downtown Boise motel) on Saturday morning waiting for word from Honda on some kind of timeline for repairs. I had expected to be home by now, getting ready for Christmas cheer with my family. Meanwhile, it has snowed a couple of inches here in Boise, and a quick look at Idaho’s DOT website shows that roads are icy all the way to Utah. NOAA has a winter weather alert on all the roads I would be driving on to get home. I’m really hoping that being home for Christmas won’t only be in my dreams.

p.s. Some facts on raccoons: National Geographic claims that North American raccoons only get to about 23 pounds at most, but I swear the one I hit was way bigger than that. People in Chicago claim they’ve seen huge raccoons that have bent steel window bars to get into houses, and a woman in Pennsylvania had a pet raccoon that weighed 75 pounds. So obviously coons can get bigger than NatGeo says. The one I hit wasn’t 75 pounds, but I’d be willing to bet that it was more than 30. National Geographic also says the critters hibernate during the winter. I wish. I don’t know if coonskin caps are fashionable in Idaho, but there should be a good-sized pelt by the road near Glenn’s Ferry if anyone wants it.

I probably never would have thought of participating in the Big Climb if my sister Celia hadn’t died of leukemia almost a year ago. If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that there’s a bit of hero worship going on when I talk about her. Celia was a terrific person, the kind of sister anyone would love to have. I did the Big Climb in her memory. But I felt more of a sense of loss than accomplishment at the top of the 1,311 stairs I climbed in the Columbia Center. I felt like Celia should have been climbing with me, but we’ll never have that chance. I was glad to see posters of leukemia and lymphoma survivors posted on many of the floors in the Columbia stair well, but I couldn’t help feeling a little resentful. Why didn’t my sister make it? Why was her poster “in memory of” rather than “in honor of”?

Supposedly time heals all wounds, but this one feels as raw as it did that day last May when my dad told us Darren was going to take Celia off the ventilator because she had a blood clot in her brain and the doctors couldn’t detect any brain function. That day I thought there was still time for a miracle — but the one I wanted didn’t happen. God took my sister without asking my permission or anyone else’s. I still can’t think of a good reason why. But I firmly believe that Celia is still being her wonderful self and helping others find more purpose in their existence.

Climbing the Columbia tower was hard, especially because I hadn’t done any training for it. I had thought about climbing the stairs on the Fremont side of Queen Anne hill — 15-20 times up the 80 stairs should have been decent training — but I let general grad school busyness get in the way. Even with my flabby, untrained legs, I would do back-to-back Big Climbs every day for the rest of my life if it would bring my sister back. It won’t. But I’ll try to keep climbing. Maybe one day I’ll be strong enough and make it high enough to get to where Celia is.

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Meg made some fabulous chocolate pots de crème in lieu of a cake for me. All in all, it was a pretty decent birthday.

Cheers!

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