Loose screw, shots in the legs and lunch

The day started off innocently enough and it went downhill from there.  The electrician ran out of breakers last night and didn't hook up a couple wires.  One of them was the water heater wire.  I managed to get a warm shower last night and when Gerry went to take her shower this morning she had lukewarm water and it got colder as she progressed.  Not a happy camper, but she got through it.

I had a doctors appointment at 2pm and a lunch engagement scheduled for 1pm so we left the cabin early.  It was a good thing we did because we had a flat tire on I-270 just south of Frederick, MD.  It happened on the bridge over the Monocacy River and I pulled off at the earliest time that I could.  Gerry wanted to call our Good Sam ERS, but I had the tire changed before she could even make the call.  Of course I told her to not make the call and continued to work while she disagreed with me.  The tire was on the passenger side of the car away from the road but it sure was interesting having cars and trucks whizzing by at 75+ mph while you are working.  I put the donut tire on and headed down the road in 15 minutes.  The flat tire looked like it had a large screw in the thread and it finally blew out the screw and opened up a moderate sized hole in the tire.

We met our friend Elaine at the Panera Bread restaurant for lunch and I gulped down my sandwich and left them there to have a nice chat.  We hadn't seen Elaine since last August and the girls had a lot of gossip to catch up.  Thank God I missed out on that part.  LOL

The doctor's office was just around the corner and I made it with 5 minutes to spare.  I was there for a checkup on my rheumatoid arthritis knees and gout.  The gout hasn't been a problem for many years but the old knees have taken a beating.  The woman doctor was from the Philippines and quite young but she really knew her stuff.  She ran an ultrasound on both knees and discovered I had fluid on both of them.  She drained 21 milliliters from one knee and 28ml from the other.  At the same time she gave me a cortisone  injection in each knee since she had deadened the area for the draining of the fluid.  Whew!!  Some friendly advice and a couple prescriptions and I was on my way out of there.  Well, after I had blood drawn, saw the cashier ( 100% covered by Medicare and Ins) and then I was out of there.  It took 2 hours for all the above.  The knees felt great while the deadening agent was active, but then went back to more like they have been lately.  I am optimistic they will feel better as time goes on and up until the cortisone injections wear off.  

We then drove to Costco to have the tire repaired.  The clerk in his heavy and thick accent said if we didn't buy the tires there, they would not fix the flat.  Hummm!  What is that all about.  So, when I got home I fired off an email to Costco and expressed my opinion about this practice of theirs.  We have been Costco members since 1992 and have been very pleased with the service we get from them, but in this case I decided to let them know my views.  I know I will get a canned email back thanking me for my comments, etc, etc, blah blah, but I at least got a chance to express them.

We got back to the tire company up here where we bought these tires and they were closed.  Since it takes them a day to get the tire down here, we called them before they closed and had them order a tire and if they can't repair the old tire ( bought Aug 2010 ), then we can get a new one installed.  We drove by the place and one of the owners was helping a mechanic work on a car and we left the tire with him so they can check it out early Friday morning. Any bets on whether it will be repairable or not??

We had a late dinner and got back to the cabin about sunset.  Two tired old troopers, but overall it was nice to get out and about for the day.  Cabin fever sets in real quick.