More Fun in Astoria

I mentioned that my vehicle karma was totally screwed up over the weekend.  The incident with the trailer in the tent was not the last... 

On Thursday, the day we set up, the weather in Astoria was absolutely gorgeous.  Warm, sunny, not windy... NOT April weather on the Oregon coast.  The tent provided for us to set up under almost seemed unnecessary (but we knew better.)  Friday morning dawned dreary and wet, and as we drove out to the festival site, we were grateful for that tent.  It didn't occur to us that tents have no floors, and water runs downhill.  And pools at the bottom. 

Seems the rain was running down the parking lot and pooling...right in the middle of our space.  Our floor was covered by water at least an inch deep. A convection oven, a hot plate, and a warming oven are the key pieces of equipment in my business...all stainless steel, and all ELECTRIC.  I could see myself lighting up like a Christmas tree the minute I turned one of them on and touched it.  The whole previous day, in the midst of the debacle with the trailer, I had maintained a professional calm.  But, faced with the choice between electrocution or abandoning the event,  I COMPLETELY freaked out.  Just lost it. 

We kept trying to sweep the water out under the tent...it kept coming back in. Other people, including the electrician, assured me that with everything grounded and with GFCI's on the outlets, electrocution was not a danger, but I could NOT make myself touch any of that equipment until I was out of the water.  We put our minds to devising elaborate schemes of standing on stools and pallets (how fun would THAT be when it got busy?)  ...thank God it stopped raining about an hour after we got there, and the water gradually receded.  I honestly don't know what I would have done if it hadn't.  And it didn't rain at all the rest of the weekend, which was also a godsend.

I would like to say the rest of the day went off without a hitch...and it did.  Almost.  End of the day comes, we are tired and mostly stressed out...  (Oh, just a little sidebar...I started a period that afternoon.  Haven't had a period in almost a year.  Wasn't THAT a welcome event--NOT!)  So, now I'm tired, stressed, bleeding to death, AND I have cramps.

My sister and I trudge the quarter mile to where they made vendors park...where my van is precariously teetering at the lip of a ravine.  (I was NOT happy with the vendor parking situation, but that's yet another story...)  Anyway, we get in the van, start it up, put it in reverse...and it won't go anywhere.  The rear tire is spinning away, and we are going nowhere.  I put it in drive, try to go forward...it moves not an inch.  I absolutely CAN NOT believe that we are stuck here on this f***ing hill in the dark with no one around to help after the day I've had... 

I decide to rock it...forward, reverse, forward, reverse....nothing.  We put a piece of plywood under the spinning wheel...it just kicks it out and continues to spin.  I'm about in tears when a man walks up (does this look like a recurring theme?) and offers to help.  He gets behind the wheel and has the same luck I've been having.  The wheel is spinning away, and now blue smoke is pouring out from uner the van.  Then he asks, are you sure you don't have the parking brake on?  NO, I DID NOT....The light dawns and the angels sing.  I had set the parking brake because I was afraid the van was going to go rolling ass-over-teakettle into that ravine.  And now I just want to throw myself over the edge into the ravine and never be heard from again.  The ONLY saving grace of this little episode was that we didn't have the audience we had for the trailer/tent performance.  It was just me, my sister, and that man.  And he'll never tell...bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha....