(C)harmed Life?

Normally I feel like I live a completely charmed life. Sure I have some hiccups and bumps on the road, but nothing really could have prepared me for that last week that was so completely disastrous, that its' awfulness could only be measured in degrees of schadenfreude style comic relief.

This was supposed to be the most important weekend for Liz and I. Expo East, the natural foods convention in Baltimore was happening, as well as Gadgetoff which we managed to get ourselves into despite the exclusivity of the whole engagement. We planned to go back and forth between Philly, Baltimore, Liberty State Park, and Baltimore again to make this a weekend that would forever propel us into the next level of our lives. It sure did point us in new directions, but not in ways we expected.

It all started last week when I went to pick up the new Steaz veggie van from Allentown PA. My friend Dave who did the conversion drove it all the way out here from Pittsburgh, and the plan was to clean it up and have a collaborative painting party with Callie and a bunch of her compatriots (Chris, Zoe, and Kevin) who'd recently re-located to Philadelphia from Providence. The next few days consisted of some of the kids coming out to design the look of the van, and me running around picking up supplies.. everything from spraypaint to rustoleum. It all got off to a slow start, but after a day or so the whole thing was rocking. We painted the vehicle down the street from me right in front of the gym and abandoned house. Day and night.. neighbors walking by checking it out, paint all over the place, tape up, tape down.. permutations. in the end it was an amazing sight to behold.

That's when it all turned.. Usually I'm not down at that part of the block, especially at 2am. What a dumb move. Five minutes after our friends drove away screaming hurrahs into the air, Liz and I sat in front of the vehicle, picking up the last scraps of debris that we'd left, and beholding the amazing freshly painted shuttlevan that was like a punk rock version of It's a small world with a sustainability theme.

This guy with a brown hooded sweatshirt appeared from out of nowhere. We'd seen him around the neighborhood for a long time. Earlier in the day he'd been walking up and down the block, so I thought nothing of it. I reached out to shake his hand, and out came a pistol, He hit the gun in my face, and I went down. When Liz turned around, he said "get down bitch" and hit her on the back of the head with his gun, she cried out in pain, and I went to stand between Liz and the guy. I started to panic. I thought that he was going to shoot us, so I yelled "Don't hurt her! Help! Help". He put the gun to my forehead and told me to shut the fuck up and give him my money. I reached in my pocket, and he grabbed my wallet... walking backwards holding the gun towards us. "If you get up I'm going to fucking shoot you."

As he turned down 44th street I dialed the police. They all came screaming around the corners minutes later. Liz went into my house to tend to her head, and I went off in the back of a policecar looking for the guy who did it. After driving around for awhile, we never found him.

We ended up at the 18th precinct, feeling really grateful to be alive, Liz and I held each other.

The van was still open and unlocked, so we gave my keys to our new pal Al, a UCD police officer and former detective at the 18th district. He and his partner were nice enough to go over and lock the van.

We were totally exhausted and got a ride home, rather than going to mercy hospital. If we went there we anticipated being there the whole night in the emergency room, so we went home for a couple of hours to rest, and clean ourselves up. I made sure that Liz didn't go to sleep, fearing a concussion due to the HUGE lump on the back of her head.

When we arrived back, we noticed that between the time Al and his partner closed the window, and when we got home, someone broke the passenger side window and stole my drill. What the fuck>??

Simply exhausted, we lay in bed, holding each other, staring up at the ceiling, feeling really freaked out. I kept Liz up for 5 or so hours, until I felt comfortable that she didn't have a concussion. Finally we were able to fall asleep for a couple of hours.

When we woke up, I brought Liz to the hospital, and went to get my license and bank cards replaced. Thankfully Liz was okay and wasn't bleeding internally, though the lump was huge, and she had a splitting headache and pain. This guy Robert at the bank was really helpful in pulling things together and gave me some great advice on life.

After getting my license renewed, Liz and I met back at my house. We decided that in order to 'normalize' that we would just go down to Baltimore to meet with the Steaz crew like we'd originally planned to. So, we were on our way south, and nothing would stop us. We knew the Steaz Utopian Veggiemobile would blow everyones minds.

We got down to Baltimore, and went to dinner with the Steaz crew who were all beaming. Success! Everyone was happy! Yay!

After dinner, and dropping everyone off at the hotel, Liz and I decided to head North to catch the Gadgetoff. We took a little nap and headed up 95 North.

The next day....

At around 7am, heading North we started to feel a lurch, and pops. The van was losing steam... something was happening.. what .. the.. hell? The tank of gas was at around 1/4ish or maybe less...

We called Dave R. who did the conversion to the vehicle, who let us know that the gas gauge was inaccurate....great...Now you tell us..

After 3 hours on the side of the road, and denied by the local redneck AAA to do a tow (though they did come out to charge us $5 a gallon for a few gallons of diesel fuel), we found a tow company who charged us $200 to bring the vehicle to a shop.

At the shop we discovered that the fuel pump was having 'issues'. Apparently it had been burned out by my repeatedly trying to start the van with the tank empty, and kept on burning out fuses. Eventually, with Dave on the phone, they figured out how it could be bypassed... and we were on the road again!! yahoo!! yay!! On our way to catch the rest of the Gadgetoff!!

BUT WAIT.... NOOOOOOO.. It was not to be...

We drove out of the driveway, and about 100 feet up the hill the van sputtered and stopped. It was the same problem all over again. We walked back to the garage, but everyone went on lunch break. Eventually, a couple of hours later, the mechanics came across the street to look at the vehicle, and let us know that they weren't going to work on it any longer. Great, another $200+ down the toilet.

At this point Liz and I were freaking out. It was sweltering outside. We were totally hungry, completely dehydrated, sleep deprived, not to mention that asshole who stole my wallet also took my credit cards, so we weren't able to rent a car. What else could happen to us?

Eventually after a zillion calls, dying phone and laptop batteries, we found a ford dealership that would take the van.

After waiting several more hours, this guy in a towtruck came to get us finally as it was getting dark, and brought us to the dealership in the middle of rural Maryland. After dropping it off, and thinking it would fall into a ravine (which it almost did), we went over to the tow truck hq. The manager was nice enough to give us a ride to the Baltimore Travel Plaza, and we were to go on the Expo East natural foods cruise put on by Steaz and company.

Liz was n the verge of tears, as was I. Everything was so normal, happy...but we were kind of in limbo and hell...

The cruise was great. I made a ton of new contacts and wrote them in my book that I cart around with me. The folks I met discussed all kinds of great things, and it looked like things were turning for the better.

After the cruise we went with my old friend Rob-R-Rock back to his hotel at the Marriot, and konked out immediately when we hit the floor rather than going to see Diplo.

In the morning I reached for my book with all my contacts, and realized in my exhaustion, hunger and dehydration... I LEFT IT IN THE FUCKING CAB!!!!! What the Hell????

After calling every cab company, I realized that it was fruitless... And trudged out to EXPO EAST to do promo for Steaz and meet new contacts. We met the people who run SoyaToo (which we fell in love with while touring Germany). We hung out with Seth Tibbott from Tofurky, met the main people behind BIONADE (another european favorite), and even tried some new amazing vegan cheeses.

Though, the best thing to happen the whole time was meeting the people who run Raw Revolution (www.rawindulgence.com). Alice and David from the company really connected well with Liz and I. I totally love their bars, and was really thrilled that such cool people run the company. Thus a friendship was born!

After the whole event was over we went and harvested loads of promotional goodies and snacks...We called Dorit from the Gadgetoff and heard amazing tales from the weekend with JetBike, and all the other great things.

Finally we headed home to Philly... We took a cab home, and went straight to sleep... Finally it was all over... Good Fucking Night...

The universe owes us some serious good Karma...