I promised to share here the version of the stories as I shared them on facebook as I wrote them up in real time as things have been unfolding with the car situation. Very much like what you expect to read from me here but also I recently didn't feel like writing here or had time for it and I did know that I ought to let the people IN my life know about this -- because this wasn't one of my "I should be dead but somehow I survived" stories that nobody needed to know about other than the people who were there, this was one that people would be angry at me for them not knowing, though they'd be scared if they heard it at any time other than after the fact. 

We don't talk about how many "I should be dead" stories I have lived in this life or how close it's been to all fatelines with me on them being truncated... I don't tell those stories often without good reason. There are WAY more of them than you would expect though for how quiet a life not for the world or history books that I desire to live in this lifetime. And not just some of my childhood things like 4 year old me climbing on the counters to reach the top of the fridge and eat an entire bottle of vitamins because if one was good for me more would be and I was always hungry growing up because I was constantly growing (I've been the same height since the 5th grade) or the time when I was 13 and in a bike accident put a hole in my right thigh that took 26 stitches (only 15 of them on the outside) with the giant wound big enough to put a closed fist into that was under quarter inch of opening up my femoral artery for an under 5mins bleed out death... I have a lot of "I should be dead" stories where even the slightest smallest shift in space/time from how it played out and I wouldn't have survived to be writing this. More times than you can count on both hands, twice over. I haven't exactly yet figured out who all's protecting me on my spirit team of unincarnated spirits (those I know of are more powerful than I fell like I deserve looking out for me) and what they're saving me for in this particular body and this life, but so far they've kept me in this body despite my adventures. These stories from my life don't scare me much because in the moment of crisis I have the sort of personality where everything crystallizes and time slows down to infinite slowness during which you can do anything and I get the most clear sighted decisive triaging that you will ever see me because there's simply no TIME for being scared or over thinking, there's no time for anything but sitting in complete clarity and certainty and the faith in oneself and one's own wisdom and training that you know what you need to do to fight this fight and survive it....I'm not one to seek a fight, but I've spent more of my past lifetimes as a warrior(ess) than a gardener and if a fight finds me I'm not afraid to step up to it do exactly what must be done for the best possible chances of not just surviving but winning no matter what the odds are. But even though I don't get scared of it, the people who love me most get scared of these stories, of how close they've come to losing me in this life and they never even knew... I think my sister and my mother are the ones it scares the most when these stories happen or they're reminded of them. Ever since learning about the incident with the deer, my sister has been texting me trying to nail the jello to the wall figure out when I'm coming to visit next so she can hug me and take care of me and have me present and safe. My sister is a Virgo sun with a Pisces moon, she's a planner and a bit of a control freak but it's because she cares so deeply wants to keep those she loves safe as possible in an uncertain world. So even though she and her family are coming here in June, she's been trying to find out "when can we fly you back out here to come visit and do some Spring planting in our garden?" And we went through week by week and every time I told her my plans/tickets i couldn't move she'd say, "So you're flying out on the next day?" And then I'd have to tell her why that would be a short visit -- the only gap I have longer than 4-5 days until May is right when they're on family holiday in April and flying me out to visit them less than a month before they come here won't help my sister get to hug me sooner and do everything to keep me safe with them. So then tonight she wanted to know when we can start booking my tickets for me to join them for Christmas because this is now part of their family traditions to have me come out there, lol.

I don't bring this up to scare you or anything or to seem like I'm withholding parts of my truth from you, just acknowledging the truth that if you were to add up the odds of me even still being alive right now sharing these moments and thoughts with the people who love me, the odds would be worse than your odds of winning the lottery.  It's just a part of my truth in this body in this lifetime... Me being alive right now is a defiance of probability.You saw the pictures of what the car looked like after hitting that deer that appeared out of nowhere -- does that look like the sort of situation where both driver and passenger should walk away from it without any injury whatsoever EVEN THOUGH the airbags never went off? (o yeah, the airbags didn't go off and for more than a week beforehand, I kept getting rerouted/redirected by the road I meant to take being blocked off by police and terrible head on collisions with fatalities having occurred on that road right before I was supposed to be driving them...And if those airbag sensors were not triggered from the damage of hitting the stag at 65mph, they weren't ever going off in any situation and a head on collision with another moving vehicle to increase the force of the collision is not something I or anyone would be surviving without airbags. Far worse fatelines exist than this one we're walking... In the moment as it happened when the deer suddenly appeared directly in front of the car with neither of us seeing it before the collision, of all the things I felt energetically/spiritually, the stag felt protective of me sacrificing itself to save me is the best I can describe what I felt looking into its eyes as the car hit it and after it flipped over the car I was actually internally thanking it as well as the car from whatever worse fate they were protecting me as I limped the Scion off the road to the shoulder on the inertia of it because the engine completely stalled out dead dead will need to be completely rebuilt to ever run again. But now I'm getting all out of order again assuming you know the story in entirety for that feeling to make any sort of sense (I did NOT include that wyrd part of the story in my public on facebook post, because I'm not really in the broom closet but even my mum told me it gives her goosebumps and physical chills when I refer to the deer as having sacrificed itself for me to survive avoid worse fatelines that could have been....)

So without further ado (further ado will be after the quoted parts) here's the quotes of what I originally posted on my facebook posts that are relevant to a fuller telling of what happened in the wee hours of Sun morning:

"So now we get to the unexpected twist to the story. Driving along 151, back in Wisconsin, somewhere in Iowa County, just came around a bend and flipped from brights back to regular headlights due to a semi coming on the opposite side and then suddenly BAM! GIANT buck with a HUGE 12 point rack is suddenly there right at the passenger side in front of the car. Neither of us saw it coming from the left crossing the other lane until it was literally hitting the car. In the time between seeing it, Crissy had time to shout "DEER!" just as I had time to think exactly three thoughts, 1) "O DEER LORD!" 2) "O that's a gorgeous set of antlers on you!" 3) "Don't you fecking DARE hit the windshield with your antlers shatter through it!" and then it was the massive thunk dead on and all the lights on the dash going off (but weirdly no airbags deployed and the seatbelts didn't catch as quickly as they should have -- my maman wonders if the Scion had faulty Takata airbag deployment in which case I'm lucky that I had a head on with a MASSIVE stag and not another vehicle that would have kept going into us. I was able to use the inertia of my 60-65mph forward motion to get the car to just within the shoulder as the car ground to an unresponsive halt to anything I did with the pedals. After turning the flashers on, I realized it was still in drive and it made the most horrific sound I have ever heard a gear shift make to put it in park (worse than hearing someone new to manual cars shifting gears without using the clutch) and the entire car just sort of shuddered like it was sighing on its last dying breath, "I have done all that I can for you..." I turned it off and sniff tested and listened for the sound of anything dripping to try to figure out if we needed to get out of the car fast and Crissy asked me, "Do you think you can get it home?" And I was just like, "With all those warning lights on the dash and the noise it made and the size of that buck? I don't have to see the front damage to guess no. But I can try to turn it on see what the engine sounds like." Yeah no, that wasn't happening.

So then it was time to get on the phones -- I called my amazing parents who love me dearly to put my mum on notice as early in the wee hours nearly 1am as I could that I needed my da to please come do pickups find out where they wanted me to have us towed. Crissy got on with AAA for the tow (she has the RV 100 miles towing radius included) and then while I was pinning the location writing a prelim email to my insurance agent she called 911 to dispatch a sheriff and damsel in distressed that we were two women alone having just hit a deer and were sitting on the side of 151 (one of the more dangerous stretches of highway in the state) on a cold night at drunk o'clock. When the sheriff got there, he had me roll down the window and after we told him we had called AAA for a tow and my parents for a ride, he asked me if I could get the engine going so we could move the car further from the highway off the other side of the shoulder and I dubiously said, "I can try. I haven't looked at the front yet, but the sound she made earlier when I tried makes me think no." He was walking toward the front looked at it for the first time as I tried to get the engine to turn over shook his head at me to stop and told us, "This car is not going anyway except on a flat bed." then he paused and said, "It's 26 degrees right now. It's too cold for you to stay in this car, especially after opening the windows. Are you girls comfortable sitting in my squad car until your car can get towed?" We opted for yes, grabbing our purses, phones, coats, and the insurance/registration binder and got out of the car (Crissy had to climb out my door since hers wouldn't open) and that was the first opportunity I had now that there was a police car behind us to make us more visible to passing traffic to get out and look at the front end. And that's when I cussed like a sailor in front of the sheriff''s deputy then turned to him apologized for swearing but added it was the first I'd seen the damage.He told me he'd seen worse from a deer and that I was very lucky but he understood the reaction. We seat in the car with him while he wrote his report and he was honest about other important calls actively coming in while we sat there and the timelines for AAA in his experience in his county and suggested an alternate plan to get the car removed from where it might be hit and for him to take us to the closed sheriff's front reception office where we would be safe, warm, have bathrooms and access to water etc until my da could come get us. So then I called my parents back and we went through this plan all on speaker phone to make it easier and Crissy got on the phone to AAA to cancel the tow after we were past his window willing to wait for them and they hadn't even yet assigned a towing company to us, as he continued filling out the police incident report and went to take pictures of the front of my car at the scene so I didn't have to get out and do it in the unsafe conditions of it all. (the best part of filling out the incident was when he asked me completely calmly, "Do you have any bias against deer?" and I just started laughing was like, "What? no. Of course not." And then he chuckled told us that he is legally required to ask that and it's always his favorite part of the report. he asked Crissy as well.) He was very kind with us and told us lots of stories of other deer related incidents (including when his partner had hit a deer in a cruiser) and we discussed mercy kills if the deer needed it (it was a clean hit, quick death) and right before we left the scene, he went and grabbed the leftover pizza out of the trunk for me when I mentioned I should have grabbed it and also that I'd left the headlights on didn't want the battery to die before the other officer/tow truck arrived so he went and turned them off just left the hazards flashing. On the drive to the sheriff's office, because we'd been talking about hunting and he asked me to not be like the one guy called his work cell number six times while off duty about the size of the deer wanting to tag it claim it, so I asked him, "So. Since this is my first time ever killing a buck, what size should I be telling people I bagged on my first try?" He just started laughing told me, "You should absolutely tell everyone that your first buck you ever killed was a 20 point set of antler, with splits on both G3 and G4, and was a minimum 150 score."

He let us into the sheriff's office, told us his deputy had found the buck all the way in the median after it had flipped over the car confirmed it was massive but dead clean hit and the tow truck had arrived before the other deputy to finish cleanup make sure the road was clear. He then showed us the bathrooms, the water, the dedicated line to call the jail if we needed anyone sooner than he could answer his work cell (on his business card) but if we didn't need anything else he had to go to another call. I asked him if we would need anything for the door getting in or out and he said it locked automatically so not to forget anything inside and not to both go outside at the same time before we were ready to leave. The tow truck guy stopped by the sheriff's office (empty except for Crissy and me and all the thirsty plants I desperately wanted to water for them) so I could more safely get the remaining things from the car that I didn't grab when the side of the highway safety concern. And my da arrived just a little after the tow truck guy who offered to wait in his truck for a bit until my father arrived in case he wanted to see the car as well.

Anyway. All's well that ends well I suppose. And I 100% recognize that this story would have been VERY different if we weren't privileged to be white women who damsel in distressed the situation. No humans were hurt (can't say that for deer or car) and no other vehicles were involved. I fully recognize how dangerous (and potentially deadly) this whole adventure could have been and how incredibly spoiled and protected I was throughout this story -- incredibly lucky and blessed in my parents and my friends and the officer/towing guy and even divine protection in the way this all played out in the safest possible way it could have. It could have been a VERY different story than the way this adventure went. And I absolutely need to have a word with Cernunnos that in the future, if he has a message for me, that unless it's necessary to protect me from something worse I would appreciate it if he doesn't send his messenger to me through the front end (or any side) of my car or any vehicle I am in.

I'm sure I will hear from my agent Monday start the process to find out if my car is totaled by insurance. It will definitely be more adulting this week than I had planned/expected. Luckily, my parents love me so my da came in the middle of the night all the way out to Dodgeville to get us drop me off at my condo and Crissy at her apartment. Crissy came to pick me up for symphony tickets today which was quite lovely and (e will use her car to go to all shows we have tickets for between now and me having my own car again. And I can borrow a work vehicle for me and my dog (who comes into work with me) until I get my insurance and car situation sorted (we happen to right now have a work Prius that is hardly used since we bought the all electric Leafs and has very low mileage which is ready to be sold and my bosses love me like I'm their eldest child... because, well, I am.) Honestly, the individual most distraught about the whole adventure was my cat Spock because I came home without my dog Waffles (who overnighted at my parents who watch her whenever I have shows or travel plans) and so the cat was extremely worried watching me like a hawk because the only times I don't come home with the dog is when I'm about to pack to leave for a while or right after Audrey Pupburn died a few years back before Waffles came to live with us be my dog. The cat slept in the spot on the bed the dog normally sleeps when she's not laying across me to show how much he missed her was worried -- and it is pictures of him this morning at the foot of the bed that I will close out this story with, because he is an absolutely gorgeous tabby with the most gorgeous eyes and natural eyeliner I WISH I could wear as well as him. Everyone is safe (except the deer and the car) and the cat will be very glad to see the dog and me whenever we head home from work.

So how was your weekend adventures?

P. S. If you look closely at the pictures of my Scion on the flatbed, you can still see tufts of the deer's fur stuck in the crumpled hood. I was really tempted to ask if I could have the bits of fur, but decided I should leave it until the insurance adjuster had seen the car. But yeah, given the damage to the engine block I could HEAR trying to start it even as a not a car person, I would be astonished if my insurance thought a 15 year old car with nearly 125,000 miles on it and that much damage could possibly be worth repairing instead of totaling it, lol."

 

"O right! I meant to post earlier today but then I got super busy wasn't on my phone at all.

Today I took the rental car out to Linden to get my plates and all my possessions from my Scion. Beautiful day for a windy drive southwest down through the neighboring county, saw lots and lots of cows and hawks and crows but no horses or goats on today's drive. I did get to meet a very beautiful long haired German Shepherd named Tenney who is the work dog at Larry's Service & Towing who took care of my car for me and have been holding onto it while I sorted with my insurance and was able to come get my things.

It was bittersweet sad to see her in the daylight for the first (and last) time since hitting the buck and got some better pictures of the state the Scion is in... Seeing it in the daylight really hit home how much damage that deer did and how well designed the crumple zones of Toyotas (and we'll protected their plastic tanks for wiper fluid) and how lucky we are that with a hit like that on a stag, neither of us were even injured at all.

It did make me tear up quite a bit saying goodbye to the Scion, saw me through so many miles and stories and adventures. I had the same reaction saying goodbye to the old Prius after it had a tire fly off while driving (it was early morning going up a hill in residential low speed nobody around, safest way possible to have your tire go flying off your car, but there was still enough damage from it that my old champagne colored Prius was totaled.) following a tire rotation where they didn't tighten it properly. Some people love their shiny new toys, I've always been someone who likes to keep good things for as long as possible until the replacement is a need not a want -- I still have clothing I wore from high school, lol. I found myself apologizing to my old Scion when I saw it, definitely told the car, "This wasn't what I meant to be the end of you hun, you were such a good car for me. My intention when I moved to another vehicle was to find you a good home." And the sense I got back from the spirit of my old car was, "I didn't want to be anyone else's car. This was the best way." Larry (with Tenney coming along with him) came over to the lot to help me get the plates off the car in case it was rusted then left me alone to clear everything out. A lot of trash squirrelled away under the seats for me to go through, but everything was collected to go home and deal with it there.

After I collected all my things to bring back and lingered for a bit before saying my Hail Farewell then going back to return the one set of keys to Larry keep my promise to say bye to Tenney. Then I went south to head back home north because I wanted to drive the space where it had happened during the daylight hours see the terrain of it -- and in doing that, I absolutely understand how neither of us saw the deer until it was directly in front of the car as we hit it. I also saw some huge controlled burn bonfires for the equinox on my way back! (Well maybe not for the equinox, but still on it, lol.) Makes sense to do it day after so much rain/snow once the winds quieted down -- it's been fire hazard risk for a long while up here

When I got home, I looked at my doormat and had this moment of, "What am I a joke to you?" toward myself and I decided that since it was the first day of Spring, it was time to change to the Spring/Summer rug, lol."

 

This is what I meant referencing the doormats and me being a joke to myself and was included in my FB post set of pictures -- I have a thicker coir Winter mat, a thinner Spring/Summer mat that can go in the wash, and several Halloween season doormats to be used from Lughnasadh through Samhain (ish) 

I also collected as much of the deer fur as I could from the wrecked Scion. Nobody else wanted or needed it or could salvage anything from it. And I did want it. It smells of the buck's musk still and I haven't decided what to do with it yet -- if I'm going to keep it in my box of old collars, hair clippings, claw pieces, and shed whiskers from my pets past/present OR if I want to hold a ceremony of gratitude to the deer's spirit to return the fur to nature OR if I want to do something else with it. But the first step to figuring that out was claiming the fur from the stag I hit when i went to collect my plates and all my possessions from the Scion.

 

The only remaining thing I have to do with the Scion and the claim before I get my check is to sign over the title to Copart who are working with my insurance company for the storage/salvage of what on the car they can salvage/auction. I could mail it to them, but it's rather an important document to risk getting lost in the mail so on Monday I will likely drive across town to hand them the title sign it over to them directly.  I also need to make sure I in person absentee vote at a library (I'm working as an election official from 6a til close on the actual election day, which means early voting myself) so will try to get that done early this week as well.  Honestly, my insurance is paying me more for the Scion than I would have likely been able to private sale it and it will be close to a wash for the blue book value at which I will be sold the Prius and I did say I needed to make the switch to the Prius by the spring when the weather changed -- I just didn't see it happening this way even though I had made no plans and had taken no actions toward trying to sell or find a buyer for the Scion... I always need to be careful what I say, fate has as a way of stepping into my life and making things happen once I make up my mind decide on what needs to happen. Never the way you would expect or the way any sort of human planning would make it happen, but somehow always even better divine planning orchestrated..... It's probably part of why I don't plan things because the Universe makes things happen the way it's meant to happen in my life, not the way I or anyone else tries to force fatelines to their will -- and somehow I keep getting reward for accepting going with the flow of how the Universe unfolds the plan for me once I make up my mind to something instead of being penalized for not being proactive in planning. There's a saying, "Man makes plans and G-d laughs" but in my life it tends to work out more, "I state my desire/need, G-d plans, and I laugh at the surprising way events unfold for me to make it as I asked."  I also don't like to ask for anything, because in this life I've never known the Divine to deny me anything I ask for and that makes me feel spoiled but also makes me question if I deserve it or if it's what someone else wanted.... So I try to be cautious and not ask for too much, and it's part of why it is only what is freely offered and given to me from another soul has meaning for me as opposed to what I ask for be given to me made mine.

 

 Anyway. I'll likely spend the weekend catching up on sleep resting and coming in for work hours with the dog because I can and who knows what else life will bring into my life across the week. For now and this coming week, I have the rental car (a Hyundai Sonata) covered by my insurance through the 28, so I can use it to take my grandma to her dentist appointment the 27 as scheduled not have to figure something else out. The Prius is at Wrench to have them do an oil change and figure out if there's anything wrong with it they can find before it's sold to me. The Scion is now in the custody of the salvage shop. I don't know exactly when we plan to do the handoff selling me the black Prius or changing over the plates/registration/plates/title/insurance to switch me to the black Prius. I will figure it out as I go, that's generally how it works with me, lol. The right things find me and happen for me in my life at the exact right timing.  It's just, I've never sold a vehicle before (they've always died in some manner that they went to salvage were totaled when their time with me ended) and last time I acquired a vehicle, it was the Scion form work and my parents were buying a new vehicle for the fleet of cars at work so the dealership took care of all that for us. And before that I had the champagne Prius that was my parent's car and they were buying a new car for themselves personally so the dealership dealt with it, and before that I drove the family minivan that my parents still owned while i was in high school/college.  These adulting responsibility portions of have tos will be done soon enough and I can go back to my regularly schedule wandering/playing my way through life by intuition alone going where I am called and showing up exactly when/where I'm meant to.

There now, you've got the proper story in more linear fashion to go with last night's pictures and rather laconic version of things, and told in my actual story telling stream of though way you're accustomed to getting from me here. And here there are some other nuances that I didn't give to my public telling.

I didn't say anything here at all about the Onoir shows and I don't really intend to. Those memories are mine, as are all the conversations I had with Diarmaid, Declan, Dean, and Tom after the shows for as long as they could keep me form running off when they had to pack up for load out and the staff wanted everyone not in the band out so they could close down the venues, lol. The shows themselves were lovely and great craic, those lads harmonies are gorgeous and their arrangements of the songs they perform are some of my favorites. (They have one released song they wrote together, but they also only just started playing/singing together since covid lockdowns and were bored musicians who could go nowhere do nothing with how strict Ireland's lockdown rules were.)  I don't yet know when I'll see them next, but I was enigmatically promised, "See you sooner than you expect" at parting in Iowa but I really have no idea what that meant. (Probably referencing that when they announced they were coming back stateside in March and I said that was when I was hoping to see them again but sooner than I expected it, lol. But no idea what they have up their sleeves planned for me to see them sooner than I expect this time given they're all the way over in Ireland most of the time.) And that is all I'm going to write about the shows or Diarmaid here at this time. (But yes I'm still single and nothing asked or promised. I'm still very much single.)

But I'm alive and well (and doing as much good as I can) and things are unfolding in ways I didn't expect or see or precog, but as they needed to in order to keep me on the best and brightest possible fatelines for me.