Christmas Spirit Accidentally Exorcised?

[hwango]

I got a package of information from my insurance company today, along with a check for the amount that they expect the repairs to cost (minus $500, of course). I'm horrified by how much it will probably cost to fix the car. Also, I'm not sure that their appraisal includes the internal damage - my gear shift indicator doesn't point right at the correct letter for the gear anymore. I don't know what that might be a symptom of. Even more fun, the body shop that my mechanic recommended isn't on the list of shops that they company approves of, so dealing with them might make things even more complicated. Joy.

I'm tired of dealing with this whole situation, and tired of talking about it, too. I'm only typing this up in the hopes that it will give me some relief from it preying constantly on my thoughts. I hope that I won't have to think about this much until Monday, when it's time to start calling them up again to check on the appraisal, call the auto body shop to get an estimate, and do all of the other associated crap that this mess requires. I suspect that anyone at tomorrow's Christmas gathering who knows about this but doesn't know the full story will ask about it, though. Besides, it's not as if I plan to lie when people ask how things are going, and the accident is certainly the most exciting thing to happen lately. I hope I don't have to tell the whole story six or seven more times, though. Hopefully I can focus more on positive stuff from the recent past, like NaNoWriMo, brush painting, and Rage art.

I've been really tired all the time this week, and keep going to bed early or napping (and I almost never nap), but it doesn't seem to matter. The weird sleep schedule means that it feels like several more days have gone by than have actually elapsed, and I'm confused about what day things happened during the week. I actually went to bed at about midnight last night and got up this morning at 7:00, which many of you know is a drastic departure from my usual sleeping time. I felt robbed of those 4 or 5 hours of time to myself, and didn't much enjoy spending the morning bumping into my parents while trying to have breakfast. I may as well try to keep the schedule going for one more day, though, since we're supposed to go see my brother Christmas morning at 9:00 AM.

I'm supposed to help my mom make cookies tonight. Normally this is sort of fun, and I don't mind, but for some reason I have no desire whatsoever to help with that right now. Everything just feels so forced - not like we're celebrating and having fun, but just doing a lot of extra work.

On the plus side, I did get a shiny blue dragon in the mail on...Wednesday? See, I'm not even sure what day it was. Anyway, he's shiny, and very cute. Also had a box of candy dropped off for me today. We have our tree up and it's almost completely decorated (I guess we're skipping tinsel this year or something). I'll try to concentrate on things like that and get in the spirit. It's tough right now, though.

Comments

[lconover.livejournal.com]

Although I realize this is out of your way, I've had excellent luck with these folks -

Collision Auto Body Inc
191 Felton St
Waltham, MA 02453
(781) 899-5790

They aren't fast, but they do the job right. (Unlike what I've heard about Maaco.)

-L

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I think you can probably take the car to any body shop. The money they sent you is sort of like the opening bid by the way. I believe you hand over the check to the body shop and they'll haggle with the insurance agency.

That should cut down on the stress significantly.

You're right about the cost not including internal damage. Which is another reason to let the mechanic haggle with the agency. When I was rear ended in September the adjuster didn't even get out of his office / van to look at the car.