A Three-Ring Circus

This past week for me has been a bit stressful.  Hopefully the worst is over.  Through it all, I know that God has been watching over me.

Wed., Feb. 9 Jean and I moved the old furniture out of the living room that we were going to throw away.  That Thursday afternoon our new furniture arrived.  Those of you who have been keeping up with me on Facebook have seen my photos, but I'll post them again:

The old ugly furniture we threw in the dump

The new chair and cat tree in our living room

The new couch and cat tree in our living room

I had to go to Livingston for my chiropractic appointment after the furniture arrived.  I also needed to exchange a damaged shower surround at Lowe's in Bozeman and pick up three orders.  I was going to sell some old CDs and a DVD, and finally get dinner before I went home.

Even though I knew it wasn't a bright idea considering the manual tasks before me, I wore good clothes to town and later discovered that even that was to my benefit.  But I'm getting ahead of myself!

Getting to Livingston with the damaged shower surround was ok, but it wasn't great, and it was even worse trying to get it to Bozeman.  The cardboard box around it got shredded in the wind.  No harm done though, since the surround was already damaged.

At Lowe's they were easily able to help me with all of my errands and they shrink-wrapped the new shower surround box.  I tied that box down on top of the Blazer as tightly as I could.  Getting to Hastings afterward wasn't too difficult with my load.  Dinner at Applebee's was a breeze and I made some new friends.

Going back to Livingston that night wasn't too bad even with the wind.  My biggest problem was that the alternator had gone out, but I hadn't realized it yet.  I was just thinking that I was having a hard time seeing the road in my headlights (which were getting dimmer by the minute).  About halfway to Livingston a truck tailed me the rest of the way to Livingston.  It wasn't a sheriff or highway patrolman, so I wondered what was going on.  He was probably tailing me because he realized that there was a problem with the electrical system in my car.  When I was almost at Livingston, my speedometer wasn't working properly and  I saw that my battery meter was all the way at the bottom.  I barely made it to my Dad's house and stopped the car to look under the hood when the car simply died.  I'm glad God looks out for me!

Dad loaned me one of his cars that night and I stayed at a Super 8 that evening.  While I was in my room that night I couldn't help but think about buying a new car under the circumstances.  I've already gone through a lot of repair on this car recently--especially with the four-wheel drive.  For the rest of the night Dad put a battery charger on my car battery since it was a bit cold and we didn't really want the battery to freeze while it was drained.

Friday, February 11, I met Dad, Bonnie, and Wilma at McDonalds.  Honestly, I hate McDonalds with a passion but I put up with it.  After breakfast we took the charger off the battery and found that the car worked just fine.  I took the car to Billion and they had the alternator fixed by early afternoon.  I spent the rest of the day just hanging out in Livingston because Jean, Dad, Bonnie, and I had a dinner date with Grandma and Betty at Evergreen for their Valentine's Day Dinner.

The dinner went really well and we all had a good time.  They served chicken cordon bleu, which really wasn't Dad's favorite thing since he completely hates cheese.  But he put up with it.  Grandma and Betty are looking alright.  Grandma can't sit up without other people helping.  I haven't put up any pictures of Grandma since her stroke, and I know that these pictures aren't the most flattering, but considering Betty's and Grandma's conditions, they're good.  Grandma kept mentioning that she liked my shirt--the one that I put on the day before wondering why I was putting on a nice shirt when I was only going to Lowe's.  Betty stole Dad's piece of cake right off the plate.  Most of Betty's and Grandma's food now has to be pureed, and it was good to see Betty actually hack that thing down!

Grandma at Evergreen during the Valentine's Day Dinner

Betty at Evergreen during the Valentine's Day Dinner

That night I went back home from Livingston with the shower surround tied on top of the car.  I had to face 70 mph winds, plus a headwind.  Some of the shrink wrap came off but other than that, everything else was ok.  It didn't get damaged and I got home safely.  I felt pretty good about it because when Tim tried to bring the first one home, he had better conditions and it broke getting to the house because of the wind.

Someone preached that sometimes people feel like God wants them to swim through shark-infested waters and disagreed stating that God leads us beside still waters (Ps. 23:2).  I guess he forgot about the part where God prepares a table before our enemies, wind included (Ps. 23:5)!  Sometimes God lets us go through tough stuff for the bragging rights afterward.

Sat., Feb. 12 things really heated up.  When I left for work that night I saw a whole bunch of red and blue flashing lights near my house.  Apparently a couple teenagers from Livingston had hit a bison on the road.  It's not that hard to do because they're so hard to see at night.  According to the Livingston Enterprise, they were going the speed limit (65 mph) to Gardiner.  They swerved to miss one bison and then hit another.  Although their car wasn't totaled, they couldn't drive it after the accident.  Fortunately both guys are alright.

When I got to work that night, a guest complained about a stray dog outside.  I saw that it belonged to one of the neighbors and tried to round it up, but it was being bad (I think dogs are reflections of their owners).  While I was out there, three men were coming to the hotel.  The one in the middle was really, really drunk and the other two were trying to get him to the hotel and into his room.  The guy fell in the parking lot, and I guess he must have gotten angry that he lost control, because he started yelling and cursing and even hitting the guys trying to help him.  He ended up hitting one of the trucks in the parking lot with his fist, so I called the sheriff, who was dealing with the teenagers and the bison mess at the time.  Between paramedics, and sheriff deputies, and everything that happened, the drunk guy got safely to his room, but he may have consequences to pay later--we'll see what happens.  Montana law is odd about misdemeanors.  I'm glad that one of the guys helping the wasted guy was sober and helped out as much as he did.  I'm not sure what's going to happen for the man who owned the truck that was damaged.  Insurance should pay, but will justice be served?

Then the wind picked up.  Gardiner usually doesn't see very many wind storms, but that night it got really crazy.  I estimate based on all that happened that the wind was probably around 85 mph.  Livingston got it worse--their instruments read a gust near 110 mph before their machinery broke.  That night before I went to bed, I had to capture flying carpets.  The wind picked up the door rugs and threw them around.  I was assaulted by a garbage can lid.  It just came off of the garbage can and flew at me.  I just decided to move all the rugs and garbage can lids inside the two buildings.  We lost a few shingles on the hotel, but Roger, our wonderful maintenance man, diligently worked on fixing the damage.  I'd say it took three or four days to fix the roof.

On Tuesday February 15, Grandma was in the newspaper because she was Evergreen's Valentine's Day Queen.  We're all really happy for her, despite the fact that the newspaper didn't spell her name correctly!

Livingston Enterprise, Feb. 15, 2011. Vol. 99, No. 101, page 3.