Smokies vs. Rockies

It's no secret that we love the Smoky Mountains.

Smoky Mountains October, 2007

Some, however, might point to the majestic, snow-covered heights of the Rocky Mountains and question whether the Smokies even deserve the designation of "mountains."

Spray Lakes Road, Alberta, Canada, 1988

Moraine Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, 1988

The Smokies, however, have claimed Doug's heart to a much greater extent than the Rockies. He agrees that the Rockies are beautiful to look at, but he explains the difference this way:

According to Doug, the Smokies say, "Come play with me."

The Rockies say, "Play with me, and I'll kill you."

Ordering at the Dairy Queen Drive-Thru

Some of you may remember my post about an experience we had ordering at a McDonald's drive-thru. If not, you can read about it here.

Following is another drive-thru tale:

We went through the drive-thru at Dairy Queen a couple of weeks ago. I wanted aTriple Chocoholic Mini-Blizzard. Doug had gotten fairly used to ordering the Chocolate Xtreme Mini-Blizzard that I USED to get, but he hasn't yet mastered "Triple Chocoholic Mini-Blizzard" and always gets his tongue twisted trying to say that phrase. Since he was driving, though, and since the ordering microphone was on his side of the car, he was going to have to place the order. It didn't go well. I giggled when I heard the words that came out of his mouth. He said he wanted a "Triple Chocolate Alcoholic Mini-Blizzard."

When we drove around to the pickup window, the guy inside said, "You ordered a Triple Chocolate Alcoholic Mini-Blizzard? I'm going to have to check your ID."

We laughed so hard that I almost had trouble eating my Blizzard.

A couple of days later, we returned to the same Dairy Queen; and the same guy was on duty. Again, we went through the drive-thru. This time, Doug managed to get the correct phrase out with barely a stutter. When we pulled up to the window, Doug asked the DQ man if he wanted to check his ID. The response was, "No. You didn't order anything with alcohol in it this time."

DQ man is not only funny, but he has a good memory.

24 Years Ago Today...

Today is Doug's and my 24th wedding anniversary. We were 42 and 44 when we married; and I remember thinking to myself, "Well, at least, if we're making a mistake, we won't have to live with it as long as some people."

I don't think either of us thought we'd live long enough to say we'd been married 24 years. That would make us 66 and 68, and that seemed awfully old. Besides, we felt that there was a good possibility that the Lord would come back before that much time went by.

But here we are, 24 years later, remembering our special day and celebrating all over again.

My lovely niece, Beckie, was in charge of the guest book.

Beckie's handsome brother, Dave, walked my Aunt Bea, down the aisle. Aunt Bea filled in for my deceased mother. Would you believe that she was 77 when this photo was taken? And that's her natural hair color.

I was escorted down the aisle by a dear friend, a widower who was also an associate pastor at our church, who was standing in for my deceased father.

The wedding party.

Pledging our love and faithfulness before God and our witnesses.

Officially man and wife.

Here we are with Doyle and Janet, the couple who introduced us.

Janet made this quilt for us, then arranged for wedding guests to sign the back of it, making it an extra special gift.

Cutting the cake.

And they lived happily ever after.

Some Updates and More Smokies Photos

Updates:

Doug is doing better, following his nose surgery on Friday and two subsequent trips to the emergency room. He slept well last night, and a good rest always helps things look a little brighter.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the pending closing of our church at the end of this year. Well, thankfully, we've made some changes that have encouraged our pastor to continue the work. Pastor Paul loves the teaching and preaching and song leading, but all the extra responsibilities were just wearing him down, especially when added to his full-time job, which pays the bills for his family. Several people have since come forward to shoulder some of the burdens that Pastor Paul had been bearing alone, and he has happily agreed to postpone his retirement.

Smokies Photos:

These photos were taken in October of 2003, before a digital camera had entered my life. The camera was a good SLR, but film has a hard time competing with digital...at least, in my experience.

This rock formation is known as "Rock House"

And it did...get worse, I mean.

Doug had surgery scheduled yesterday, to open up his nasal passages and enable him to breathe better. The doctor had said that the out-patient surgery would take about a half-hour.

It's always a little scary to have a surgical procedure on a Friday because of the potential of having problems over the weekend when the doctor is unavailable. But, at least, this procedure was scheduled early enough in the morning to allow us to see whether problems would develop before the end of the day.

I started to voice that opinion to Doug the day before the surgery, saying "At least they'll be doing it early enough..." And Doug interrupted me to finish my thought with one of his own, saying "...that you'll be able to have your Doberman before nightfall." (If that doesn't make sense to you, see my post entitled "Conversations.")

Of course, these things are never as simple as the doctor makes them sound. We were at the surgery center for four hours, including getting checked in and signing releases, about an hour and a half of prep time, 45 minutes in surgery, and an hour and a half in recovery.

I brought Doug home, then drove back into town to get a prescription filled for pain medication and to get him a chocolate malt, which was sounding good to him and which the doctor had sort of recommended.

About an hour after I returned from that errand of mercy, we began to realize that Doug was in trouble from another direction. The pressure in his bladder was seriously mounting, and he was unable to void. I called his urologist and left a message for the phone nurse. About 15 minutes later, I called the scheduling nurse to see if Doug could get in to see the doctor before the office closed for the day. She informed me that the doctor was in surgery on Fridays, not in the office; and, besides, the office would be closing in 45 minutes. She asked if I would like to talk to the phone nurse. I told her that I had left a message for the phone nurse but hadn't received a call back. The scheduling nurse then transferred my call to the phone nurse. I waited on hold for five minutes before hanging up and getting ready to take Doug to the Emergency Room.

I won't bore you with details, but we were in the ER for three hours. When they eventually hooked Doug up to a catheter, he voided three times the content of a normal bladder when it's full. They wound up sending him home with the catheter still in and instructions to call his urologist on Monday.

There was still no message from the urologist's phone nurse on the recorder when we got home.

Doug was pretty miserable last night, but he did manage to sleep a little.

Today, the sun is shining; Doug's appetite is returning; and he's doing much better. The Doberman is on hold until another day.

How Many Creams?

Ordering food at a fast-food drive-thru can be challenging. The speaker systems have come a long way, but there are still those occasional times when there are communication difficulties between the customer and the restaurant employee. Here's a sample of one of those instances from a few years ago:

Drive-thru guy:  Order when you're ready.

Doug:  I'd like a senior coffee with cream.

Drive-thru guy:  How many creams?

Doug:  One

Drive-thru guy: How many creams?

Doug (leaning out the car window):  One

Drive-thru guy: HOW MANY CREAMS?

Doug (now hanging half-way out the car window):  ONE!!!

Drive-thru guy gives us our order total and tells us to pull around to the window.

When we arrive at the window, we find the guy inside laughing.

He says:  I thought you were saying "What?"

 

Hunting Knives and Paper Plates

As I've mentioned before, Doug and I were in our forties when we met and married. During his bachelor years, Doug had been in the habit of using paper plates for his meals at home, avoiding the need for excessive dish washing. It wasn't long after we were married before he convinced me that it just made sense to use paper products. So, for our 23 years of marriage, that has been our practice.

A couple of years ago, a friend gave Doug a hunting knife. A very sharp hunting knife. As he was taking it out of its holster to show me, I was reaching for it and wound up with a nasty cut on my thumb. We headed for a walk-in medical clinic, where a Physician's Assistant stitched it up.

As she was attending to my wound, Doug and I were discussing how we were going to explain my bandaged hand to our friends at church the next day. We didn't want to have to admit to our own carelessness in handling the knife.

Wanting to be helpful, the Physician's Assistant suggested we say that I had cut it while washing dishes.

Doug replied, "We'd have to tell them it was a paper cut."

Conversations

Doug and I have some interesting conversations, sometimes because of his (not mine, mind you) hearing problem, but sometimes just because he (not I, mind you) has some communication issues.

One example occurred on a kind of dreary day, when I came home from running some errands. He was in the garage when I raised the garage door to pull the car in. He stopped me and said, "Just leave the car out of the garage. I want to clean it." Well, in my humble opinion, this was no day for washing a car; but I did as he asked and left the car outside.

Quite awhile later, when Doug came into the house, I asked him if he had washed the car yet. He gave me a dumbfounded look and said, "Why would I want to wash the car on a day like this?" I gave HIM a dumbfounded look and reminded him of his instructions to leave the car out of the garage so he could clean it. He laughed and said he had wanted to clean the GARAGE.

When we're vacationing in national parks, we're always on the lookout for wild animals. We've learned that the best way to find them is to find a place where cars are stopped along the side of the road, with people standing outside and pointing. Whenever we see a car stopped, one of us usually wonders aloud, "What's he see?"

On our recent visit to Yellowstone National Park, I spotted a car pulled over to the side and said, "What's he see?" Doug turned to me, surprise on his face, and said, "You saw a tepee?"

Doug is a self-proclaimed tightwad...he calls himself TW...but he can be very generous when the occasion calls for it. We were both single until we were in our forties. When we were dating, he lived about 65 miles from where I lived. One Saturday, he had invited me to a Christian concert in a city another thirty miles or so from his home. Because of the distance and the lateness of the hour by the time the concert would end, he wanted to pay for a motel room for me in the town where he lived. That would save him from having to drive the 130-mile round trip to take me home. Plus, we could go to his church together the next day. Well, he was already driving 65 miles to pick me up for our date, then about 95 miles to the concert, and I hated to have him also have to pay for a motel room for me. So, as we were driving to the concert, I suggested that the cost was too much to expect him to pay and that I'd like to pay for my own motel room. His response was, "I've had a long time to save up for it."

A few years ago, we drove a motor home to Alaska. It wasn't Doug's favorite vacation. We sold that motor home as soon as we got home from the trip. Since then, I've tried to talk him into buying another, more modern and powerful, one. It's not working.

Recently we were talking, and I was reminiscing about the two Doberman Pinschers that I had owned in the past, at different times. He said, "When I die, I suppose you'll get another Doberman." I said, "Yes...a Doberman and a motor home." Now, it's become a saying with us so that, whenever Doug does something that could be hazardous to his health, I make a reference to my getting a Doberman and a motor home.

Sometimes, often at the most unexpected times, Doug will come up with a comment that touches my heart. We were driving and talking and laughing awhile back, when he looked over at me and said, "I wish you could see what I see." Since my poor vision is often a subject of our conversations, it took me a minute to realize that he was complimenting me. He was saying that he liked what he saw in me and wished I could see it, too.

How could I NOT love a guy who would say something like that?! Wait! You don't think he was looking at my milk mustache or a smear of melted chocolate on my face, do you?

God's best is worth the wait

In 1986, I was a 41-year-old, never-been-married woman, content with my singleness, working full time, active in my church, and busy with friends. The church I attended was one of the largest in our area; so, while I knew just about everyone by name, close association was limited to those in my Sunday school class or those with whom I served in some capacity.

Among the many that I knew only well enough to exchange greetings when passing in the halls was a couple who had once pastored a church in Michigan, Janet and Doyle. One Sunday, Janet approached me, as I was leaving the church following the evening service, and asked me if I'd be interested in meeting an unmarried friend of theirs. Soon, Doyle joined us and added his enthusiastic endorsement of the man they had in mind, a man who had been a good friend to them at their previous church. I thanked them but told them I wasn't interested.

But, you know, I just couldn't shake the feeling that I had been too hasty in my decision. After all, I had, in the past, told the Lord that, if He ever had someone for me, He might have to hit me upside the head with a two-by-four to get my attention. Maybe having two near-strangers offer to fix me up with a man of whom they obviously thought very highly qualified as a spiritual two-by-four.

So, a couple of weeks later, I sought them out and told them I'd be willing to meet their friend. They worked out a date and invited us both to their home for lunch on a Sunday after church.

When that day came, I drove my car and followed Doyle and Janet and their two teenage sons to their home. The man I was to meet, and who later became my husband, had driven down from Michigan and was already at the house when we arrived. As I walked into the house behind Janet, their dog greeted us at the door. Doug was standing a little further back in the room. Janet called out, "Hi, Jimmy!" Immediately, my mind went into a flurry of trying to remember what they had told me about this guy I was to meet. I had thought they said his name was Doug, but now I was wondering if it was Jimmy. Oh my.

Janet served taco salads for lunch. I was very nervous, in the presence of five people who knew each other well, but none of whom I knew well at all, and at least one of whom I was supposed to impress. The meal went well, all things considered. The boys left the table when they were finished eating, and the four adults stayed around the table, talking and getting better acquainted.

The afternoon passed quickly, and soon it was time to go back to church for the Sunday evening service. I had a Doberman Pinscher at home who was needing a potty break by then, so I prepared to head on home to let Brandi out before going to church. At Janet's suggestion, Doug agreed to follow me home and then drive me to church.

I was still confused by Janet's calling Doug "Jimmy," though, and wasn't sure what I was supposed to call him. That night, after church, one of my friends was obviously expecting an introduction. When I hesitated at what name to use, Doug jumped in and said "Doug." So now I knew what he wanted to be called, but I was still confused about that Jimmy thing. It wasn't until much, much later that I realized that Janet's dog's name was James and that she had been addressing the dog when we walked into the house that day.

My telephone rang first thing the next morning. It was Janet, with a one-word greeting: "Well?" I learned later that Doug had received an identical call.

It took a couple of weeks, and more than one encouraging phone call from Janet, before Doug called me for a date. Exactly a year later, he asked me to marry him. I said "yes," and the wedding was three months later.

We both marvel at the paths our lives took, leading up to our meeting and subsequent marriage. In many ways, we wish we had met earlier, when we were young enough to enjoy together some of the hiking and canoeing and other outdoor activities that we've discovered we both love but that our aging bodies often can't handle. But, on the other hand, we know that, if we had met before we had both become Christians, we probably wouldn't have liked each other or had much in common. God brought us both to salvation in Christ and then spent some years teaching us about godly living and relationships before introducing us to each other.

It has made me a firm believer that God's best is indeed worth the wait.