He Came In Through the Bathroom Window

May 30 – This last weekend after church, we didn’t stop to chat with our friends as we usually do because we could tell by the dark clouds on the horizon that we would be fortunate to get home before a big storm arrived. “Want to go the shorter way?” I asked Dale as we got into the car. “Why not?” he questioned. “Things don’t look too bad yet.”

As we drove down the hill from the church, we could see lots of gray clouds. Then ahead of us we began to see very strange looking clouds! At the bottom was a lovely green colored stratus cloud right in front of us, with some ominous dark, no, very black clouds above the green, moving slowly away from us. “Wish I had my camera,” I said. “Wonder if we will get home before the sky changes completely and the rains arrive! I sure don’t like the looks of those clouds. Can you remember ever having seen a long straight green one before? I never saw one!” Dale fully agreed. “Me neither,” he said, but that green is so unusual and pretty!”

Unfortunately, the winds really picked up, and the clouds changed both color and movement. The line of green disappeared giving way to very black, with little cloudlets appearing below the cloud line. A couple miles from home, we ran into some small hail on the windshield, and it was hard to see the road in front, even with the wipers going full blast. Finally, we reached our driveway, but it was so hard to see that I thought I must be running over the lawn!

[ Outside the garage ]

When we reached the garage door, Dale pushed the button to open it so we could be shielded from the storm. But, nothing happened. Nothing when I tried to push either. So, now what should we do? With the rains pelting everything in sight, and not being able to see anything no matter how close it was to us, we just decided to sit (not patiently) and wait till the storm blew over—if it ever would! After trying the button for the door opener several more times, we just decided to “sit it out!” But we were not happy about the situation!

Finally, after half an hour of sitting and wishing, praying for a solution, the storm lessened, and Dale announced that he would try to open the back door, one we never use because the double lock is much too difficult to open. After struggling for about ten minutes, and getting soaked, Dale came back to the car and remarked, “Now you know why I told you we need another door. That lock has never worked as it should. I can’t even remember which of these keys fit.”

[ The A/C and the window ]

After we had sat for another half hour or so, I asked Dale, “Do you think we could get in through the bathroom window? I remember closing it down to just a couple inches in case it rained while we were gone.” “I don’t know what to do,” he answered. Finally, after he had decided to try, he left the car, walked around to the side of the house, and climbed up onto the air conditioner. That, for him right now, was not easy because his legs are stiff and sore.

[ Through the opening! ]

About ten minutes later, I decided to check to see how the project was going. I was shocked to see Dale astride the air conditioner, with his arms toward the window, and his legs pointing back under him. He just could not get those legs to work, so I tried to push them all the way back so he could kneel on the air conditioner and have his legs free. All of my pushing didn’t help, so when he said he was going to get the metal chair off the front porch to use that to climb, I went out to get the chair while he stood and rested those poor legs! When the chair was in place, he climbed up on it, and then pulled himself almost through the open window.

[ An open door ]

With a little help from me pushing on his legs, he finally slid into the room, landing on his outstretched arms, then pulled himself up and went out to the garage to open the door so I could drive the car in. Nice plan, but it didn’t work – the electricity was out! No matter how many times he tried to get that door to behave it wouldn’t cooperate. He told me to push the button over and over but still nothing. Finally, after he had tried every way to get that door to follow directions, he pulled on the rope, and all was well. The door finally was open!

At last – we could eat our lunch, only three hours after we left the church! Not as tasty as I like to have our meals either since we couldn’t warm anything in the oven or on the stove or in the microwave! During the preparation, I thought about how sad it would be if we never had any heat to warm up foods. In times like this, I thank the Lord for taking care of us in so many ways! As usual, after dinner, we lay back in our big chairs, and rested, maybe even falling asleep for a bit. Why not? We couldn’t do much else since we still had no electricity in the house.

When the lights finally came on again, we wondered what had happened to the toaster to keep it from toasting the good whole wheat bread that we enjoy. Finally, after checking each one of the six receptacles, and finding that nothing worked, Dale went down to the basement to check on the fuse box. What did he find? Several of the receptacles were not working as they had not been checked out! With a couple clicks from Dale, we soon had a toaster that worked… We had already planned that if it wouldn’t, we were going to have to buy another one. That wouldn’t have made me happy because it was a gift from Richard, a nephew of ours back in Pennsylvania.

When Dale had time to change his muddy and/or dusty clothes, he wasn’t too happy to find that his church pants and coat were not in good shape after all his efforts. “Could you could wash these in the washer, please? I know they could never be cleaned up otherwise,” he said.

I didn’t promise anything because I didn’t want to think of his good suit being dumped into the washer, then moving around and around before being rinsed and ready for the dryer! Nor did I think it would be good for a suit to spin around in the dryer! If it were an old pair of jeans, then I wouldn’t care as I wash several pairs of those every week. But this was a suit that he wears to church! So what did I do? Down in the basement under bright lights, I used a soft scrub brush and took off all of the mud stains one by one. Dale pressed the coat and pants and found that with a little extra work with the brush, all was well! Now, I was really pleased with that!

In the evening, the sky was a soft blue with lovely pink/orange clouds painting a beautiful picture. Unfortunately, we never got a picture of the wide green layers in the sky earlier in the day, but we surely will not forget that unusual sight. Something to remember for many years.

Now to finish this post, I wanted you to know how much Dale tries to please me every day, doing what I ask him to do (within reason) but when he complied with my wish this morning, I just about fainted. Since I couldn’t get any pics yesterday to send along with this blog, I asked him if he would climb up on the chair as he did yesterday and pull himself up and through the bathroom window AGAIN! Yes, he would do that, but only once – and so we now have some pictures! – CHRIS