We've had an eventful couple of days with cars, family illness and Indiana house stuff. The ball started rolling (for us anyway) when Amy hit a deer with the Aztek leaving her mom's (Marilyn's) place in Yankton on Monday night. Amy and the kids had gone down for the day to hang out while I was at work and were only a few miles on their way back when a deer ran onto the road leaving Amy no time to react. The passenger headlight, front quarter panel, hood and other externals took the brunt of it and Amy turned around and headed back to Marilyn's where they spent the night, all unscathed. We took the car into the shop this morning to have the damage assessed for insurance. Since we've only made three payments on it to date, we'd like it to still look like a new car, so I'm sure we'll pony up the deductible and watch our insurance rates go up.
Marilyn said that she meant to tell Amy to watch for deer as it's mating season and they seem to be everywhere down by their place right now. I think it would have done more good to tell the deer to watch for cars.
Since I was home alone and without a phone, I decided to email my folks in lieu of our usual weekly phone conversation. I told them I hoped that their week had either been uneventful or eventful in good ways. Unfortunately, it was eventful as Dad came down with a case of the shingles. He'd had some minor symptoms for a few days before heading to Fort Dodge to celebrate Christmas with the rest of the Morrison clan on New Year's Eve. When they sat down to dinner, Mom noticed that Dad's face was breaking out. Since Dad's had this before, they knew what they were dealing with.
What they didn't know until Monday was that the particular brand of shingles that Dad has can cause blindness if not treated early. A doctor friend in Sheldon told Dad to see an eye doctor right away and the guy that they got to come in on the holiday was able to determine that it hadn't effected the cornea and gave him some drops and a prescription that he needed to get started on as soon as possible. Unfortunately, with the holiday, there wasn't a single pharmacy open between Sheldon and Spencer (about a 35 mile stretch) and Dad had to wait until the next morning to get his meds. He's probably going to be miserable for a few days, but hopefully the delay won't effect his vision (which is an important thing to a visual artist).
As a nice bookend to the events of the last few days, I was on my way home from work last night and was sitting at a red light when I got hit from behind. I just sat there in disbelief for a few seconds as I muttered, "Okay. Sure. Why not?" I got out of the car and walked around to the back to see that the worst that the collision appeared to do was dent both of our license plates. The lady that hit me was very apologetic and I told her it was no big deal.
On the house front, our friends, Adam and Rhonda Myers, may wind up occupying our house for a few months because their house is falling down around them. They had a home built for them by a community foundation several years ago in inner city Marion where they have a great ministry with youth and families in the neighborhood. It's not uncommon to see a ton of kids at the house for Bible study, homework assistance or just to grab a meal. Unfortunately, this hub of ministry was built on a faulty foundation (the house, not the ministry) and the place is literally falling apart. Every organization, foundation and contractor that was involved in the project has ceased to exist and they have no legal recourse to reclaim any of the value of the house.
The church community has been raising money to help them rebuild, but they have known that the time would come where the house was simply unsafe for them to occupy. Things have gotten progressively worse recently and the time is quickly approaching where they'll need to vacate. Our place is still empty, so we've offered it as a temporary residence until they are able to rebuild. On the plus side, we would be able to provide a place for a great family who we love very much in their time of need. On the downside, it isn't in the same neighborhood and will make their ministry a little more difficult to carry out in the day to day that they are used to.
There is also a rumor that a young couple that we know in Marion may be interested in buying the house this summer, but we've seen too many things fall through to get our hopes up too much. On the positive side, the wife used to be a student of Amy's that took voice at the house, knows the house and is still interested. We'll see what happens.
Here's hoping that our run of bad luck is over and that our inauspicious start to 2007 is not an omen of things to come.
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