ear Sale. This is a sale that's held either the Saturday before or after Thanksgiving. This year, obviously, it was before. A group of women get together and sell items that they have collected throughout the year. Generally they fix up chairs, grow plants, or make food items (Irish cream, pancake mix, dog biscuits are some examples) and then sell everything in the Scout House, which is about a block down from me. The sale starts at 8:00. Even 10 minutes early, we weren't the first ones in line. By the time the sale opened, there were about 25-30 people in line. That doesn't sound like much until you think that the general population in Gardiner this time of year is supposedly around 800 people.
Then, Allie and I went to wake up Carrie Guiles and the three of us traveled up to Livingston to drop off Ruffers. It was the three of us in Carrie's Element as well as Carrie's dog Eddie. Ruffers was so excited, he decided that sitting on my lap would be a grand way to spend 50 miles. He made a great arm rest. All the better to play my DS. I'm really loving "Henry Hatsword." Why am I writing this post when I could be playing?Oh well. We dropped off Ruffers at Allie's aunt's house and Allie switched over to her aunt's car. The four of us re-grouped at Nova in Bozeman, meeting up with Emily and Mariah. An excellent brunch was enjoyed by all. Then the cars split up. Allie and her aunt were off to Rosauers (grocery store) and the mall, Emily and Mariah were off to the dog park and Carrie and I hit the library, Lowe's and Staples/Target.
While Carrie was going into Staples, I decided to run in to Target to get some of those Solo cups that you can write your name on (the ones that have little blackboard thingys, not the regular cups on which you can use markers). At first I wasn't going to go into a store so Carrie tossed the keys on the dashboard. Walking back, I met up with Carrie, who realized that her keys were, indeed, locked in the car.
We first tried to get Eddie, who was locked in the car, to high-five the locking mechanism. He was too confused to help out so we started to reevaluate our options.
Luckily, the passenger side window was open. Carrie said, "Jessi, look in the topper, what's up there?"
"Well, there's a sleeping pad, sleeping bag... um, a jacket..."
"Sleeping bag? That's my tent! pull that down"
Yes, Carrie managed to open the car through her own ingenuity, saving time and money. This is what happens when you own the first five seasons of MacGuyver.
But the day didn't end there. Carrie and I met up with Em and Mariah at Costco. The two of them were like kids in a candy store. I guess they don't get to buy in bulk too often.Then we headed off to Livingston to visit the dog park. It is just a
track with a big field but, being in Montana, it is absolutely gorgeous. There were probably about eight people there and about 15 dogs. That seems about typical for this area.On the way to the grocery, Allie was making some noises in the back seat. Carrie and I asked what was up and she said that she was having some shooting pains in her chest. Carrie immediately pulled over and we tried to call a "Dial-a-nurse" but couldn't get ahold of one. So we continued on to the grocery. When we met up with Emily, she had the number for the nurse so Allie called. After hearing what was going on, the nurse told Allie to sit down immediately and have someone call 9-1-1. Well. We finished our shopping and started back to Bozeman. Luckily, Carrie has a phone book in her car so we were able to determine that the emergency clinic was closed before we got too far. The next exit took us back to Livingston so we took Allie to the emergency room. Carrie and I settled in for the wait. It was only about 2 hours. I'd say, for an emergency room visit, that was pretty short. It turns out that her pain was caused by an inflamed intercostal region (spelling is probably way off but it's basically the space between your ribs). But the cute doctor was relieved that we had bullied her into coming because, he said, it could have been something much worse. Got home around 9. It was an exciting kick-off to a very full Thanksgiving week.
