Holy moly. Where did the first two and a half months of 2010 go? I know we say this sort of thing all the time–– about every year/ month/ day–– but this is unbelievable.

[Happy belated daylight savings time, by the way. That is, except for you, Arizona. Sorry you missed the fun. Maybe next year? Probably not. But you can email Senator McCain anyway–– I hear he's been talking about "change" a lot lately. Save daylight? Yes. We. Can.]

Where did my March Part A go?

Here’s how my 359 hours (15 days x 24 hours= 360 hours – 1 hour daylight savings= 359 hours) divvy up:

1. Sleep= approx. 101 hours
2. Quality time with friends + fiancé= approx. 41 hours
3. Freelance work search= approx. 35 hours
4. Wedding/ honeymoon planning= approx. 33 hours
5. Apartment/loft/ house hunting= approx. 26 hours
6. Writing= approx. 24 hours
7. Prayer room + Church= approx. 22 hours
8. Personal (reading, praying, etc.)= approx. 18 hours
9. Driving (my car + IHOP shuttles)= approx. 16 hours
10. Eating= approx. 9 hours
11. Stuffing, sealing, stamping wedding invitations= 5 hours 23 mins
12. Shopping (grocery, wedding-related, etc.)= 4 hours 33 mins
13. Talking on the phone= 4 hours 29 mins
14. Meetings= approx. 4 hours
15. Filling out NCAA Tourney brackets= approx. 1 hour
* Who knows?= 16 hours 35 mins

Stuffing, sealing, and stamping wedding invitations took a total of 5 hours and 23 minutes of my time this March.

There you have it. Honestly, I’m not particularly proud of my time usage so far this month. But real life, not the niche fantasy I’ve been living in for the last few years of my life here at IHOP, requires such time. And, so far, I’m not particularly acclimated to non-fantasy life.

This is about the time of year when we realize how poorly we’ve done on our New Year’s resolutions. Though I didn’t have any this year (perhaps to my disadvantage), I’m beginning to feel slight regret and disappointment concerning my year to date. And, my tendency at this point is to think like a daylight-wasting Arizonan (you know, the old ‘maybe next year’ attitude). I’m such an all-or-nothing individual. One stumble–– one accident–– and I’m ready to call it quits. I do this with Bible-reading, praying, and fasting along with writing, exercising, and bedtimes. Is this God’s will?

Absolutely not–– that’s my answer. If I’ve learned anything in my years of tottering after Jesus, I’ve come to understand that He is longsuffering. He is slow to anger. He doesn’t leave me in the dust, as He triumphs on to righteousness, but He is always with me–– never forsaking me.

Thankfully, Jesus is unlike any man I’ve met. His patience is unprecedented.

So, as I continue to lose my faith in my abilities, I’m thinking I’ll give way, more and more, to grace.

One day, in the seemingly distant future, I’ll be like Him. If I love Him, and don’t quit, I win. End of story.

Well, that was a smorgasbord. Take what you’d like from it.

-a time-wasting, daylight-saving, resilient recipient of grace

Postscript I: If you’re a resident of Arizona, I may have gotten a little carried away. Please don’t do anything you’ll regret later–– like forcing me to waste daylight with you, etc.

Postscript II: This post was way (way, way) overdue. My bad. (I didn’t have any time).

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Before we get started here, let me ask: How is the ‘Nine Extraordinary Moments of 2009′ series working for all of you? Let me know. I need love feedback.

7. September; Denver, Colorado.

In early September, Bethany and I drove to Colorado for a wedding. One of Bethany’s friends was getting married and the drive was only eight hours, so we figured it would be worthwhile.

We spent the entire weekend in Colorado. We made a spontaneous decision to attend a Colorado Rockies game the night we arrived. We visited Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park–– the quaint town right outside the park. We stayed with some close family friends of mine and enjoyed Dim Sum with them the next morning. We saw Red Rocks–– one of the most famous amphitheaters in the world. And then the weekend climaxed with the wedding, which was more than enjoyable.

On Monday–– Labor Day–– we set out on our journey home. Before we had driven 10 miles, car problems ensued. When I accelerated to what should have been 40 mph, the car’s engine would rev out of control to almost double the revolutions necessary. So, I exited the highway to get the problem under control.

After a telephone scramble, I found that not a single auto shop was open on Labor Day (Coloradans take the holiday seriously). So, mildly frustrated, we checked into the nearest hotel that didn’t look like a castle–– the Fairfield Inn. In the morning, we’d get the car fixed and get home that evening. (We thought).

At 3 pm the next day, the problem had finally been diagnosed. My output speed sensor–– an intricate, electronic part which senses the speed with which a car’s operator is trying to drive the car–– was faulty. Thus, when I wanted to go 60 mph, my output speed sensor told my car to go 100 mph, which revved my engine out of control. At times, I thought my engine would explode. They told me it would be a day before they’d get the part in. (Liars).

With responsibilities looming, Bethany flew back to Kansas City the following day (Wednesday). I kicked it at the Fairfield (the trendiest of Thornton kick it there too, so, needless to say, I fit in quite well). Antsy and bored, I decided to venture out later that afternoon.

And, thanks to the almighty Google (and sites like WhereTheLocalsEat, LonelyPlanet, and Yelp!), I made out pretty well…

A few of my jaunts included:

-the 1.25-mile long 16th Street Mall
-the Market–– a sweet coffee shop/ bistro/ grocery store hybrid
-St. Mark’s coffeehouse–– a grungy, gargoyle-filled coffee shop that didn’t have the best lattes. Nor atmosphere. Nor service (they had trouble getting out of the Labor Day spirit). But it had a chair with a 10-foot back. Literally.
-a second Rockies game (an enjoyable afternoon game vs. the Diamondbacks. I sat in the outfield for $5).
-The Gap (by this time, I needed some new underwear… and, truthfully, have you ever had too much underwear?)

Also, I spent significant amounts of time at a nearby Starbucks.

By Thursday, I was beginning to lose heart with the situation. I questioned if I’d ever have a working car. I was wrong. I got my fixed car back. At 6 pm. And I arrived in Kansas City at 3:30 am. But I arrived nonetheless.

If you weren’t entertained by this [extra]ordinary moment, perhaps yesterday’s post will whet your appetite for entertainment.

Two moments left. Coming soon.

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(To those of you who stopped by yesterday and found a faulty site: my apologies. I made a blunder).

6. August; Oakland, California.

(Precursor: none of the below details are embellished in the least).

One beautiful Sunday afternoon in Oakland, I was driving to John Madden’s house (actually, I was driving to his next door neighbor’s house but, for all intensive purposes…). I was driving my future mother-in-law’s car, enjoying a few moments to myself toward the end of a ministry trip I was helping to lead.

The highway was mostly vacant of cars and everything seemed to be moving at a pleasant pace. Then, the water bottle between my legs overextended its welcome. And things went downhill from there.

I chose to relocate the bottle to a more fitting place–– the vehicle’s drink holder. However, the space was taken… by a paper Dixie cup which was filled to only one-fifth of its capacity. Though the cup only held water, I couldn’t discard the substance onto the floor of the vehicle–– it was my future mother-in-law’s. So, in an innocent act of riddance, I tossed the water–– not the cup–– out the window.

Approximately 60 seconds later, as I went to exit I-580, I glanced left to see a swerving red Ford Explorer. The operator of the vehicle was as red as the vehicle he was operating. Veins popping, spit flying–– the man was filled with rage. Though he appeared to be screaming at the top of his lungs, I was unable to hear what he was saying. All I could extract from his furious monologue was by means of lipreading. And none of my extractions are appropriate for your eyes to read.

Confused and alarmed, I began to cycle through my last few moments on the road. Did I cut him off? Perhaps I failed to use my blinker? Or he hated Arizona and was upset at me for driving a car with Arizona plates?

None of the above. Still raging 20 seconds later, the man picked up a water bottle which was identical to mine and began to point at it aggressively. Suddenly, after 20 seconds of utter confusion, the lights went on. My few ounces of water hit the red Explorer. So, just to put him at rest, I picked up my water bottle, pointed at it, nodded my head, and said, “Yes, it was water.” However, this brought an opposite effect than what I had anticipated.

Now, with freshly-stimulated anger, the man–– who, at this point, I realized was a soldier–– continued to yell, shaking his head, fists, and water bottle erratically. He lifted his sunglasses to look me in the eye and pointed his finger at me, dispensing expletives from his mouth liberally.

By now, I had become nervous. But the exit ramp just ahead seemed to be my tangible hope in the moment. So, on I drove, employing a certain kind of tunnel vision.

Now on the exit ramp, I sighed with relief and reached for the odious water bottle which again sat between my legs–– my hands shaking with nerves. I relaxed too soon, however. Just feet behind the silver Toyota Corolla I drove was a red Ford Explorer with a military man at the wheel. I nearly went into cardiac arrest.

For a moment, being the extreme optimist that I am, I thought that I was being followed, perhaps, by coincidence. (Perhaps the soldier was paying a visit to John Madden).

I watched the man like a hawk as I drove toward my destination. He made each turn I made, still following closely behind. Extremely closely.

When I came to a halt at the neighborhood’s entry, the red Explorer stopped just behind me. I turned to the neighborhood’s gate attendant and said, shakily, “Klosterman. And the man behind me is crazy. Please don’t let him in. I think I cut him off and he’s been tailgating me for miles and––”

I was cut off. “WHAT THE *#$@?!?!” The raging soldier now stood at my door, between me and the gate attendant.

He continued, “WHAT THE *#$@ WAS THAT ABOUT?”

Appearing to be composed, I responded, “Sir, it was water. I tossed water out the window.”

“Oh yeah? And HOW THE *#$@ DO I KNOW THAT?!?! Huh?!?!” The soldier now stood with his arms crossed and foot tapping.

“Sir, I took water from this cup and threw it out the window so I could use my drink holder.”

“BULL $#*@! That looked an awful lot like hydrochloric acid, son! How do I know that wasn’t acid?”

I exhaled deeply and responded, “Because, sir, I don’t drive down the road and throw hydrochloric acid out the window. I just––”

“Let me see that cup. Give me that cup!” he interjected.

Graciously, I handed him the cup.

He held it up to his nose, inhaled, and grunted.

“Are you familiar with California driving laws, young man?”

“No, I––”

“California driving law number 109 states that ANYTHING which is ejected from a vehicle is considered a projectile. Ok?”

“I–– I’m sorry. I just wanted to use the drink holder. I–– I’m really sorry. It was just water.”

“This is the sort of thing that starts a fight, young man,” he said, in a very matter of fact manner. “If I weren’t under oath,” he continued, raising his voice, “we would be in a fight right now. In a bloody fight!”

“_______,” I responded.

“You’re lucky, young man. If this happened to anyone else, you could very well have been beaten up by now.”

“Okay,” I said, with as much defiance as I could muster up.

“How old are you?”

“21. I’m 21.”

“21? You’ve got a lot to learn, young man.”

Mouth open, I let out a faint sigh.

Soldier Koo (his name was displayed on his uniform) then turned to the gate attendant and said, “Sir, thank you for standing by for all of this,” and marched off. The gate attendant, in shock, looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and opened the gate.

For over an hour, I couldn’t believe the situation that just took place.

And, after processing it all, I had one regret: I wish I would have plowed through the gate and into John Madden’s driveway for the confrontation, only to hear his color commentary on the action.

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5. April; Kansas City, Missouri.

The above text messaging conversation is a specimen of my relationship, or lack thereof, with my fiancé just nine months ago. At the time, I was tirelessly striving to spend as much time as possible with her, despite her failure to reciprocate the effort. One of my chief tactics was to find a mutual friend who would join the two of us for coffee. The occasion was always intimate, but not too intimate.

On April 22, 2009, the day I had the above conversation via text message, Bethany and I were planning to go get coffee with our friend Deyvid Lam (we’ve now learned how to properly spell his name, as you can see). I had organized the afternoon get-together. However, when Deyvid went M.I.A. things went downhill.

Bethany texted me to confirm the day’s plans which, at the moment, were unconfirmed. I didn’t foresee the lack of decidedness in our plans as an issue when I received Bethany’s text message. With Deyvid’s presence yet assured, I was more than open to a one-on-one with the girl I had liked and sought after for months. In fact, I even considered initiating a D.T.R. conversation that day. Bethany foresaw things differently.

“I’m not hugely down to go if it’s just us,” she wrote, heartlessly. The message was a clear indicator of her lack of interest in sharing one-on-one time with me. Never before had Bethany shut me down so explicitly. This was a brazen act. She knew what she was doing and she wasn’t going to second guess herself.

As harmless and ordinary as the above text messaging conversation may seem, in the moment it proved to be quite pivotal. After Bethany made her intentions clear, it was up to me to decide whether or not I should persevere in my pursuit of her–– the pursuit I had conducted for the previous few months. Bethany’s behavior made her attitude toward the prospect of us plain–– she wasn’t interested. Was it time to quit? I pondered this question for no more than an afternoon (an afternoon spent golfing on an unkempt golf course with my shirt off to relieve the frustration).

The next day I was back at it. Text messages, coffee-date planning and all. I reciprocated her clear intentions with some of my own. I refused to lose.

Though I was prepared to fight for her well into 2010, within a month Bethany and I were an item. And soon, a few days shy of a year since the dreadful text messaging conversation, we’ll be getting married. It’s funny how quickly tables can turn. Jesus is a good leader.

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Being the storyteller that I am, lately I’ve been noticing my frequent references to events that happened in 2009. Some were outrageous. Some were chaotic. Some were incredible. Some were unfortunate.

So, without further ado, here are my two January moments from my list of nine extra-ordinary moments of 2009:

1. January; Duluth, Georgia.

I spent the first twenty days of last year assisting my family in their various recoveries. My mom had major surgery in December which required significant amounts of rest. This made it difficult for her to care for my younger sister, who had an appendicitis just two weeks later. With these situations lingering, I resided in Georgia for the month of January.

Just as the health chaos was appearing to expire, something bizarre–– yea, spectacular–– occurred. [Precursor: the following text isn’t meant to provide entertainment through misusing an unfortunate situation. Instead, I’m looking at the bright, humorous side of a bizarre situation].

On January 20, my grandfather, a widowed 82-year-old resident of western North Carolina, left his rural home for the nearest Sam’s Club. In the passenger seat rode my 54-year-old mentally-handicapped aunt. Their destination was located an hour and a half away in northeastern Georgia. Due to a change of location, my grandfather accidentally drove an hour past the Sam’s Club all the way into the mayhem of Atlanta roadways. Overwhelmed with eight lanes of highway pavement–– all occupied by vehicles which were being operated by some of the most erratic drivers in the country–– he pulled off I-85 and into the nearest gas station. [If you’re unfamiliar with Atlanta driving, just check any tourist guide for information about navigating the chaos. And we’ve long been infamous for our bad driving pandemic. In 1949, Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell was killed in an Atlanta traffic accident].

At the gas station, Grandpa exited his car to go ask the gas station attendant for directions. However, when he stepped out of the car, he tripped on the curb and fell to the ground, breaking his hip. The news got to us a couple of hours later, after my grandpa had been admitted to Gwinnett Medical. And our response to the news was one of shock. [Who expects their out-of-state grandfather to break his hip at an Atlanta gas station?]

The ten days that followed included many trips to and from my grandfather’s hospital, five long nights spent in a hospital recliner, lots of reading (from the Bible, The Story of a Soul, and Dubay’s The Evidential Power of Beauty), a dozen hospital cafeteria meals, constant fidgeting on my iPhone, acting as a liaison for my drugged, hurting (and, at times, unreasonable) grandfather and the nurses he was frustrating, experiences with someone else’s loose bowels, and a few early morning Chick-Fil-A breakfasts following nights of interrupted, uncomfortable, limited sleep.

It’s been almost a year since this incident and my grandpa is still recovering. The moment was extraordinary indeed.

2. January; Mt. Vernon, Illinois.

Following my grandfather’s unfortunate trip to Sam’s Club, and the events that followed, I was finally headed back to Kansas City on January 31. I would be moving into a new apartment and I was hauling furniture from Georgia to furnish it. So, in one of the peak moments of my adulthood, I set out for a solo drive from Atlanta to Kansas City in a fully-packed ten-foot U-Haul which had nothing but an AM/FM radio for entertainment.

Thanks to a refreshing stop in Nashville, where I hung out with the legendary Annie Downs and Jason Stoltzfus, I was cruising right along, anticipating a 2 AM arrival in Kansas City. Yet, as I drove through the whitewashed middle-of-nowhere, Illinois (a.k.a. Mt. Vernon), I heard commotion behind me. At first, I assumed it to be a piece of furniture falling. Seconds later, though, the truth was revealed: I had blown my rear driver-side tire. I pulled over and laughed in disbelief. I then dialed up the U-Haul emergency line. This is when the moment became extra-ordinary.

Immediately, the female voice on the other line assured me that someone would be there to replace the blown tire within an hour. I was relieved, as I was beginning to run out of gas–– which I needed to heat the vehicle against the frigid temperatures outside.

Three and a half hours later, I saw the bright lights of the tow truck directly behind my ten-foot U-Haul. I greeted the expletive-dispensing truck driver with a handshake; his wife and toddler daughter with a wave. We [he] then loaded the U-Haul onto the truck, using the ‘f-bomb’ as much as the tow pulley.

In the truck cab, I told the young family a little about myself. The conversation went something like this:

“I’m from Atlanta,” I said, “And I’m headed back to Kansas City, where I’m a part of a large missions organization.”

“Atlanta…” the man responded, “There’s a big college or something there, right?”

“Uh, yeah. One or two. It’s a cool city.”

“It’s f****** cold here, too. Look at this s***** weather. I can’t f****** believe it.”

“Yeah.” [Silence and blushing].

The towers then dropped me [and my ten-foot U-Haul] off at a Holiday Inn Express where I’d [we’d] stay the night.

U-Haul paid for my stay and I was back on the road to Kansas City the next morning. Thankfully, no further complication ensued. It’s nice when fiascos are redeemed as stories.

February’s extraordinary moment will follow tomorrow.

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