Sunday, January 18, 1998...A Brat in the Doctor's Office

Lydia, who just came home from school, bringing the mail in with her, informed me, “We got peanuts in the mail!”

“We did?” I inquired, surprised.

“Yup!” replied she, and gleefully flapped an envelope down in front of me on my sewing cabinet.

I looked blankly at the letter, then back at Lydia.

She giggled. “Peanuts!” she repeated, pointing at the address sticker. “Snoopy!” And she laughed, well satisfied with herself for fooling me like that.

I pinned her sash onto my sewing chair in retaliation.

Thursday afternoon we washed our Suburban. Upon reading that Larry's aunt in Raton, NM, had washed her pickup recently, Caleb laughed.

“We’re doing all the same things!” he exclaimed. “I guess that’s because we’re related.” He reconsidered. “Or maybe it’s just because we’re both muddy.”

Often after getting mail from his aunt, Larry reminisces about his life before he moved here. His family lived in Trinidad, Colorado, just over Raton Pass from the city of Raton. When he was about 12 years old, he had a job milking goats. In addition to the goats, there were a few cows to milk and feed, and he also took care of some chickens. He rode his bike to the ranch and back every morning before school, and it was a several-mile journey over a number of steep hills.

A couple of weeks ago when we were in the doctor’s office, there was a horrendous little brat racing around like a total maniac, stopping only long enough to make angry, belligerent faces at Lydia and Caleb, who had brought along Caleb’s cute little blue suitcase full of cars and trucks and tractors and horses, and such like. The kid wanted them, of course, and he was getting more peeved by the minute that they wouldn’t give them to him. He marched over to a small table, snatched up a large Gideon’s Bible, and smacked it, hard, into the lap of an elegant young gentleman seated near us who’d been doing his paperwork, handsome black leather briefcase open on the chair beside him. His head jerked up, and he looked around, amazed.

“Thank you,” he said in a refined, well-modulated tone. He gazed across the aisle at Hannah, who was crocheting. “I need all the help I can get,” he told her, turning a few pages in the Bible.
Hannah grinned, and the man laughed.

He put the book back onto the table and went on with his writing.

The brat soon noticed. Scowling irately, he picked up a big, hard-cover ‘Psalms; New Testament’ and slapped it into the man’s hands. The man gave up on his bookwork, put it back into his briefcase, and just went ahead and read the book.

Hester began her biggest crocheting project to date: a scarf. Several rows into the design, it was observed that the item was definitely decreasing at the top.

Hester sighed. ”How do you like that?” she queried. “It turned into a doll apron, entirely without my permission!”

So saying, she quickly crocheted a couple lengths of chains onto each top corner, tied it on the nearest doll, and went and stuck her nose in a book (her favorite place to be, anyway).

Dorcas decided to try her hand at small doll dresses, having seen Hannah make so many cute ones. She just finished a ruffly little mint green dress and bonnet, and it turned out dandy. She’s thoroughly pleased with herself. The girls are making these little creations without any patterns at all; I don’t know how they get them to fit the intended doll so perfectly!

Tuesday Bobby brought Hannah a large, framed set of his graduation pictures. On the left in an oval-shaped cutout in the matte, is an 8x10, and just to the right and overlapping the big picture are four overlapping 3x5s.

Hannah has spent a couple of enjoyable evenings at Bobby's house, where she gets many requests to play accompaniment on the piano while the Wright boys (they call themselves the ‘Wright Brothers’) play their numerous instruments (saxophone, trumpet, violin, trombone) and the parents, John and Bethany, along with ten-year-old Esther, the only daughter, sing.

One afternoon we watched a video of the Christmas program at my mother’s house. She enjoys this, as she is not able to attend the program.

This week has been spent mainly at my sewing machine. I decorated a neat black-with-velvet-trim hat Norma gave me, putting gold mesh and gold smocked trim around the crown, and a black lace pouf edged in gold piping at the back. I like hats; I’m glad it’s still in style to wear them to church. Besides being (sometimes) becoming, or cleverly coordinating with one’s frock, hats can do wonders in concealing the fact that one is having a Bad Hair Day. (Of course, one winds up having a Very Bad Hair Day afterward, regardless of what type of Hair Day one was originally having, since wearing hats causes one to acquire Hat Hair.)

Anyway, said hat turned out terribly gorgeous, but there’s a problem: it’s huge. But perhaps if I put enough curls in my hair, and shellac it good and proper with Extra Firm-Hold hairspray, it won’t descend down over my ears and rest its neatly turned-up brim on my nose.

Thursday I was dying for a cinnamon roll, so I got in gear and made some. And then I discovered a glitch in my new oven: you can’t set the temperature below 170°. And 170° would, without question, kill the yeast. So I had to leave the rolls on the counter to rise. I used to put bread or rolls into my old oven, set it on 85°-90°, and find the dough risen just the right amount in about 1 ½ hours. Computers!--the bane of independence. (The oven’s key pad is computerized.)

The cinnamon rolls were finally done at 10:45 p.m., after most of the children had gone to bed. Bother.

Larry and Keith left for Guthrie, Oklahoma, early Friday morning, arriving in the middle of the afternoon. They brought home an entire front end for a pickup, a forklift, and two wrecked pickups. Yes, the slant trailer was full.

And guess what they towed this load with? A smallish three-quarter-ton Chevy extended-cab pickup. It got just over five miles to the gallon, and Larry said that it gave him the nasty feeling it was trying to squirm out from under that goose-neck trailer every time he went over a bridge or a bump, swerving and swaying and jouncing lawlessly about. So he didn’t make very good time, and it didn’t handle well enough at all for Keith to drive. Finally, at about 1 a.m., Larry was too tired to drive any farther, so they got a motel in Salina, Kansas, and came on home Saturday morning.

My mother has an appointment February 5th to have her top teeth removed and false ones put in. She’s rather dreading it; but her teeth are really bothering her, and she can hardly eat. She’s lost weight, which she can scarcely afford to do, and last week she had an abscessed tooth which required a prescription of antibiotics. She’s been eating not much other than baby food, drinking Ensure, and anything that doesn’t require chewing. We’re worried about her; having teeth pulled is traumatic, and she is so frail.

Friday evening Bobby took Hannah and Dorcas to the Sirloin Buffet, after which they went to his house and watched some very old movies which have recently been put on video tape. The movies begin with his grandparents' wedding, over 57 years ago. There were movies of their children as babies, a few other weddings from long ago, and--most interesting to the girls--pictures of me when I was a baby.

Friday and Saturday we made excursions to the Goodwill and the Salvation Army, where we happened upon some extra-good sales: the Goodwill had everything 15% off, which, when added to the coupons we had for four free sweaters, shirts, or blouses, made quite a savings; and the Salvation Army was selling all blouses and shirts for 20¢ each! Boy, oh boy, you should’ve seen us snatching and grabbing stuff right and left, heaping and piling our cart. We got somewhere around 30 brand-new shirts, most of which I will save for presents. Some that were slightly used we kept for the men and boys of the house.

We got some sweaters, blouses, and skirts for Hannah, Dorcas, and I, too. Hester found the most adorable blue and white furry teddy bear slippers for herself and Lydia, and some red and white ones for Caleb; and she got a cute little vinyl book for Victoria, who was well pleased. Dorcas got a black skirt and a beautiful black sweater with pink and fuchsia flowers embroidered on it--a $40 sweater, free. We found some shoes for Hannah for Easter for $2, and they still had the original price tag on them--$15.

Teddy found the book, ‘Brighty of the Grand Canyon’, for 25¢. We were going to give it to Joseph for his birthday, but we’d no sooner arrived home than I absent-mindedly handed it to him, much to his delight.

And now it is long past bedtime, and I will definitely be drinking coffee with caffeine tomorrow.