Sunday, March 22, 1998 - Garden of the Gods, and Home Again

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When we arrived home, we had oodles and caboodles of messages on our answering machine. Three were from a neighbor, normally a nice man with whom we’ve been friends for over 25 years. But in the last few years, he’s begun drinking more and more, and he’s practically an alcoholic now. Not quite a month ago, he bought a pickup from us. Just before we left for New Mexico last week, we sent the title over to his house with one of the children, inadvertently leaving a signature off of one line. Well, he thought that the last day he could get his pickup licensed without paying an extra $25 was Monday, the 16^th; and, when he couldn’t get us on the phone, he became more and more agitated. His last message was downright nasty--and somewhat slurred, I might add. But the following morning when he talked to my mother, he must’ve been in his right mind again, because he was just as nice as ever.

As it turned out, there was no need for him to get all hot and bothered; he had until Friday to get his truck licensed. So everything turned out all right, and we’re still on good terms with our neighbors. A few months ago, Hannah heard the man’s wife telling one of her friends, “As he gets more alcoholic, his mother treats me worse.”

Some people are suffering things in their lives of which we would never guess, aren’t they? We redoubled our efforts to be friendly to them, after hearing that.

Early one morning last week the man called for Larry to help him: he was stuck somewhere out in the country, and he’d revved his pickup so hard, the fan belt had flown off, causing the engine to heat up, and eventually blowing apart the air filter. (This is understandable, if you’d ever heard him starting his vehicles on cold mornings. He arouses the entire neighborhood by revving the engines to a high-pitched scream, then holding it there awhile, and next roaring it up and down, up and down, sounding remarkably similar to the tornado sirens. Poor vehicle!) Anyway, Larry pulled his pickup out of the mire, then put a new fan belt and air filter on it, all without charging him anything. So he shouldn’t have been so bent out of shape over that license, should he? Oh, well; that’s the way it goes, when one runs a business in which one has customers of the Homo sapiens variety (some of them are such saps).

I’ve finished Hannah’s pastel-eyelet white dress, and I was relieved to see it fits her perfectly--I had to alter the pattern considerably. Victoria’s dress is now done, too. It didn’t cost one red cent; it was made from leftover scraps I unearthed in my material closet. The skirt is a very full pale pink taffeta with flocked dotted Swiss, and a wide ruffle of lace at the bottom; the bodice is shiny white silk jacquard covered with white chiffon, and the sleeves and sash are unlined chiffon. Now I am about two-thirds done with Lydia’s dress; it’s a combination of coordinating calicos, lavender, green, and pink, with lots of ruffles, a double collar, and a double skirt. After that, I have one more dress to make for Victoria, pants to hem for Caleb, alterations to make on three dresses, and half a dozen flowered headpieces to make. And Dorcas and Joseph still need new Easter shoes. Stop the clock!! I’m running out of time!!

Last night Larry cut the three older boys’ hair. That done, he removed Joseph’s stitches. It looks very good, and I think the scar will soon fade away, and nobody will ever notice it.

A few days ago, I was counting all the animals we’d seen en route to Albuquerque; but I just knew there was one more, and I’ve finally remembered: it was that wild boar. I saw it Saturday night as we were driving north of Albuquerque. It was in the median, and it was eating something. It turned its head and looked at me, and sure enough--it had a funny little pig snout and lopped-over ears, and it was almost black. At least, that’s the best description I could get as we went flying past in the dark. Does it sound right? My sister said it was probably an escaped farmer’s pig. She was kidding me, of course.

It sure was pretty going up over Raton Pass. It had snowed, a wet, clingy snow that was stuck in clumps all over the firs and red sumac. My pictures don’t do it justice; too dark. I needed to be standing on the mountainside, rather than whizzing along on the interstate, with my camera on a tripod, and opening up aperture and slowing down shutter speed.

We traveled to Colorado Springs, where we got a room for the boys (except Caleb) and a double-room suite for the rest of us at the Super 8 Motel. We walked to the door of the suite, stuck the key in the lock, swung the door open, --

And stood and stared in astonishment at an apartment with a living room, dining room, and kitchen bigger than those in our house. There was a pull-down bed between kitchen and living room, and one of the couches made into a bed, too. So there really was no need to have another room for the boys, at all!

I went back to the front desk to tell the lady, and to get a few more blankets and pillows. At that point, the friendly lady behind the desk suddenly underwent a metamorphosis, and began making like the money we’d given for the other room had gone straight into her pocket, and now I was trying to steal it right back out!

“We don’t have more pillows,” she said snootily.

But the place was four stories high, with over 400 rooms!

I smiled politely. “That’s okay, then; we have our own pillows. Two more blankets will be fine.”

She scuffled her feet back and forth. “Well!” she huffed, “I’ll have to charge you more for that suite, if you put more people in it!” She glared at me. “I’ll charge you exactly the price of that other room!!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Never mind, then,” and I walked off.

My, my. Anyway, at least, by keeping the room, we had an extra bathroom. Bother! Why didn’t we look at that suite first, before getting the other room?!

During the night, Lydia had the flu; but by the next day she was well enough to travel, although still under the weather, poor little girl.

We went to the Garden of the Gods and climbed around on the rocks. I took pictures of several of our own Herculeses (is that the proper plural form of Hercules?) (or is it ‘Herculi?)--Joseph, Keith, and Teddy, pretending to hold the Balanced Rock up.

In one picture, Keith was acting like he was going to jump on me from a big rock above the Suburban. I found Teddy, Hester, Joseph, and Caleb hiding from me in some shallow caves. Larry crept up behind and. . .

ROOOOAAAARRRRRRRRRED!!!--which brought them skedaddling out in a hurry.

Victoria, who’d been in the Suburban, awoke then. She gazed around sleepily, then suddenly looked up and spotted me on the rock high above the Suburban. “Mama!!” she screeched, pointing and laughing.

After using up several rolls of film, I finally noticed the sign: No Climbing On The Rocks. Oops.

But there were at least a dozen other people, doing just that. Oh, well; we didn’t unbalance Balanced Rock, and nobody sailed off on Shiprock, neither. We left ’er all in one piece, that we did.

Traveling north from Colorado Springs, we had our air conditioner on, and scores of people were dashing around in Bermudas and tank tops; but by the time we got to Denver, we could see the snow clouds billowing up over the mountains. We went to Lincoln Auto, but didn’t buy anything; the jetski one of our customers wanted had already been sold, and we didn’t see anything else we couldn’t live without.

It got windier and colder all the way home. But the freezing rain predicted from North Platte all the way home wasn’t as bad as they’d cracked it up to be. We slowed down, anyway, just in case. The day after we got home, somebody had an accident on the ice near Grand Island and was killed. We arrived home at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.

That night, Hannah told Bobby about her terrible mishap in the Super 8 Motel: she’d flushed her amethyst ring down the loo, ker-SPLOOSH. That was no dime-store quality ring, either. Yes, she was in tears over the misfortune.

Well, guess what Hannah came home with Friday night? That’s right; a new amethyst ring, just like the old. In fact, it’s even sparklier; the cut must be superior. So she was in tears all over again.

Bobby smiled at her. “Now, stay away from the plumbing!”

Bobby is a kind-hearted, generous boy.

Thursday afternoon, Victoria awoke from her nap with a temperature of 103.4°. She probably caught whatever it was Lydia had. I quickly gave her a bath, cooling it gradually down to lukewarm; when I got her out and re-dressed her, her temperature had dropped considerably. I gave her infant’s Tylenol, too. She felt better right away, but even tonight she didn’t quite seem up to par. Hester and Lydia didn’t feel good tonight, either; and Joseph was sick this morning.

Keith bought himself a dremel, and has used it, along with all the other woodworking tools, to make several pretty oval picture frames. His skills are improving; each project is a little better than the last.

According to the tag that came with Lydia’s little bean-bag dog, Rumply Sharpei, he had a birthday last week. Lydia was greatly concerned over the event, wondering where a person would buy puppy presents, and such like. I found myself unwittingly promising to make that stuffed pup not one article, but two. And just when I have so many other things of importance to do!!

Oh, well. When Lydia came home from school and discovered the items, she was so delighted, I decided then and there that those things that are extremely important to my child had better be extremely important to me, too, for then will my little girl know I really love her.

She helped me pick out material from the fabric closet for a bone (brown burlap) and a ball (red fur). Then, while she was at school, I cut them out and sewed them together, getting the wise idea of putting a few beans into a small lid and inserting it into the toys along with the stuffing, so that the playthings rattled. That done, I wrapped them with birthday paper, stuck two bows on the package, and made a cute name tag with a teddy bear on it which said, “To Rumply Sharpei.”

When Lydia found it, she was so excited, she bounced. She bounced the whole while she unwrapped the parcel. And when she pulled the bone and the ball out, she bounced some more, which made them rattle, to her surprise, pleasing her no end.

And, for the icing on the cake, I’d found that there was just exactly the right amount of red fur left to make Lydia a skirt. Oh, wasn’t she happy! She’s got it all laid out, along with a matching sweater in bright primary colors, to wear to school tomorrow.

Yes, it was worth the time and effort.

Friday night Dorcas went with the girls in her class to some cousins' farm--the cousins who just had the little baby boy--for supper. There are four girls in her class, and only one is not related to her, and that one is related to both of the others! Second cousins, they are. Or maybe they are first cousins twice removed. Hmmmm. (Well, two are first cousins.)

One of Dorcas’ friends, the one who is not related, gave Hester and Lydia a big bag of pink clay she’d made. They’ve been busy making flowers with it and with the blue-green clay Lydia made a couple of weeks ago.

Larry has been working on the ‘More-Door Ford’. He said that’s a better name for it than ‘Super-Duper Crewcab’, as I've been calling it, because we might get it mixed up with my Super-Duper tacos, and accidentally eat it.

And that’s all, she wrote.