As last week began, we were still plagued with tonsillitis. An aunt of ours informed me that tonsillitis is not contagious…therefore, I am left to deduct that tonsillitis is caught only by osmosis.
I have now finished Dorcas’ bridesmaid dress, and Esther Wright's candlelighter’s dress will be done tomorrow.
One evening at suppertime, I asked Caleb if he wanted an apple. He said in a rather mournful tone, “No, because my teeth are not as good as they used to be.” (He has loose teeth.) So I peeled and sliced the apple for him, and he ate it like a trooper.
As he ate, I told him a story about Hannah, when she was one year old: We were in the grocery store, going through the fresh produce department. Hannah was sitting in the child’s seat in the cart; Keith was sitting in the back of the cart. We stopped to get some fruit. I was putting apples in a bag, while Larry put oranges in another, when Hannah said in quite a juicy tone of voice, “I wike deez appoze!” (apples) I turned quickly to see what she was talking about, and there she sat, with the largest strawberry that I had ever seen in her small hand. She was holding it with the pointed end down, and eating her way right into it from the top--stem, leaves and all. A few small pieces of leaves were stuck to her cheeks, and strawberry juice was dripping down her chin and onto the front of her dress.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “You aren’t supposed to eat things we haven’t paid for!”
Her eyes grew wide, and she quickly held what remained of the strawberry out to me. I put it back into the carton from which it had come and placed it in the cart.
“You can have the rest of it when we get home,” I told her.
She looked up at me, ever so serious with her dark brown eyes. Every now and then, she turned around and looked into the cart at that big strawberry in the top of the carton.
When we arrived home, and I was putting the groceries away, Hannah hovered underfoot, watching my every move. I finally pulled the strawberries from their bag, and she beamed.
“Paid for now?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, they sure are,” I replied, and she waited eagerly while I washed it and removed the last of the stem and one lonesome leaf she’d left behind. She was soon eating it with relish.
After that, when I took her with me to the store, if she spotted an item she wanted, she would point at it and inquire, “Paid for now?”
It was very windy Monday, with gusts up to 40 miles per hour. We were finding all sorts of strange things in our yard. Among them was a picture of “Nick”--a chocolate lab in front of an unfamiliar house--and a child’s report card, which Hannah returned to West Park. We also acquired a peculiar child; I’m not sure where he came from, or who he is, or if he wants to stay here; I just noticed him one evening while we were eating supper.
Caleb's temperature was 99.6° Monday evening at bedtime. His throat was bright red, his head hurt, his throat hurt... and I knew he was getting tonsillitis. The doctor ordered Amoxicillan for him--and also for Joseph and Hester. By Thursday, I had the same thing, and got my own prescription.
Last Saturday was April Fool’s Day, and I was reminded of some things that my friend Martha and I pulled when we were in our early teens.
Once upon a time, since April Fool's Day fell on a Thursday, which is the day the young people clean the church, Martha and I decided to play a few pranks on those friends of ours whom we knew would be coming.
The first order of business was to rig up the hangers in the front coat room, tying them together with thin cord, a certain length in between each hanger, and then tying the end of the cord to the front door, so that when someone opened the front door of the church, the hangers would spring off the rack, one at a time, straight into the face of whomever it was who had entered. Once satisfactorily done with that job, we went to the back door, where we knew a certain boy would be coming in, and we tied a fine fishing line across the walk that went to the door, just about ankle high. We then tied another line across the inside of the door, about chest high. Our job completed, we crossed the street, made ourselves inconspicuous, --and watched.
But things did not go as planned.
The girl whom we'd thought would be first into the front door of the church--wasn't. It was not a girl at all.
It was my mother.
She was unimpressed. Furthermore, she didn't even ask any questions; she just immediately assumed she knew who'd pulled that prank: me.
And…
The boy whom we thought would be entering the back door of the church--didn't. It was not a boy at all.
It was Arthur Frewing, an adult friend of ours, an electrician who had come to work on some faulty wiring inside the church. He nearly went sprawling. He said nary a word, just got out his pocketknife, removed the line, and then cautiously looked for more. Finding that other chest-high line, he methodically removed it before entering the doorway.
And that was that, for that April 1st.
Another time, Martha and I hid Larry's unicycle in the tree in my back yard... and once we even hid it in the baptistry inside the church (but don’t tell anybody; I’m quite sure that was against the rules). I was the immediate suspect in that latter stunt, however, because I had a telltale streak of grease up the back of my leg--and Larry had just greased the sprocket on his unicycle.
The kids clamored for further comparable stories; but other than those, I cannot differentiate between the pranks pulled on April 1st and the pranks pulled any other day of the year.
One night we tried a new entrée for supper: nacho cheese-stuffed bread with salsa. The cuisine got a definite thumbs-up from the Jackson bunch, with countless orders for more, and soon!
Hannah went to the Salvation Army one afternoon. Victoria, who had gone with her, found a big green ball, completely transparent, with three rubbery ‘worms’ in it. It was only $.39, so Hannah got it for her. Victoria was delighted. All the way home, she turned the ball this way and that. The worms fell from one side of the ball to the other … and Victoria said, “Plop. Plop. Plop.”
Looking at some of my pictures this week, we noticed a runaway truck ramp at the side of the road leading down through Flaming Gorge Canyon. I was reminded of a truck I once saw, when traveling with my parents, a truck that had had to take the runaway ramp. It had just happened, and smoke was rolling out from the brakes. We'd been smelling his brakes for the last thirty minutes, and then we started seeing strange skid marks on the curves, and Daddy said very quietly, "If he doesn't get to that runaway ramp soon, he'll be in the canyon."
We were all holding our breath and praying for the poor trucker, whoever he was... You can't imagine our relief when we found him on that sandy ramp, buried beyond the hubs halfway up the hill. We stopped to talk to him, to make sure he was all right. He was just climbing out of his truck, and he was shaking awfully, and could hardly talk. Daddy took his arm and talked to him for a while, and he calmed down. My father had a way about him.
Larry had an appointment with an oral surgeon at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. I went with him, in order to drive him home, since the doctor had to put him to sleep for the procedure. They gave him oxygen and an IV while he had two teeth removed, including one that they had not planned to remove, because it had broken since the surgeon last saw him. The imbedded wisdom tooth was left alone for now. The doctor made an incision under the gum in the front, then cut off the tips of the roots of the four front teeth, which were abscessed. This will supposedly keep them from getting abscessed again.
As we were leaving the office, I asked Larry, “Are you dizzy?”
“No,” he replied, and then, as I wheeled around the corner and headed for home, he clutched at the door handled and yelped, “Yes!”--a commentary on my driving, rather than on his actual state of being.
That afternoon, I cleared out last fall’s dried flowers from the flowerbed under the red maple. Victoria, waiting for me to take her for a walk in her stroller, looked on in surprise and delight as I showed her that all the dried flower heads were now seeds. “They actually come from flowers!” she told Lydia, raising her eyebrows high.
One evening, we splurged on several liters of pop. I, in the living room at my computer desk, asked someone to bring me a glass full--and, of all things, Caleb brought it, glass tilting back and forth precariously as he came. I leaped to my feet and rescued it when he was halfway across the room.
“I just spilled a little splop of it,” he assured me.
Hannah went to Rachel’s house (Rachel is my nephew Kelvin’s wife, and they live just a block down the street) to take her the wedding list Hannah had written, and which Rachel had offered to keep. Hannah knocked at the door a few times; nobody came. So Hannah asked Jason, who was playing in the front yard, “Is your mother here?” Jason is seven.
“Yes,” said Jason, “here, I’ll ring the doorbell for you!”
He came onto the porch, stretched far onto the tips of his toes, standing well back from the door, and, just before he rang it, said, “You stand in front of the door, so she won’t know I rang it!”
He then rang the doorbell--and immediately, without a moment’s pause, he went pounding off down the sidewalk, never looking back.
When Joseph was three, almost twelve years ago, I taught a Young People’s Meeting one night a week. Here is an incident we were remembering the other night: One night, it was time for Young People's Meeting. Everything was in place, except--Larry had gone somewhere with my father, and had not made it back in time. So, there were five little kids sitting on the front pew, unsupervised--except that I was a scant four feet in front of them... But the littlest ones seemed to have the notion that when I was reading and talking to others, I would never notice them.
I was well into the story when, from the front pew--which had been perfectly still and quiet for that first half hour--came a small snicker. It was Teddy. I looked down to discover . . .
Joseph, beside him, sitting there blank-faced, sucking his thumb. (And now, a short but necessary digression from the main plot: Joseph always used to rub the corner of his blanket in his ear while he sucked his thumb; otherwise, the thumb didn't taste quite right.) Anyway, I looked down... and there sat Joseph, blank as a fresh sheet of paper, sucking his thumb; while Teddy, beside him, was all scrunched down, trying his bestest to keep from laughing, face in a crumple----because Joseph was rubbing the end of his blankie in Teddy's ear.
I had to muster every ounce of willpower to put even the smallest frown on my face. Joseph’s eyes got big and he pulled his blanket back into his own territory.
I said, "Joseph," and his eyes got HUGE. (He didn't think I would actually talk to him, while I was in that teaching stance.) Everybody in the audience paid more attention, too, after that.
One time when our dog was young and idiotic (young dogs are prone for that), she was flying down the hall, trying to escape my ire (I can't remember what the original trouble was over), and, since she weighed as much as I did, I was having a hard time dragging her down, even though I had managed to snatch her by the nape of the neck. So I yelled for the children to come help me (by the way, our doggy is nice and docile and loving and well behaved now), and kiddos came running from all four corners of the house. Keith seized her by the scruff of the neck, Teddy wrapped his arms around her middle, Hannah grabbed her two front paws, Dorcas got a grip on her two back paws... and then I happened to look 'round behind us, and there was little Joseph, age four, with a very determined, intent look on his small face, holding onto her tail with both hands. He wasn't pulling on it or anything, he was just holding it.
I had a difficult time keeping from laughing as I gave the dog a much-needed lecture, tapping on her head firmly with one finger as I talked right into her face--and then we all herded her back into the kitchen from whence she had fled to show her her misdeed, whatever it had been. I guarantee you this: she did not ever, ever run from me again.
Another story regarding Aleutia: Did I ever tell you about somebody coming into our house one Halloween night? It fell on a Sunday night that year--1993. There are often quite a number of pranksters who think their bounded duty is to egg, spray paint, or wreck up the church in one way or another. We had come home from church, had a late snack, and tucked the children into bed, when we thought we heard a car idling in the alley behind the church. Larry decided he'd better drive around and see what was happening.
So off he went to patrol the neighborhood. I was in the kitchen, putting dishes into the dishwasher. Caleb was 2 ½ weeks old. The dog was lying at the head of the hallway, where she could see both the front door and the kitchen. The front door opened. I was unconcerned; I thought it was Larry coming in. I glanced toward the hallway, and saw Aleutia lift her head and look with interest toward the door. Huskies are not barking sorts of dogs, and they are not liable to leap up and run to meet someone, either--unless they know you and are delighted you are home again. (I would think of that last part, later.) So, still thinking it was Larry coming in, I went on putting dishes in the dishwasher. I heard a heavy boot or shoe on the floor--and still thought it was Larry. I looked again toward the hallway, wondering what was taking him so long to come in, and again I saw the dog--now lying with her head right up at attention, ears forward, eyes bright. I momentarily thought she was acting a bit odd.
There was a long bit of silence...and then the door went shut very quietly. I was a bit puzzled... what did he do that for? I decided, Well, he must not have been done patrolling out there yet; he just came to get something that was in the front hall--gloves; flashlight; who knows?
I calmly went on doing the dishes. Later, Larry came home, pulled the car into the garage, and walked in the kitchen door, which was where I'd been expecting him to show up, all along. We ate a midnight snack, and I almost totally forgot about the door, the boot, and the dog. Finally remembering, I said, "What did you come home to get?"
He looked at me. "When?"
"Oh, about an hour ago."
“I didn't."
We looked at each other for a while... and I said, "Well, somebody came visiting. But they decided it was inadvisable to tangle with the dog, and so they departed."
Yes, we remembered to lock our doors that night.
Meanwhile, next door: My sister and brother-in-law had been gone, and Susan, my niece, was home alone; so her cousin Kay had come to stay overnight with her. Around the same time somebody came to our house, the girls, who were in the basement, heard the front door of their house open. They heard heavy footprints coming through the living room. They went upstairs to see who was home, thinking it was one of their fathers. But the house was dark; nobody was there.
They discovered the front door was open; and then they thought perhaps they'd just been hearing things, and that they themselves had left the front door open. So, feeling a wee bit spooked, they shut the door and went back down to Susan's bedroom. Once there, they again heard somebody walking through the house, and then they definitely heard the front door shut. They were quite frightened... they KNEW what they'd heard, that time. They stayed in Susan's room and locked the door. Some time later, they mustered enough courage to go upstairs. They went into the office, and then they suddenly noticed: The tube of wrapping paper that had stood directly behind the door had been stepped on by a big foot.
Whoever was in that house had been right behind that door when Susan and Kay walked past--right past that very door, not more than 2 feet away. We never did know who it was who came into our houses.
One time somebody spray painted the most horrible words I ever did see on those sparkly white bricks on the front of the church. Early one morning, the children were getting ready for school, when Keith looked out the front window.
His face suddenly turned pale, his eyes got big, and he said ever so quietly, "Oh, Mama." (gulp) "Oh, Mama"--and then he started crying -- "Look what someone did to our nice church!”
Those words really were horrible. Our friend Delmar Tucker, a mason, came and sandblasted the bricks until the paint was gone. The bricks are porous, and he had to work at it for several hours to get all the writing off.
About noon, a carload of boys came around the corner of 17th and 42nd, laughing and yelling. They all stuck their heads out the window, and one started to point--and then they looked funny, and flipped their heads back and forth, looking... looking... It was quite clear they wondered where in the world those words had gotten to. Who knows if they were the ones who did it, or if the real culprits just told these boys to go look at their handiwork.
A couple of years ago we had some pumpkins at the base of our porch. They'd been there since the last of September, and were not in the best of health. One could not readily tell this, especially when it got dark out.
Along came some boys, looking for trouble. They were smashing pumpkins, all around town. They spotted ours. One hauled off and kicked the biggest pumpkin... SPLOOORRRSSH.
And then he was wearing a gooey gishy squishy pumpkin for a shoe.
He hopped and jumped and shook his foot like a cat having just walked through a puddle.
I’ll betcha they were a little more cautious when kicking pumpkins, after that, what do you bet?
Speaking of intruders...
My brother Loren once went tearing out of his garage on his big Yamaha motorcycle, wearing his black leather motorcycle jacket, and a helmet that made him look like a space cadet. He went roaring after a car that had turned around in his drive, thinking he'd caught the culprits who'd earlier egged all the cars around the church. He caught up with the car just two blocks further on. Wheeling up beside the driver's window, he leaned over and peered right into the face--
--of a little elderly lady.
She screamed.
At the top of her voice.
He nearly screamed, too.
He pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street and fled for home, ears red as tomatoes.
Early one morning, not long after we’d moved into this house, I awoke feeling a vague chill around the bones. I got out of bed and wandered down the hallway, wondering why there was an Arctic breeze blowing around my feet. I checked the front door; it was closed. I checked the garage door; it was closed. I checked the windows; they were closed.
“Hmmmm.,” I thought, “I must be dreaming.”
I headed groggily back to bed, only to encounter a definite Arctic gale around the ankles again, midway down the hall. I stealthily crept over to the doorway behind which slept (supposedly) Teddy and Joseph, ages two and three and a half. I opened it silently and peeked in.
There was Teddy, standing on his bed, having opened his window as wide as it would go, leaning clear out of it. He'd peeled the rubber gasket out of the frame, and then pulled the screen out.
He was just saying to Joseph, "LOOOOK, Dosheff, (Joseph), it shnowed outside!"
He'd already been reprimanded for demolishing that window, once before. So I took three quick steps, whopped him on the setter, and at the same time said loudly and abruptly, "You aren't supposed to DO that!"
It scared him so badly, he yelped at the top of his voice, jumped out of his hide, and would have surely fallen right out the window, had I not grabbed one leg and hauled him back in. You can be sure, he didn't pull the screen from his window again!
As I am writing this, Aleutia is on one side of the fence we have up between kitchen and living room; the kittens on the other. They are scampering around like blithering idiots, and one just stuck her paw through the fence and pawed the dog on the nose. The dog looked at the kitten--and Kitty hissed loudly right in poor doggie’s face!
By Thursday, it was me who had tonsillitis. And then Caleb broke out with what might have been chicken pox, although I was not entirely certain. I was a bit suspicious that it might be a reaction to the amoxicillan he was taking, but he’d scratched it a bit, and it really did look mighty like chicken pox.
He informed me, “When I was in kindergarten, I thought chicken pox was something you ate.”
Later, he looked down at his speckled feet, giggled, and said, “Look! I have chicken feet!”
But by the next morning, I knew it was not chicken pox; they were hives from the amoxicillan. Good grief… another child of ours, allergic to amoxicillan. At least it wasn’t as bad as the reaction Lydia had; he still felt okay, and didn’t have trouble breathing. And his face, arms, and legs did not get swollen, nor did he run a fever. We promptly stopped with the penicillin, gave him a healthy dose of antihistamine, and plenty of water. It took four days before he got over those hives.
Sunday, Larry’s face was still swollen, and his mouth and chin still sore. But he’s steadily recovering, and we are hoping he will soon feel much better. I think those abscessed teeth were causing him all sorts of troubles, not the least of which was that they made him feel tired all the time.
One afternoon Hannah was trying to put a small sticker on one of the pages she was grading for her little Reading class; but when she peeled it off the page of stickers, part of the page remained stuck to the sticker. Hannah, not knowing this, was puzzled.
“I wonder why these stickers don’t stick?” she queried.
Victoria knew exactly what the trouble was: “It’s because of that garbage thing on the back of it!” she informed Hannah knowledgeably.
We spent a good deal of the time practicing Hosanna, Hosanna in Jr. Choir, the song we are planning to sing for Palm Sunday. We are going to sing a song called Early in the Morning for Easter, perhaps for the Sunrise Service. After all, one really ought to sing Early in the Morning early in the morning, don’t you think?
At 10:30 p.m. Saturday night, Larry decided to water the lawn, of all things. Guess what: the boys had not disconnected a water hose earlier this winter, and it caused water to freeze in and crack a pipe on the northwest corner of the house. We did not know this, until we tried using said pipe. Water began pouring into Hester and Lydia’s room. It poured out the vents, the light fixture… everywhere. The ceiling is ruined, and will have to be replaced. The whole room is indeed soggy, including the bed, and the little girls had to sleep upstairs on the couch and loveseat Saturday night.
Keith and Esther, and Bobby, came for dinner Sunday afternoon--beef stroganoff, cottage cheese (according to a friend of ours, a mistake of nature), peaches and pears, biscuits, and Raspberry Rumble ice cream.
Today when we turned the dishwasher on, the water that usually poured out onto the kitchen floor instead poured into the basement, down into the "shelf room", where I have stored boxes and boxes of A-One First-Class Jetsam and Flotsam, Stuff and Things. Furthermore, it has been seeping through the floor all along, and there are doubtless quite a few things ruined. The floor in the kitchen is all swelled up; the ceiling downstairs is sagging...
Soon we will all be living in the basement, with the attic being the ground floor. I am typing urgently, as fast as I can, because I wanted to get you told before I fell through--and that could happen at any moment. Before we know it, there will be nothing but steam marks and a large gaping hole in the earth at 1759-42nd Avenue.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~~~~~~~~…………
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