The children are swamped with before-Christmas reports and examinations for school, and before-Christmas preparations and housecleaning at home, thanks to teacher and mother. One of our aunts sent some Christmas gifts, and I told the children to write thank-you notes to her. I’m not sure why, exactly, but it seems to take kids a good long while to write a half-page note. Most of mine enjoy writing; yet, nevertheless, a short letter takes them an hour at the least. I tell them, “Just write like you talk!--you’ll have ten pages done, in nothin’ flat!” They shake their heads in despair at my lack of understanding.
A friend's little boy was pleased when the Sr. Choir sang for a recent church service. After church he asked his mother, "Did you notice the stage kids came out tonight?"
When she replied that she had indeed noticed them, he then asked, "Were those the big stage kids or the little stage kids?”
Of course, what he wanted to know was, were they the Sr. Choir, or the Jr. Choir.
I’ve been wrapping Christmas presents. Lots of them. Well, uh, errrm, that is, I’ve been trying to. But if the tape isn’t lost, the scissors have gotten up and walked away when I wasn’t looking. Or, if both of those are in the same location at the same time, my pen is nowhere to be found. And once, the whole box of wrapping paper went to Lower Slobbovia. After I noisily vented my frustration about this state of affairs, Dorcas told me what her teacher, Penny Golden, had said one day as she extracted her scissors from her large desk drawer: “You can always tell an old maid--she can invariably find her scissors.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Are you trying to tell me I should be thankful that I can never find my scissors?!”
Exit Dorcas, laughing.
Hannah, Dorcas, Teddy, and Joseph helped all the young people decorate the church Monday night. Somebody splurged this year and bought a whole lot of new decorations. Later, Hannah was telling Victoria, “The church is all fixed up for Christmas now!--there is a big tree with lots of lights on it in the corner behind the organ, and there are new wreaths on the walls, and there is a great big Bible with a Bible verse up on the wall above the pulpit.”
Victoria listened with wide, shining eyes. “Ohhh,” she breathed, “Isn’t it pretty?!”
Kitty has become a bona fide member of the family. Every morning, long before time for the children to get up, she goes down the stairs and travels from one room to the other, yowling and scratching at the doors until she is let in. Then she proceeds to jump up on the beds and walk around on people’s stomachs or backs, purring loudly, until she has them all thoroughly awakened.
For all our worry about whether or not the dog will eat the cat, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve opened the garage door to let in the dog, who was whining most piteously at the door and dog and cat both came charging in the door, side by side! Yipe!
In rushes the dog, turning her head nervously toward the cat, fearing lest the cat should swipe her a good one; or, conversely, fearing lest she should inadvertently growl at the vexing feline and get clobbered by me. Meanwhile, the cat is scurrying along beside the dog, ears pulled back slightly in a bit of righteous ire that such a large, hideous beast should be allowed into her private domain. She swishes her tail indignantly and, with a quick glance in my direction, informs us, “Mrrooow!!”, meaning, of course, “Why do you let that monster into my house?!”
Aleutia hastens to her position under the table, where she feels relatively safe from both man and cat.
Tuesday evening, we had our first Christmas practice with the horns and violins. The band will be nearly double what it was at Thanksgiving, for all those who play clarinets and flutes will be joining in. Actually, they did a pretty good job, for the first time, but I certainly hope they put in plenty of practice time in the next couple of weeks!
Victoria likes to “write her name”. She makes a whole series of connected V's for ‘Victoria’, and a series of connected M's for ‘Maurine’. Then she looks them over and says with some degree of dissatisfaction, “I wrote my whoooole name!…but they both look almost the same.”
Wednesday, Hannah helped the 6th graders--Seth, Lori, Joanna, and Jodie--prepare a dinner--corn chowder, peaches, etc. That morning, she accidentally overslept, so the corn and potatoes were slightly crunchier than they should’ve been. We wound up with a large pan full of the chowder for supper--the leftover soup that the children didn’t eat.
It was the wrong day to cook in the church basement, if you ask me--the church still reeked of bacon grease--used to flavor the chowder--that evening when we arrived for the service. Wheweee!
Keith and Esther came after church, and we had a regular ice cream party.
Since Larry started his new job, I have a new routine: nowadays, I usually get up about the time he heads off for work--about 6:20 a.m. (HA! You didn’t think I could do it, did you?!) Unless I fall back to sleep and don't wake up until I hear the children coming upstairs for breakfast, about 7:50 a.m. Some mornings there is definitely no difficulty hearing them, what with Joseph crashing headlong into the bathroom door that he didn't expect to be half shut (as I’ve said, he's an accident looking for a place to happen), Caleb dropping his entire bowl of cereal on the floor (after which, there was a long period of silence, and then a very small, quiet, "oops"), Hester, pulling down the entire closet rack, coats and all, Lydia dropping her books smack-crash on the floor, Teddy getting his finger caught in the door handle and accidentally slamming it (after which there was a sudden “OUCH!”), Dorcas knocking the iron off the ironing board (right outside of Victoria's door, yet!), and the cat thundering around like a mountain lion in hot pursuit of a jackalope.
Listen to this announcement that just came over our police scanner: "A suspicious Doberman just attacked a smaller dog..." A suspicious Doberman. Well, then, don't you think he had good reason for the attack, if he was suspicious? Sometimes, the dispatchers, in attempts to sound extremely intelligent and businesslike, wind up sounding just plain silly. One man says "Chevrolet", pronouncing the 't' at the end--like "Shev-ro-lette".
I finished sewing Victoria’s dress, and that means the Christmas sewing is done…unless I decide to make myself something at the last moment. But as of now, I think the house is in considerably more need of cleaning than I am in need of new Christmas duds.
Just as usually happens at Christmas time, Teddy needs new shoes, Joseph needs new glasses, Teddy needs contacts, Caleb needs new shoes, Larry needs to see a dermatologist about the mess the gunpowder made of his face (yes it is a lot better, but I still think he needs to see a doctor), Teddy needs his teeth fixed, and Larry needs his teeth fixed. Help, help.
Larry has been doing all sorts of painting out at Quail Run. Painting was always one of the things he enjoyed the most, so the job suits him fine and fittingly. He finished the dump bed he built, and painted it, too. His bosses and coworkers are terribly impressed. He also painted a Cushman and sprayed it with bed liner spray on the inside; and he took an engine out of another to replace a Something-Or-Other-Very-Important-Doodad-Thingamajigger. A couple of days ago, he finished a GMC pickup, and is now working on Lawrence and Norma’s car, and a homemade trailer for somebody. He finally found the right headlights for his Isuzu Trooper, so now he can drive it after dark. Or before sunup.
One afternoon, Victoria was playing with a large stuffed dog that looks amazingly like Aleutia. Dorcas asked, “Is that dog Joseph’s?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
Victoria looked worried. “Is it all right if I play with it in a minute?” she queried. (She meant, “for a minute”.) (I assured her it was quite fine if she played with it.)
One evening Hannah was gluing flowers and ribbons onto a crocheted headband she was making for the craft show. Victoria sniffed the air and asked, “Do you have a glue glun?”
Hannah replied with careful pronunciation, “It’s a goo glun.”
Victoria promptly burst out laughing. (Hannah had meant to say it right.)
That night, Dorcas burned her finger with hot glue; it looks terrible. One of Larry’s cousins, upon hearing about Dorcas’ unfortunate finger (and it was not the first time such a thing had happened), promptly rushed off and bought Dorcas a low-temperature glue gun and a whole package of glue sticks. Whether or not this helps remains to be seen; it is the glue itself that Dorcas is forever burning her fingers on!--and the glue will be almost as hot in the low-temperature gun as in the old one.
Thursday night, a friend asked me to come to the church; he and his wife were there setting up the new mike and speakers that the church had purchased, and they needed me to sing into it, so that they could set the equalizer. It’s a first-rate system; if we can just get everything set properly, and not get any two mikes too close together, it should work out fine and dandy.
That evening, Bobby and Hannah went to visit my brother Loren, to set the date for their wedding. They were in rather a hurry about it, because there are three other couples planning weddings somewhere near that same time. Loren listened to Bobby’s rehearsed little spiel, asked a few questions concerning finances and house and furniture, and then told them they could get married so long as they passed the test that he had for all the engaged couples. They were wondering what in the world he was talking about, when he gave them each a penny and told them to see if they could get a gumball out of his tricky little machine. Bobby got one out promptly… and then Hannah got three, with just that one penny. So the test was passed handily, and the date agreed upon: June the 25th it is.
The poor puppy next door, the dog Teddy is so fond of and plays with every day, Mandy, started getting lame on three legs. We think it’s because she isn’t fed enough, and because she lays hour after hour on either the cold ground or cement. They took her to the vet, who gave the dog a shot of some sort--anti-limp oxidant? (no, not really) The neighbor lady asked Teddy if he had any idea what might be the matter with the puppy, so Teddy told her he didn’t think the dog was getting enough to eat. They started giving her a couple more scoops of puppy chow each day, and she began to improve. Don’t people know that when can you play Oh, Suzannah on a ribcage, the poor beast is too thin?! Good grief.
Friday afternoon Larry shot a deer. Teddy and Joseph helped him bring it in from the field. We are having it processed now…so we will soon be in venison and deer jerky and deer roast and deer steak and deer sausage and deer bologna. For a while Friday evening, there was a bluish-purple liver crawling around forlornly in the kitchen sink. I think it was that color because it was underwater and couldn’t breathe. Ugh, yicky yucky. Whoever wants to eat that, deserves to have sauerkraut with it.
Friday night, I wrote music for nine songs, for instruments that will play with the choir and other singing groups. Mozart32 may well be worth his weight, after all. If I would ever take the time to read the manual, I might like it even better. No time, no time. So on I go, discovering all sorts of interesting things quite by accident, and wishing that the program would have been put together so that there were easier ways of adding text. One thing for sure: it is infinitely faster--and neater--than doing it all by hand, which is what we had to do before.
Susan decided she would be able to go to practice Saturday and play the piano Sunday...so that ends my substitution stint. As always, I will miss it. I think the thing I miss the most is the Saturday night practices, especially those with the young people and the Sr. Choir--those big stage kids. Oh, well; I still have the Jr. Choir and the Christmas program. I do so love those children.
Dorcas and Hannah were pleased to make a few dollars at their friends’ craft show, where they entered a number of their creations. They hope to put together a craft show of their own, next year.
Collecting the mail is fun lately; we’ve been getting heaps and piles of Christmas cards every day--some with pictures. I would be happy with nothing but pictures from my friends each Christmas…pictures are my favorite gift. We received a letter from my Aunt Ruby telling us that my Uncle Charles, my mother’s eldest brother, is quite confused, sometimes doesn’t even know her. A month or so ago, he wandered away for several hours on a chilly day, and they couldn’t find him. When he returned, they learned that he’d walked down a dirt road, through some fields, fallen several times, and gotten all banged up. He was dirty, and cold, and awfully hungry, too. Isn’t that sad? Aunt Ruby isn’t well herself; she fell and hurt her back last year, and never really recovered.
One afternoon we drove to Larry’s shop. On the driveway sat two pickups, both of them Chevy Sierras; but one was dark red, the other white; one was an extended-cab, the other was not; one had a box, the other did not. Nevertheless, Victoria exclaimed, “Oh, look! Those two pickups are just the same!” She tipped her head consideringly. “Well, just a little bit different…one is white, and the other is…umm…well,” she turned and looked at Caleb, “red, Caleb?”
“It’s maroon,” he amended helpfully.
“Oh!” She nodded, then carefully repeated, “Mrrrrrroooooooon!”, with her lips sticking out comically.
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. And I embarrassed the poor child. She ducked her head and gazed out the window, peeping at me askance once or twice before deciding I wasn’t paying her any more attention. Then she leaned over toward Caleb and said ever so quietly in his ear, “Caleb! I can say that really funny!”
One night Larry and I went shopping at Wal-Mart after the kids were in bed. And now I’d better go shopping again…and I’d better get on with the wrapping. And cleaning the house. Anybody have a spare loader and dump truck, please? A forklift and a back-hoe would be useful, too.
I thank you kindly in advance.
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