Last Monday, the Schwan man arrived, all hopeful of face, because I am his very most bestest customer, and I am quite positive he thought I would break all food-ordering records, because it was Thanksgiving week. What he had yet to learn was that we always have our Thanksgiving dinners in our church basement, and everyone contributes to the feast. No one person has to cook an entire meal. So I bought $100 worth of vegetables, a few boxes of ‘Pockets’, and several cartons of frozen yogurt, Sundae cones, and toffee bars--no more than usual. Too bad, so sad, Mr. Schwan man.
Lydia tried to scoop some frozen yogurt from the carton, but it was too hard for her. She asked Caleb to get her a cup of water to put the scooper into. “And get it really hot,” she instructed; “so hot you can’t put your finger into it.”
He got the cup, turned on the faucet, and looked in consternation at the water pouring forth. “Then I won’t know how hot it is,” he said.
Later that evening, Bobby and Hannah came visiting. Larry and the boys were playing games on the computer; all Bobby and Hannah saw of them for a while was the backs of their heads. Oh, well; sometimes all we see of Bobby is the top of his head, as he is reading the newspaper. Bobby likes to read--and when he does so, it is next to impossible to get his attention. We could take those opportunities to say anything we wanted about him, and he would be nary the wiser!
They saw a good deal of the back of my head, too, as that goes, because I was busily affixing note to staff on my computer’s Mozart32 program, and sending some photos to a few friends. After sending a humungous pile of pictures to several people, they have taken to calling me ‘Mrs. Network Jammer’.
The children got their first-quarter report cards this week. They are all very good--especially Lydia’s and Caleb’s. Those two!--their lowest grade was a 94%. And they both got a couple of 99%s and 98%s… A few people were a bit worried, when Caleb started kindergarten (he’s in 2nd Grade, now), that he would have trouble keeping up with his class. He was four, the youngest in the class, and he didn’t turn five for a couple of months. But from the first day, nothing was ever any trouble for him.
I asked him a couple of days ago, “Are any of the subjects hard for you?”
He looked surprised. “Hard?” He thought about it for a second or two. “Nope,” he replied, “they’re all just lots of fun!”
Hester’s card was almost as good, with most of her grades in the middle 90s.
The children were dismissed at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, and didn’t have to return to school until today. I like these little vacations--just as well as the kids, I think!
I just put a humongous log on the fire... The two logs underneath it are rather close together, and I couldn't pry them apart very well, in order to rest the top log in the crevice... So, if you should happen to hear a loud yell, and your monitor jumps off your desk in fright, it's just because that top log rolled out and I am running to grab it and throw it back in the fireplace, and I upended my computer on the way there. (It will be the computer yelling, not me.) (*I* don’t yell.) (Not ever.)
(Well, maybe once in a while.) (But only a great while.)
After the twubbles and twials (ala Caleb, age 2) getting that fire going last week, I haven't let it go out at all. I got it started by using Larry’s Best Boyscout Firebuilding (notice, that word contains the smaller word ‘rebuilding’ in it) Advice: wad paper underneath the grate, and then a few in between the logs--and then I put a big pile of wadded paper up on top. It creates a good wind draft, and works almost every time. And it did work. But I'm not going to let it go out again, not until it gets up to 90° outside. (That's 90° Fahrenheit, which is probably... ummm ... 356,285° Celsius.) (Hi, Pablo.) Fire must have just the right drafts... and then it will really burn.
What I need now is a stick and a marshmallow.
No, never mind! No marshmallows, after all… I forgot… I used to like roasted marshmallows; but not any more. Icky, yicky, yuck.
Wednesday evening Dorcas and Teddy had violin and trombone practice for the Thanksgiving service Thursday. The service starts at 12:30 p.m., and everybody sits in the sanctuary, mouths drooling, trying to listen to (and sing) the pretty songs and the verses somebody reads, but all the while smelling the scrumptious food that is staying warm in the ovens or on the stoves downstairs.
When Loren's old boss found out he was applying for a job with the NFIB again, he told the potential new boss, "If you don't hire Swiney, I'm going to slap you all around the room!"
Yes, they like him...he's an excellent salesman. Memberships give people discounts to all sorts of things they need for their businesses, and also gives them a louder voice with government issues concerning small businesses. NFIB is a group similar to the Chamber of Commerce. I cannot tell you more, because I don’t know any more. Loren used to work for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and he was the top salesman there, too. Nobody could beat him.
The new boss told Loren that only recently has a young man in the east (New York, I believe) started breaking Loren's old sales records from eight years ago.
Uh, oh… As I write this, our neighbor, Mrs. Foreman, has her head out her door not far from the window nearest me, and she is bellowing at the top of her lungs for her dog…the one and the same dog that Hester just brought into the house. She didn't see Hester take the dog, so she assumed the dog had escaped the yard on her own. Mrs. Foreman doesn't care if Mandy comes over here, but she does like to know about it.
Now Hester is dashing back over there to tell the lady where her doggy is…and Mandy is skidding after Hester, having a good deal of trouble with traction on this wood floor of ours. Her toenails clickety-clack, and she nearly falls flat when she goes around the corner. Tad and Kitty don't mind the dog too much, unless she gets to prancing too close for comfort. Then Kitty is liable to spit and hiss --and maybe even whack poor Mandy on the nose.
Tad is a little better natured toward the dog than his mother; in fact, one time Joseph found him laying beside Mandy, over in the Foreman's yard. Joseph, wondering if the cat was okay, said, "Tad! What are you doing?"
Tad jumped up fast to come to Joseph, then, on second thought, he turned back to tell Mandy something he had evidently forgotten to say: “HissssssssSSS, phphttzzzz!!!” he remarked, getting rather bushy as the comment lengthened. Then, tail held high in haughty satisfaction, he strutted toward home.
Now, what was the point of that??? *I* think he was embarrassed to be caught napping smack beside a dumb ol' dog, and felt obligated to prove to Joseph that he was not really consorting with the enemy.
Well, of course, I don't know what he thought... who knows what a cat thinks? Maybe the cat doesn’t even know. Come to think of it, I haven't seen our cats all day. Wonder where they are? Sometimes Tad goes outside, and we forget he's out there, and he gets left out for a couple of hours… When somebody finally remembers and lets him back in, he comes dashing into the house, slides around the corner, and runs for his food dish, meowing all the way.
“You starved me!” he cries, glancing reproachfully back over his shoulder.
OH! Guess what I just found, lurking behind my computer speaker? MONEY!!! And we needed it, really, really badly!!! YAYYY!!! Now the children will not go unfed! The cats will be shampooed! The horses will be shoed! The butler will be butled! Oh, wait. We don’t have a butler.
(Do we have horses?)
I forgot all about it. (Meaning, the money; not the horse butler.) Keith gave it to me, way last Friday, to give to Larry for something he’d ordered…and I forgot! I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich. (Or Larry is, should I happen to feel compelled to give the money to him.)
Yesterday, the littles were watching the post lady come down the walk. Caleb suggested someone should hide behind the porch and jump out and scare her--just to prove they like her, you understand--and I was reminded of another postman and another small child in another era long, long ago.
When I was little, we had the same mailman for many years. One cold wintry day when I was three years old, I put on my brand new shiny red boots and went out into the snow to play…and then I saw the postman coming. Acting upon an impish sprite’s whispered directives to my diminutive cranium, I ran to hide behind the trees next to the church, ready to pop out when the mailman neared, the better to scare the wits out of him, I hoped.
The postman marched closer...and closer...and closer... And then, all of a sudden, I leaped out, mouth agape to fire off a rousing warwhoop, "BOOO!!!"--
But----my brand new shiny red boots got stuck in the snow, and I left them behind when I jumped. I landed slap in front of the man--in my socks.
In the cold, cold snow.
So, instead of saying "BOOO!!", I burst into tears, mainly from the trauma of losing the brand new shiny red boots. The ever-so-kindly mailman picked me up, retrieved the brand new shiny red boots, and carried me home, the better that my mother could refit me with dry socks and put back on the brand new shiny red boots so I could go back out and play.
She did, and I did…brand new shiny red boots and all.
Wednesday night I sewed Victoria a mint-green blouse to go with the forest and mint green, mauve and dusty rose corduroy jumper I’d made her. Dorcas almost finished the new dress she was sewing for herself--but then she gave up and went to bed, deciding to finish it later and give it to Hannah, and wear the dress we’d made for Thanksgiving in the first place.
Larry and the boys are still busy moving to the new shop. I suppose they are about half done; moving is a big job!
Thanksgiving Day dawned bright and sunny. We all scurried around getting ready, dawning new glad rags, curling and brushing hair, grabbing instruments and rushing off to church (well, that was what Dorcas did, anyway; Teddy, on the other hand, rushed off to Amy’s house to collect her back to church with him), and gathering Bibles and coats.
Arriving at the church, the young people were all in the throes of instrument tuning. Dorcas tucked her fiddle under her arm…and then, suddenly, CRRRAAACK!!! --the bridge broke. Thank goodness she still has her old violin! She came running home to get it, took it back to the church to have it tuned, and played with aplomb.
Victoria, learning from one of her elder siblings that I had a jumper and blouse sewn from the same material as hers (I made it about eleven years ago)--I made hers with the leftover fabric from mine--was greatly desirous that I wear mine, and match her.
“No, no, I can’t!” I told my little daughter, “I have a brand new dress to wear!” I smiled at her and promised, “I will wear it Sunday night, and you can wear yours again, and then we’ll match.”
She was satisfied with that, and pleased as punch when, come Sunday night, I remembered without being reminded. And when, after the song service, I walked down from the choir loft and sat beside her, she looked at my jumper, then hers, and beamed a big smile into my face.
The text at our Thanksgiving service was Psalms 136, “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” Every verse in this chapter ends with the phrase, “for his mercy endureth for ever.” Far from being monotonous, that little statement at the end of each verse is remarkable, especially in view of many of the assertions in the first half of every stanza. For example, it says, “To him which smote [and slew] great kings: for his mercy endureth forever.”
How in the world could His slaying of great kings be considered mercy??? Simple: those ‘great kings’ were the Israelites’ enemies, and so far as numbers and armaments went, they had by far the upper hand over God’s people. So, to the Jews, for God to slay those wicked kings Himself was a wonderful act of mercy.
It’s an unusual chapter; in no other chapter of the Bible are there repetitions such as are found in the 136th Chapter of Psalms.
Soon it was 1:00, and time for dinner. We had turkey, dressing, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, three different kinds of jello and fruit salad, rolls with jelly--even Helen’s homemade strawberry jam!, milk, juice, coffee or tea, and a choice of pecan or pumpkin pie. My pecan pie was positively scrumptious, but I was too full to finish it, so I took myself away to snap a volley of pictures, leaving Larry to guard the pie. But he, intractable bloke, went off to talk to my brother Loren---and, before I knew it, the ladies had cleaned off our table, and my pie with it.
Aauugghh! I know just what happened to that pie---it got thrown into the garbage.
Aaauuuggghhh! I want my pie!
Our tradition of gathering together at the church, all 280 members, began before I was ever born, when my father first came here and began preaching, and the congregation was very small. There were a lot of people who had no families nearby, and they would've been all alone during the holidays, so he told them to bring whatever food they would normally be fixing, and come to the church basement, where they could set up tables and eat together. So that is what we do for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and the Fourth of July (for the latter, we go to Pawnee Park).
Guess what? I gained a pound! I think the rest of the family did, too... Well, anyway, it’s gone now… I forfeited the peanut butter on my sourdough muffin the next day and took care of that.
After the dinner, Teddy, Amy, and Lydia went to Bobby and Hannah’s house and helped them set up their Christmas tree. Bobby’s mother Bethany, who is a stickler for these sorts of details, gave them a beautiful crystal ornament with the words “Our First Christmas Together” etched into it. A little later, Dorcas took all the children except Victoria, who was having a nap, to Hannah’s house to play games. They played ‘Life’, ate some of Hannah’s delicious banana bread, and then came home again.
At 10:30 p.m., Hannah called and asked us if we wanted to go see all the Christmas lights they'd put up on their roof and porch, and their new Christmas tree and all the decorations on it. So Larry, Victoria, and I drove over to take a look. It was so pretty; I am happy that my married children have such nice homes.
I’ve been writing music for the instruments; right now I am working on The Birthday of a King (and wondering why whomever it was who created Mozart32 didn't have more music smarts. Aarrgghh! They should let you write whatever you want on the lines, even if you don't have the timing right, and just show it as being wrong, as in MS Word, and allow you the option of ignoring it or changing it. But NO!!! You cannot put that wrong note value on that staff, you dumb dodo of a bubblebrain, you!) (Well, that's what Mozart32 treats me like, anyway. Perhaps it would be politer, to you.) (And it doesn’t help any that I set my computer up to shriek like a trod-upon cat, if it doesn’t approve of what you are doing.)
Another thing I would like to know: why did somebody once decide that all these instruments--trumpet, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, trombone, etc.--must have their music written in different keys?! Finally, after several hours of music-writing, my brain is entirely boggled with key changes and octave-ups and octave-downs.
One evening, we decided to watch a couple of videos we’d recently borrowed from the public library. Throughout the first film, everything worked fine. I extracted that video from the player and got the next out of its jacket.
“Replacement cost, $89.99,” I read aloud from the label.
I inserted the tape.
That’s when it happened:
Our video player, evidently suffering from a severe case of terminal malnutrition, undernourishment, and starvation, tried to consume that video whole. It choked on it and endeavored to spit it out, but couldn’t quite accomplish the feat. I got a good grip on the hapless tape, braced both feet firmly, and pulled with all my might and main.
Well, I did get the tape out; but now the player won’t work; imagine that. It will stay on for only a few seconds before it turns itself off again. Botheration! Where’s one of those old hand-crank reel-to-reel movie players when you need one???
Friday Dorcas bought decorations--lights and trim--for the trellis, the porch railing, and the little Colorado blue spruce in the front yard. Everything looks so Christmasy and pretty. On the little blue spruce, she draped red and gold garland. Why, our house hasn't been so decorated since Keith moved out! He always enjoyed putting lights up on the roof (I don't imagine Dorcas will be doing that) and on the little tree. The tree is getting bigger and bigger... It makes a prettier Christmas tree, every year.
On her way to Wal-Mart that afternoon, Dorcas didn’t take quite a good enough look behind her before backing out of the garage, and, with a crash and a clang and a clatter, she ran over Victoria’s bicycle, getting the poor thing wedged tightly under her car. To make matters worse, she then drove forwards a ways, scraping the ill-fated bike to smithereens on the drive. Aarrgghh. We all tried our hand at removing the bike from under the car--but it was no use. It was stuck.
Victoria, who’d been in the car at the time all this occurred, climbed out and stared in horror at her bicycle. “The driveway isn’t a very good place to park my bike,” she observed remorsefully.
Some hours later, Joseph returned from the shop, and somehow, with brute strength and awkwardness, he got that bike out from under the car. The seat had come off, and the training wheels are bent; but I think everything is repairable. It will need new handlegrips; and it could use a new seat; but at least the frame and the wheels are okay.
After looking at Bobby and Hannah’s tree, we were all wondering: Where on earth will we ever put our Christmas tree??? Our living room is plumb full, already ... and I don't imagine the kids would take kindly to having their new computer tossed out in the snow, to make room for the Christmas tree.
And then Dorcas came home from Wal-Mart with a cute little three-foot tree to put on the little table in the center of the room, and she got several boxes of the most delightful miniature ornaments to put on it. There are sparkly gold musical instruments and music notes, glittery little birdhouses, twinkly gold teddy bears, and she even got a small lighted star for the top of the tree. It’s quite charming … but next year, I think we will move some furniture out of this living room and make room for a big tree…
Nebraska just barely won their game against Colorado Friday--in the last seven seconds, they got a field goal, so we won 34 to 32. Whew! Now, that was an exciting game. And it ended right, into the bargain!
Hannah came that afternoon; she is sewing herself a dress, and was looking for a bit of advice on The Proper Way To Do Cuffs. I declare! These girls of mine are actually sewing??? I can’t believe it. Who would’ve ever thought??!!
Meanwhile, the littles played outside. It was 47°--quite nice, for this late in November.
Our first Christmas Program practice started at 7:00 p.m. Friday evening. As usual, it took a year and a day to get everyone ‘organdized’ (ala Winnie-the-Pooh); and then we didn’t have much time to practice the songs. I am always left wondering, after that first practice, How can we possibly get this program ready in time for Christmas??!
When all the very smallest children were lined up in front of the stage, getting themselves into a reluctant order, it was quite difficult to get some of them to remove their glued-down feet from one spot and transfer said feet to a new and different location, in order to let another child into their previously-held places. Moving the entire row of children all at once proved to be a chore mighty similar to pushing a six-foot-long length of string ahead of me as I walk. Give it a try (pushing string, that is); you’ll see what I mean.
I sometimes take a child ever so gently by the shoulders and help him into his position--and he invariably feels like rigor mortis has set in---and I say, "moveovermoveovermoveovermoveovermoveovermoveovermoveover" until he is laughing and limp enough that I can move him. I told one timid little girl that the only way she could possibly get to the spot where I wanted her to relocate was to climb the steps to the platform, walk across the stage until she was directly behind the two small people between whom she was supposed to stand, and then bail off suddenly into the midst of them.
“They’ll move,” I told her, “I promise!”
And then that quiet, timorous little girl actually laughed out loud.
The two small people upon whom I had instructed her to jump laughed, too.
At the first two or three practices, I have the youngest children sing their songs first, so that they may go home again as soon as they are done. So we work our way up, from youngest to oldest, and save the smaller groups till last. Therefore, the final melody that night was The Shepherd Song, sung by Teddy and Jonathan Wright, Bobby’s brother. They blend together marvelously; it was beautiful. Oh! I wish you could hear it!
When practice was over, I came across the street towards home, dodging footballs and basketballs and boys--Teddy, Joseph, Charles, Anthony, and Caleb were playing catch. Tad, too, was dashing about, apparently conducting experiments to discover if he could trip up everyone at once. He suddenly raced up a tree in my sister’s yard--and then, at an altitude of about seven feet, he lost his grip and tumbled right back down again. But Hester happened to be there, and she was quick enough to catch him. He squinted up into her face and purred. What a cat, that!
Mama was unable to get my Aunt Ruby (her brother Charles’ wife) on the phone all week long, and she was wondering what had happened to her. I wrote to my Uncle Howard, Mama’s youngest brother, asking if he knew where she was, or if he knew her son Gary’s unlisted phone number.
His reply: Subject: “I don’t know anything.” ha He always writes the best subject lines. But he did know Gary’s phone number. Mama called, and talked with Deloris, my cousin Gary’s wife--and she learned that Aunt Ruby broke her hip a week ago Friday, the 17th. She said last Friday morning, about 7:30 a.m. or earlier, Aunt Ruby tripped over a shoe in her kitchen, and fell. She lay there all day, unable to get up.
She has a friend who calls every evening. The friend called and couldn't get her, so she called Gary. Gary went to his mother’s house and found her. He called an ambulance, which took her to the hospital in Trenton, the town near their country home. X-rays were taken that showed she had a broken hip. She was transferred to a St. Joseph hospital (St. Joseph, Missouri), and she's been there ever since. She had a hip replacement done either Saturday or Sunday of last week.
Someone goes to see her every day. Deloris and Gary were there all day Saturday. Deloris said that as soon as Aunt Ruby is able, they will bring her to the Trenton hospital. She will be there quite a while, since she cannot do much for herself--and then she will go to a nursing home in Trenton.
Isn't that too bad?
Uncle Charles, who has Alzheimer’s and is in a nursing home in Trenton, had a hip replacement done a couple of years ago. Deloris said Uncle Charles got along very well with his replacement, because he has so much grit and spunk.
Sunday Bobby and Hannah, and Amy, too, came for dinner. We had icky soup with crackers, fruit salad with cherry vanilla yogurt, and blueberry biscuits.
What’s that? You want to know what “icky soup” is? Why, it’s soup that is absolutely yuck, that’s what it is. That’s the only kind of soup I know how to make on Sundays. Any other day, I can make perfectly delicious, totally scrumptious soup. On Sundays, it is abominable. Putrid. Repulsive. Offensive. Detestable. Horrid.
You want to know why, you say? Well, how should I know? If I knew, I wouldn’t keep doing it! This time, I tried to fool the refractory stew by roasting the steak I planned to put into it on Saturday. The meat turned out fine…but the chowder, as always, was unerringly cognizant of such things as Days of the Week, and coached itself accordingly.
Perhaps the trouble is this: on Sundays I make almost twice as much gumbo as usual. Then, when I put the spices in, I throw in four times as much as I normally put in, just to make it all the yummier.
Reckon that could be the problem?
I skimmed spices off the top of the porridge several times, and that did help.
By the time the evening church service was over, that consommé, knowing Monday was just around the corner, had improved immensely. Sooo… you know what I did, after everyone had gone to bed? (Don’t tell a living soul, now, you hear?) I trotted around the table eating all the chunks of steak out of the bowls of leftover steak/potato/vegetable soup. Mmmmm!
(shshshshshshsh) (Mothers can do that, you know. It's in our contracts.)
My mother told me that she talked to my Uncle Albert, another of her brothers, tonight. He is planning to go to Rochester, MN, soon to have a dye run through his veins to see if he has some sort of blockage, because he can hardly do anything without getting badly out of breath. Heart trouble seems to run in both my parents’ families.
Kitty thinks it great sport to land suddenly and without warning on the back of my chair as I sit typing or sewing -- THUNK!! She generally then decides to sharpen her claws while she’s at it, so I reach around behind my head, pluck her gently off the chair back, and haul her around into my lap. And there she sleeps for a while, purring loudly.
* * *
I have just returned from Larry’s new shop, after riding with him out there to take another trailer-load of A-One First-Class Jetsam and Flotsam, Stuff and Things from the old shop--including his very large tool box, which holds an invaluable array of tools.
While we were there, a truck backed into the nearby truckwash, and the driver began washing out his trailer. It is an extremely high-powered washer, and the water striking the sides of the aluminum trailer set up a high-pitched, howling, squealing clamor.
“My word,” I said to Larry, “That driver is certainly efficient; he washes his trucks and his pigs at the same time!” hee hee
Now: back to Mozart32.
P.S.: Yes, I gave the money to Larry.
(Just in case you were worrying about it.)
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