One afternoon last week Caleb and Victoria were playing with their Li'l Tykes house. Caleb was running the van lines, carrying children to and from their softball games, school picnics, and school field trips.
And then, all of a sudden, Victoria howled, "OH, NO!!! Daddy, come quick!" (she was calling Caleb; he was the 'Daddy') "Simmie (her 'baby') just threw up!"
But Caleb was off down the hall, escorting Claymor and Blaynie (his two 'kids') to the zoo, along with his two dogs, Weans and Bieners.
And Victoria said, said she, "Oh, bother. Dads never come when you need them." She sighed. Then, "Hand me the mop, Galliger," she said to her boy doll, and, picking up a small cloth, she began scrubbing vigorously.
Monday after Dorcas got off work--have I told you she’s on full time now, from 8:30 to 4:30 (and sometimes 5:00) every day?--she went to the Salvation Army, which is only about a block from All About Kids (Victoria calls it “Dorcas’ Shop”). The lady at the Salvation Army, who is always quite friendly, and sometimes gives us extra-special bargains--gave Dorcas a big box of newly-made bagels, so we had egg/bacon/mozzarella cheese/bagel sandwiches for supper. Mmmmm…they were good; but whewww!…were we ever stuffed!
Dorcas and Teddy are practicing violin and trombone for Thanksgiving. I wrote some of the music on my computer with my Mozart32 program. It sure beats doing it all by hand! I like to do it…but it’s surprising how much one can forget in a year, which is about how long it’s been since I last used that program. But by the time I rewrote The Shepherd Song, which I am planning to have Teddy sing with Bobby’s brother Jonathan, I had begun remembering most of the commands I needed, and things went along at a good clip.
This week I read my way through our entire Christmas poem book, and chose verses and poems for the children to say. After calling them to determine who wished to say poems and who didn’t (the children from grades twelve down to six get their choice), I matched names to verses and, after picking out the songs, I put everything into a tentative order. Sooo…it is ready for Christmas Program practice, which will begin the day after Thanksgiving. I’ve been putting in a good half-hour longer at the piano each day than I usually do; it takes approximately an hour and a half to practice all the songs in the Christmas Program--that is, to practice them well.
Victoria is sad that she cannot be in the program; the children must be four, and she will not be four until the end of February. I said to her, “Some of the little children think it’s pretty scary when they get up to sing, look out over the congregation, and see all the people…and they start crying!”
Victoria looked amazed. “I don’t ever do that when I’m big…” she said, and then, after a moment’s thought, “Not even when I’m little!!”
We have lineups for everything around this joint, I think: bathrooms, showers, computers, even the piano!--every time I got up from the piano, I think, Victoria dashed for the bench, scooting it up till she could reach the keyboard, and then happily playing away. One night I was practicing the piano...practicing...and practicing...and practicing...
I hopped up and went off to do something, and Victoria sighed in relief and said, "There! Now I can play the piano!"--and she rushed over and scooted the bench up closer. I was soon back, shooing her off again...but every time I got up, she quickly took my place at the keys.
Shortly thereafter, I was curling Hester's hair. Caleb, who'd been patiently sitting on his little chair watching Teddy play MotoRacer, a motorcycle race game on the other computer, hoping rather futilely to get a turn at the game, looked around, spotted Hester, and exclaimed, "Oh! You're already out of the shower?" He jumped to his feet. "I hope nobody beats me to it--" and he scurried off to take his turn in the water.
"Goodness," I said to Hester, "You'd think we were Russians, always standing around in lines for everything!--there are lines awaiting the computer. Lines at the piano. Lines at the bathrooms. Lines at the--"
At that precise moment, the microwave dinged, and Joseph pressed the button to open it and retrieve the bacon he was cooking for himself. We heard the clatter of miscellaneous footsteps, and Dorcas laughed and said, "My turn! I get to cook mine next!"
"Ohhhhhh," groaned Lydia in mock exasperation, and then ruined it by snickering at her big sister hastening wide-eyed through the kitchen, arms akimbo, as if she were in some sort of a marathon.
"--microwave," Hester finished my sentence.
Tuesday, Larry passed the written part of his CDL (truck driver’s) test and made an appointment to take the driving part Thursday, using his Uncle Clyde’s truck. So…I guess I will not be driving that big pickup with trailers anymore (except for the states where it is legal), unless I take the CDL test, too, and use Uncle Clyde’s truck. Bleah. No, thank you. I won’t be doing that.
Wednesday morning at 8:35 a.m., when I thought all the children were safely off to school some fifteen minutes earlier, Joseph suddenly emerged, with a great deal of acceleration, from the basement. Although later we learned this to be false, he thought Caleb had turned off his alarm and then failed to awaken him. As it turned out, either Joseph had forgotten to set his alarm, or he’d turned it off himself, and gone right back to sleep. The rest of the children all scampered about doing their own business, never once noticing that there was one kid who had not yet shown his face. And I, having earlier heard the door open and then shut, was quite sure it had been Joseph going to school--but I was wrong; it had been Teddy.
Joseph now has a new alarm.
Thursday, Larry took his truck-driving test... and he flunked! That’s hard to believe…he’s the world’s best driver…but he flunked.
That, just because he shifted on a railroad track, got hit by a fast-flying Amtrak, which flew off the track and hit five large oil tankers, which blew up simultaneously, which threw Larry and the hapless instructor into Mitchell, South Dakota, where the uncle's eighteen-wheeler landed on the Corn Palace, destroying all eight turrets and smashing the interior to bits. So he flunked.
Okay, perhaps I exaggerated…but he did shift while the trailer wheels were still on the railroad tracks.
Victoria’s word for the month is “actually.” A few minutes ago, she picked up my red leather hand-tooled belt. “Do you think this will fit me, or don’t you like people to wear it, actually?” she asked.
Yesterday she saw a picture of a dog in a sweater, and she wondered if our cats would like one.
“Probably not,” I told her.
“Don’t they actually need to wear sweaters?” she queried.
And tonight, eating a piece of pumpkin pie, she said to me, “This is actually very good, and I would actually like to eat a lot more than just my share.”
Thursday afternoon, it was such a beautiful, sunny, warm, autumn day, the kids went outside to play after school.
When Victoria came back in, she informed me, “I fell down, when I was running behind the school.” (If that would’ve been Joseph or Teddy, saying that, I would’ve asked them how fast the school was running.) She showed me her skinned knee.
“Oh, dear,” I said, “Do you want a Band-Aide on it?”
“No,” she declined, “it’ll be okay in a few months.”
That evening, Lawrence and Norma came, bringing dresses for Hester and Lydia for the Christmas Program; she got them on sale last year right after Christmas. Upon hearing that company was coming, Victoria, with a quick glance at the clock, inquired, “Are they gonna come in a month?”
The skirts of the dresses are red, green, and gold plaid taffeta, and the bodices are black velour. They are almost--but not quite--fancy enough to suit me… The next day, Hannah came, bringing bags of the neatest hats and medallions and feathers and flowers and all sorts of trim that she got from The Hat Company in New York City.
She was quite astonished over some of the things she’d gotten, because in the catalog, the pictures are very small, and the description does not tell the size. She ordered what she thought was a little medallion to go on the front upturned brim of a sailor hat she’d bought, but it was so large that, had she put it where she’d originally intended, the strands of beads hanging down from the decoration would’ve wound up bouncing off the end of her nose. So, I took the medallion and ordered another, to put on the front of Hester and Lydia’s Christmas dresses. Also, I will cut off the short little sleeves and put on some big puffy black chiffon sleeves instead. That will do much to improve them.
Friday we went for walk. The sky is so blue; leaves are in piles all over the ground, and still falling from the trees, and everything smells so crisp and fresh. I wish we could’ve gone somewhere to take pictures of trees that really turn colors…here in middle Nebraska, trees mainly turn gold and then brown, with a few--a very few--turning bright orange and scarlet. Even our red maple seldom does what red maples are supposed to do, probably because the summers are too hot and dry. Home again, I walked into my bedroom, looked out the window--and spotted Tad sneaking up on something, head down low, tail streaming straight out behind, paws coming down ever so delicately amongst the leaves.
I quickly cranked open my window. “Tad!” I called loudly.
His head came around, and he stared right straight up at my bedroom window. “Me-eee-ee-oo-ooo-w-ww-www!” he replied, sounding like a small minibike missing on one cylinder, agitated that I had interrupted a perfectly good stalk.
The squirrel he’d been shadowing suddenly recognized his great peril and took flight up the mulberry tree, chattering ardently as he went. Tad’s tail switched irritably, and he looked away from the squirrel, aware that the little blighters could run rings around him, in the branches.
Joseph came running in a few minutes later to tell me that Lura Kay’s little apple tree was full of cedar waxwings. I went out to look. Sure enough, almost every branch supported three or four of the pretty birds.
Friday night we went to Fremont. First we went to the Goodwill, where we had less than half an hour to shop, which isn’t nearly enough in a place like that. But I found three pairs of shoes for myself--something I really, rweally, rewally needed (I DID!--I didn’t have a single pair like the ones I got!) (and so what if my closet looks like Imelda Marcus’!)--two cute pairs of shoes for Lydia, who had grown out of her church shoes, and the coup de maître: a little pair of shiny red patent leather boots for Victoria. They have tiny zippers in the front, and the top closes with a little strap and buckle. She wore them all night after we got home, until bedtime, and she wore them all day Saturday. On Sunday, we no sooner walked in the door from church than she was peeling out of her Sunday shoes and pushing her feet into those red boots.
At periodic intervals she came and asked me, “What do you think of my red boots?” And then a few minutes later, “How do you like these boots?” And a little later, “Don’t you think these boots are cute?” And again, “Don’t these boots just match my dress?” Well, of course they did. She picked out the dress special that morning, specifically to go with the boots.
I also got a couple of ivory blouses for the little girls for Thanksgiving, to go under their sweaters. I had to downsize them, but at least I didn’t have to buy material, cut it out, and sew the entire thing.
After leaving the Goodwill, we went to Super Wal-Mart, where I spotted a rack of oven mitts, kitchen towels and dishcloths, potholders, placemats, and so forth, for $.97 each. So I bought twenty-three oven mitts for the ladies on my Christmas list. You should’ve seen the face of the cashier when I put all those mitts on the conveyor belt. We also got some packages of socks for the men on our Christmas list. Now…what shall we stick into the toes, for a surprise, hmmm?
When the cashier rang up the total, I was surprised--it was almost twice as much as I thought it was going to be. As we were walking through the parking lot, I looked at the receipt. It turns out, somebody had hung the wrong oven mitts on the $.97 rack. Half of the mitts I bought cost $1.96. I said I should take them back and get the cheaper ones; but Larry said to keep them and give them to people I liked better, and for whom I would be more concerned about their getting burnt, since those mitts were longer and thicker. I jerked out a nice long oven mitt and whopped him with it, and then crammed it back into the bag.
I kept them. The more expensive ones were nicer. They made more satisfying thwacks when you smacked somebody with them. And just in case one of my friends might need to clout her husband with one…
After we got home, I spent a good long while wrapping all those socks and mitts, and various other things. It always takes longer than I expect, to wrap presents, even though I was moving at the speed of greased lightning, paper and scotch tape and scissors and pen just a-flyin’… I wrapped some socks in the box my hard drive came in, which has a label on it reading “Fragile”; some I put into tubes from the inside of the rolls of wrapping paper; one into a cashew can; one into a Coffee Nip box; and I wedged a couple pairs into Suiss Mocha cans.
Caleb’s class painted pumpkins at school Friday afternoon. He informed me that it was going to be my birthday present “--and I’m sorry it’s really, really late!” he said. I assured him that it didn’t matter in the slightest; after all, I’m still forty!
Saturday afternoon was spent making sixteen pumpkin pies. I went off to the store to buy more ingredients. If the cashier at Wal-Mart made a funny face at all those mitts, the cashier’s face at the grocery store was even funnier. Her eyebrows flew right up to the top of her head when she saw all the large containers of whipped cream, the bottles of pumpkin pie spice, the many cartons of eggs…
“Do you have to do the Thanksgiving baking for the entire group?” she asked incredulously.
I wondered what group she was talking about… Our church group? If that was what she meant, then I could tell her that the sparse amount of supplies I was purchasing would hardly be a drop in the bucket. Instead, I said airily, “Oh, it’s not for Thanksgiving; it’s just for our usual Sunday dinner,” and then I had a tricky time trying to keep a straight face when her head jerked up and she stared at me, mouth agape. hee hee
Well, it was the truth; I was cooking for Sunday dinner. Not that we would eat all sixteen pies at once; I planned to give at least three of them away. But I knew without question that we would make a sizable dent in those pies…
About that time, a lady of perhaps fifty-five or so, in line behind me, squeezed between me and the checkout stand behind me to get something at the front of the store. On the way back, she ran into me and nearly knocked herself flat, even though she was bigger than me. Twice she did this--and I suddenly realized what the trouble was: she absolutely reeked of alcohol. Good grief.
Saturday night, I went to church to practice with the Sr. Choir. We practiced a ‘new’ song…it was written by Ira Sankey, which means it’s probably a one-hundred-year-old song. The name of it is In the Shadow of the Rock. It’s such a pretty song; I really like it. Listen to these words:
In the shadow of the Rock, keep my soul, keep my soul;
When I feel the angry waves o’er me roll, o’er me roll;
All in vain the storm shall sweep, while I hide, while I hide;
And my peaceful vigil keep by Thy side.
O my Saviour, blessed Rock! Let me hide, let me hide;
And forever in Thy cleft safe abide!
Till the storms of life are past, with their cold and chilly blast,
And I’m anchored safe at last, by Thy side!
After kids went to bed, Larry and I drove to Platte Center, a little town about ten miles north of Columbus, where he showed me a building and lot that he might be able to buy for $15,000 or $16,000 on a contract/lease arrangement, or rent for $300/month.
Upon returning home, Larry decided he just must have some pumpkin pie. I told him it wouldn’t be quite set up; he didn’t care; he had to have some. So he got out the very deepest one--the one that was least likely to be set up. And it wasn’t. He demolished the poor thing. You see, the advantage to taking a ‘piece’ of pie out of a not-quite-set-up-pie is that when you remove your piece, the rest of the pie slowly flows into the spot just vacated, and you can then spoon more pie filling onto your plate, saying that you’re only taking what belonged to ‘your’ piece, after all.
In the meanwhile, I finished making the last two pie crusts, and, since I planned to give them away, I made fancy edges for both of them. This, I do not usually do --not when I am making a couple dozen pies for my family--a family that can scarf down a pie that took a person two hours to make, and have it gone in 1.45 minutes flat. When I put the pie filling into the crusts, I discovered I didn’t have quiiiite enough filling…so I got out the mutilated pie and put enough spoonfuls into the new pie crust to fill it up.
Now, I thought, when Larry comes sneaking into the kitchen after his shower to have ‘one more bite’ of that pie, he will think one of two things: either ‘Oh, my goodness, I ate more than I thought I did,’ or ‘Wowwww! Sarah Lynn howled when she saw the size of helping I took; but look how much she ate!!!’ The latter, I knew, would be far more likely, in spite of the fact that history has always proven otherwise.
The pies all turned out perfect. Perfect, that is, when they were set up. Mmmmmmmm, nothing, nothing at all, can beat these pumpkin chiffon pies. Wellll…except for strawberry rhubarb pie, nothing can beat them.
Larry passed his truck-driver’s test Saturday morning. The woman who conducted the test gave Larry and another man the ‘skills’ test at the same time. She set up cones, and they were supposed to make corners around them, getting their back tires as close to the cones as possible without hitting them. The other man ran over a cone, effectively reshaping it into a pancake. Larry’s tires went right beside the cone, or pancake, as it were, neat as a pin.
Next, they were to pull through the line of cones till their trailers were past the markers, then back up till they were perfectly even with the cones. The other man, seeming not to understand the directives, drove to Belize, or somewhere thereabouts. After that, they had to pull through the lines of cones, then turn and go off at a 45% angle and straighten up their rig. Once straight, they were to back into the ‘alley’.
The other man backed into the Big Mac (Lake McConaughy)…or at least he would’ve, had the lake been there. Next came the road test…passing, changing lanes…going up Rte. 81 to Lakeview Road to 48th Ave., then down the hill, pretending to be in the mountains (even though that particular hill is less than a speed bump…I suppose ‘baby ant hill’ would more closely describe it.
The instructor told Larry that last Sunday she was giving someone a test, coming down that hill, and a deer crossed the road right in front of them. The driver had to quickly come to a complete stop…and then he acted like the lady had planned all that. Well, of course. Doesn’t he know Nebraska deer are remote-controlled?
On the way back, they went over the same tracks Larry had crossed Wednesday, those same tracks that were his undoing then. This time, he didn’t shift on the tracks. He left the Union Pacific coal train standing nicely, there were no humungous eruptions of natural gas or refined oil, and the recently begun repairs on the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, are still on track.
This time, the test was not free: it cost $50.00.
Nebraska lost 31 to 14, playing Oklahoma. And now, in the polls, we have fallen from Number 1 to Number 5 or Number 6, depending upon which poll you want to read. That probably happened because they were all so sure they were going to win… Guess they never heard of--and certainly don’t go by--the Bible verse that says, “Let not him that putteth on the armor boast as him that taketh it off!”
Hannah and Dorcas went to Lincoln early that morning. Dorcas got a pile of books at the Goodwill, a Christmas wreath, a sweater, and sundry other things to give people for Christmas. One big hardback book--for which she paid $.49--has full-page color pictures of the National Parks. It’s beautiful--and it’s a $50.00 book! She’s going to give it to Larry for Christmas.
Helen, Hester and Lydia’s teacher, gave us a large turkey, and we had it for dinner Sunday, along with mushroom and onion dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, mango passion-fruit yogurt, and the inevitable pumpkin pie. With lots of whipped cream, thank you. Lots, I said. More, please!
Early in the afternoon we heard on our police scanner that Platte County was in a tornado watch until 6:00 p.m. But the gentle rain seemed entirely harmless… We were rudely roused from our Sunday afternoon naps by the blaring of the tornado sirens at about 5:30 p.m. A real, live tornado was on the ground about seven miles south of town, moving north at a speed of 35 mph. When the skies to the south suddenly darkened, the wind picked up, and rain started falling hard, I went to get Victoria from her bed…but before we got to the basement stairs, we heard the radio announcer say that the tornado was east of Columbus, and getting farther away as it headed northeast. So I tucked Victoria back into bed for another half an hour of sleep.
Today I learned from the paper that several farms were damaged by tornadoes. Strange, having tornadoes the last week of October; but, as the editor wrote, “It is Nebraska.”
A little later, as we were getting ready for church, Hester called me to the front door to look at the sky. All was an overcast midnight blue--except for one little area over the school, where it was crystal clear and a vivid light blue. And there in that clearing was a brightly glowing sliver of a moon, with the evening star shining brilliantly just to the left of the moon.
Last night Amy gave Teddy a cherry cheesecake… and he was nice enough to give us each a sliver of it--just a little sliver of it, mind you--today for dinner. Mmmmmmmmm, yummy. I tell you, it is decidedly to one’s benefit to raise one’s sons to choose girls who can cook.
Tonight we had another beautiful sunset. To the west, the sky was a luminous blue, with peach-colored fluffy clouds here and there, and the sun shimmering a dazzling orange. To the east were indigo blue heavens, with clouds of dark magenta and purple. It always seems to me that autumn skies are especially radiant.
I am having a difficult time typing, because I am holding my arms up, reaching over the top of Kitty, who was taking a bath in my lap, and is now sound asleep.
* * *
Whew! She finally jumped down. My legs, because I was lifting them up with my tiptoes, so as to keep Kitty from sliding off my lap, are cramping…my arms feel like noodles after holding them up for so long! But she was so cuddly, I hated to disturb her…
And now it is suppertime, and I certainly don’t want to miss out on my share of the pumpkin pie!
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