Last Monday afternoon, Teddy’s eye was still hurting him, so he went to the Optometric Center after school--he gets out at noon--and the doctor found a piece of metal in his eye. It was right under the pupil, and it was already rusty. The doctor had to anesthetize the eye and use his little grinder on it to get it out. Aauché, that sounds awful. Before suppertime ever arrived, the anesthetic had worn off, and Teddy was in pain. But it’s better now.
That afternoon, I took Victoria for a walk. The leaves were showering down upon us, the skies were leaden grey, and a cool wind was blowing, although it was still 70º outside.
Soon I will be able to push the stroller through piles and piles of crunchy leaves, and Victoria will be laughing... and then it will be wintertime, and we will go sledding and ice skating and picture-taking in the snow...
Larry called Monday evening; he was at a Motel 6 in Bloomers--oops, I mean ‘Bloomington’; we have called it ‘Bloomers’ (Illinois) for so long, I rarely call it anything else. The bad clutch on the pickup finally gave up the ghost. I kept telling him, "You’d better fix that clutch before it lets you down on the road," but he kept saying, "I think it will make it, just one more time..."
‘One more time’ was one more time too many.
He had to have a big tow truck haul him to a truckstop. When he called for help, the wrecker service sent out their little pickup-wrecker--even though he’d told them what kind of pickup he was driving, and what type of a load he was towing! The man in the wrecker took one look at Larry's rig and climbed back into his pickup. “Looks like I go get the truck,” he remarked.
Larry grinned. “Good idea,” he replied.
Once the rig was at the truckstop, the mechanic tore things apart, and then ordered the clutch Larry needed. It would arrive the following day. The question was, would it fit? The year that pickup was made, there were two different clutches built, one in the earlier part of the year, and the other later on. They are not interchangeable. Larry was not certain what time of year his pickup had been made. He had speculated early, and was waiting to see...
But guess what? He’d taken along a book of checks--filled with nothing but deposit slips. And he hadn’t enough cash to pay for repairs. Perhaps our bank would wire Larry the money? Perhaps a bank in Bloomers would give him a counter check? I had visions of Larry washing dishes in the kitchen at that truckstop until he paid for the hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of repairs that must be done. I wondered whether they would let him have visitors.
One of Victoria’s favorite books is All Things Bright and Beautiful, probably because I sing it, rather than reading it. Now, she knows that I know at least four different tunes for that song. The minute I am through singing it all the way through, she flips back to the first page and says, "Now sing it with the second tune." I do so. When that is through, she again returns to page one and says, "Now sing it the third way." But, having sung the other two tunes, I can never remember how the third one starts...so she is johnny-on-the-spot with the little red Children’s Hymnal, and knows right where the page is with the third tune. I sing it again... this time, from the hymnal rather than the storybook, because there are five verses in the hymnal, and Victoria wants them all. When that is done, she turns back to page one in her book, looks at me for a moment, and then asks, "Haven’t you remembered the fourth tune yet?" and I have to tell her, "No, I cannot remember it," because I can’t. Somewhere, somewhere, lurks that fourth tune...in my head, and in a children’s book... and if it is bugging Victoria, it is bugging me even more so--a tantalizing almost-remembery, which isn’t a word, but should be.
As I type, I keep getting interrupted by Victoria asking me to help her dress her dollies. I declare, those dolls have had so many baths in the Li’l Tykes house in the last fifteen minutes, they are going to be wrinkled up little ol’ ladies.
By Tuesday afternoon the mechanic at the truckstop got Larry’s clutch fixed; fortunately, the one they ordered was the right one. They let Larry take their service truck to the bank, where he got a couple of counter checks with which to pay his bill: $1,400. $175 of that was towing. So much for the profit from that trip. He left Bloomington in the afternoon, still having a long ways to go to Buckeye Lake, Ohio.
He unloaded Wednesday, then went to Elkhart, Indiana, for a load of cargo trailers. Unfortunately, he was unable to get the trailers loaded until Thursday afternoon. It was very windy, making it difficult driving, because the front trailer was loaded high on the trailer. The pickup is in dire need of new shocks. But his clutch was working well, the new brake pads were fine and dandy, and he was finally on the way home.
Once more, I mended a pile of clothes (how do they get all those holes and ripped seams, anyway?), and then sewed one skirt each for Hester and Lydia for Thanksgiving. Next, I decided to sew some already-cut-out material I inherited from a well-to-do lady who gave boxes and boxes and boxes of material to a friend of mine. Some of the things, I think, were cut out in the late 1960s… and, lo and behold, they are back in style. Ick. There are a couple of things in single knit, of the ugliest colors imaginable. I started sewing a dress in Lydia’s size, adding a few thises and that’s, trying to make it presentable.
Didn’t work. It was just as ugly as before, and maybe even more so. When I finished it, hoping that Lydia, by some strange quirk, would find it charming, I called her to try it on. She did so. I tied the sash for her. She walked to my chival mirror and peered into it. Her eyebrows lifted, and one side of her nose wrinkled. haha I guess Lydia didn’t find it any more lovely than I had.
I concluded that it really was not worth my while to attempt making beautiful clothes from ugly material and patterns.
Before starting on the next sewing project, there was an important task I had to do: Victoria’s dolly needed new bloomers.
Pulling out a piece of white material and my fabric shears, I cut what I thought was a perfectly good pair of bloomers.
The cut was wrong.
They wound up being long johns.
Victoria did not mind at all; she simply brought me a doll on which those long johns would fit. After putting them on the doll, I picked up my shears and tried again, making certain to add plenty of fullness.
I sewed the pantaloons together, added the elastic, and put them on the doll who had so needed them. Ah! Amelia Jenks Bloomer would have been proud!
Next, I sewed a navy plaid blouse, with a silver metallic thread running through it, for Dorcas, with some time out to repair a couple of holes in Victoria’s favorite blanket. At least that turned out okay (speaking of the blouse). And it even fit, into the bargain.
Victoria got sick during the night, and she kept getting sick all night long. By the time the sun came up, she’d had five baths, and had her hair washed four times. Poor little dear; she’s always so sweet about it, even when she doesn’t feel a bit good. During the night, I washed sheets, blankets, and pillows; I changed sheets, blankets, and pillows…I ran out of pillows, and was hoping I wouldn’t run out of sheets and blankets…
I finally went to bed at 6:00 a.m. Friday morning. Victoria woke me up at seven; she’d gone into kitchen for a drink, and gotten sick again. I mopped the floor and helped her back to bed. She awoke three more times that morning, and I decided it was pointless trying to sleep.
Besides!--it was my birthday! No sense in sleeping your birthday away, even if you do have to mop the floor and wash piles and heaps and mounds of clothes. Yup, I’m twenty-nine years old--and holding.
No, really, I’m forty. Forty!
Larry got back to the shop at 11:15 a.m., but didn’t make it home until 12:30, because he couldn’t get any of the vehicles at the shop to run. What a state to be in--rather like that Mother Goose poem, in which it says, Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. (He forgot about his shank hosses, I guess... after all, that shop is only seven blocks away.)
Did I say that Dorcas jumped the gun (as usual) and gave me a birthday present last Thursday? It’s a beautiful flower spray she put together on wicker and wood. Dorcas perched the spray on my computer keyboard, so I’d be sure to find it after Jr. Choir. I hung it above the big picture of the children in the front hallway, after rearranging all the portraits so as to make room for Teddy’s senior picture.
Caleb gave me a beautiful card with a picture of a bull moose grazing under the towering Tetons. Inside were a handful of colorful little calico hearts he’d carefully cut out of a piece of material. From Joseph I got a sweater vest, and a fabric and rope necklace with a silver heart and beads. The necklace exactly matches the vest. Hester made a little basket full of flowers for me, and she also made a pretty card, as did Lydia, with leaf etchings on them. Lydia gave me a present, half of which was Larry's: two Hershey bars with Almonds. Both little girls gave me a package of pretty computer paper, too. Larry brought home two big bags of Reese’s Pieces. I ate so many of those things, I was plumb full by suppertime.
Oh, yes, it is too permissible to spoil one’s supper on one’s fortieth birthday.
Particularly with Reese’s Pieces.
Bobby and Hannah invited us over that evening, along with Lawrence and Norma, Keith and Esther, and Teddy and Amy. From Dorcas I received a marcasite butterfly pin, a beautiful forest green flowered dress, and a sweater vest. Both vests (from Dorcas and Joseph) are lovely, with embroidery and designs all over them, just what I like. The dress and the vest were in a bag with a mylar helium balloon tied to the handles.
Teddy gave me a tall, narrow calendar with wonderful bird pictures, a bag of Reese’s Pieces (!), and two of the neatest pens, pens I was recently drooling over at Wal-Mart. Evidently, he heard me grousing, “Why do people always give men fancy pens for birthdays and Christmas, but they never give women such things!” They are shiny and fat (speaking of the pens, not the women) and have rubber grips…they look like executives’ pens. I will feel ever so important, using those pens!
Bobby and Hannah gave me one of those green pieces of paper that comes in handy at such places as the grocery story--but which I imagine they could ill afford--and a beautiful 8x10 family picture from their wedding. From Keith and Esther I got an egg slicer and wedger (dumb computer doesn’t know what a wedger is), a box of stationery, and a set of bath products in a pretty basket--and on the basket was tied three mylar helium balloons. Amy gave me a big calendar of lighthouses, and Martha presented me with a CD-ROM of a whole lot of Arthur W. Pink’s writings--my favorite author.
Lawrence and Norma gave me a large framed picture of a lighthouse by Thomas Kinkade, and a set of tea towels on which Norma had painted birdhouses and birds using fabric paint. They’re ever so pretty. My mother gave me money, and friends galore bestowed other nice gifts upon me.
I spent this morning mopping floors--kitchen, hallway, bathroom, my room --because Victoria was sick again.
And yes, I have pointed out where the commode is. She just doesn't seem to be able to make it there in time.
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