During a busy day of house-cleaning this week, Hannah was crawling around on all fours, adjusting the fringe on the Oriental rug. Along came Victoria. After standing and silently watching the procedure for a moment or two, she strolled over to Hannah and patted her on the back.
“Nice horsy!” she said in a droll trill.
Monday it rained twice. In between the showers, we went for a walk. The rest of the week, it was so stifling and hot, we waited until evening to go outside.
One afternoon, Victoria asked, “Are we going to go for a walk?”
“No, it’s too hot,” I replied.
She wrinkled her nose. “Oh!” She gazed pensively toward the window. “I would smothercate?!” she inquired in horror.
This week I typed the preface and a chapter and a half for my book. That’s not much; it’s going rather slowly as I weed my way through my old calendars and decide what to write about, what to leave out. Also, I must think of new and different ways to say, “Then the next day…”, and “Then the day after that…”, if you know what I mean.
Last week my sister-in-law, Janice, brought us three large bags of McDaniels sweet corn, along with a pound of butter. It was scrumptious, but we had corn for four days in a row. We’d just finished it when we discovered three more hefty bags full of corn, complete with the requisite pound of butter. Joseph, having just awoken, came groggily up the stairs--and spotted the corn. Both hands flew up and clasped his head on either side.
“Oh, NO!” he exclaimed in consternation, “We’ll have to eat corn for the rest of our lives!”
But we fixed those last three bags of corn in all sorts of different ways, so nobody minded the repeat.
Dorcas has been helping Susan, my niece, with her little boy Matthew each morning, since Susan still isn’t doing very well, and must lie down and stay off her feet most of the day. Susan told me she was sure glad for Dorcas; Dorcas gets along wonderfully with Matthew; and everything goes well. Dorcas loves that little boy.
We’ve been taking supper to my mother nearly every night. We almost always have enough food for one more person--especially if they eat no more than Mama does. She calls every afternoon to tell us not to bring anything, because she has plenty of food. We say “Okay” ever so politely--and then take food anyway. After all!--I would rather have fresh, hot food for supper, rather than warmed-over substance from ‘Meals on Wheels’…and so would she, I think. She especially likes corn, and, in spite of her instructions to bring nothing, she seemed quite pleased when we brought in a dish of piping hot corn, fresh off the cob, with a big pat of butter melting on top.
One evening I read the story of Moses returning from the back side of the desert, meeting his brother Aaron, to the family. Afterwards, as usual, we all prayed together. Victoria, the little heathen, doesn’t close her own eyes--and I don’t insist, at her age--but she was carefully holding her hand over her dolly’s eyes--and she whispered ever so quietly in the hapless doll’s ear, “Close your eyes!” haha
Once again, church was canceled Wednesday because the heat and humidity were so awful. Many of the men work outside, and they’re tired and not feeling just the best. One afternoon Keith suddenly quit sweating and got dizzy. His coworkers, ever watchful of one another, promptly doused him with a five-gallon bucket of water, after which he just as promptly recovered.
That night, Lawrence and Norma, and Keith and Esther, too, came to visit. All twelve of us--Hannah and Joseph had gone somewhere with Bobby and were not along--piled into the Suburban and went to the drive-through Dairy Queen. We ordered three small vanilla cones, one large vanilla cone, one Reece's Pieces blizzard, and six Snickers blizzards.
“How many??!” gasped the waitress, as always.
We drove around Wagner Lakes while we ate them. Mmmm! Now, that just hit the spot on that hot July night. Joseph called us on the cell phone just as we were driving away from the Lakes. He, Bobby, and Hannah had just arrived home. We told Joseph not to let Bobby leave yet; then we stopped at the Dairy Queen again and ordered three more Snickers blizzards for them.
Larry and Joseph took a navy extended-cab pickup to the auto auction in Lincoln Thursday. It was a waste of time; the price it would’ve brought would not even have covered our investment in the vehicle. Larry tried again at the auction in Omaha the next day--and it sold for over a thousand more than it would have in Lincoln. Larry then went straight to Lincoln to spend some of the profit…on a new computer for me! He got it at Sam’s Warehouse Club. It’s a ‘Compaq’, and it has a seventeen-inch screen, an e-tower, ten something-or-others and 430 other-something-or-others. Things to do with velocity and memory and astrological equations. Anyway, it’s an extra-extra-nice one.
Larry carried the two large boxes in, and the boys helped get it all set up. Everybody was terribly excited.
"What's IN there?!"
"What did you GET?!"
"Can I help?"
"Where are you going to put it?"
“How many megahertz does it have?"
"How many megabytes does it have?"
"How many teeth does it have?" and that sort of thing.
Meanwhile, Victoria was grinning hugely, and clasping and unclasping her hands. Finally, when all the hubbub died down enough that she could get an edge in wordwise, she breathed, "Let's get everything out of the box?!" And then, "Let's put me IN the box!!" and further, "And THEN let's put me in the 'NOTHER box!"
So one of her siblings, after the box was unloaded, lifted her into it, amid much giggles and laughter. She was soon having a fast ride down the hallway.
After everyone else went to bed that night, Hannah helped me get all my favorite settings put onto the new computer. She sat at the other computer on the other side of the living room, while I sat at the new one; then, taking turns reading programs and settings and lists to each other, I got it all set up just the way I like it.
Then, instead of getting any typing done, I began transferring files. It took me a full day to get all my documents and settings switched over. When I discovered that this computer didn't have all the jungle noises that I like so well, I howled and got on the Internet to see if there was a place where I could download them. Guess what I found: A program I could download, whereby I can write and print music! Boy, oh boy, I hit the download button so fast, I nearly imbedded it right into Mozart's home page.
I have now gotten the verse of a new tune to Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken written, soprano and alto, that is…but every time I try to put in the bass notes, the notes up in the treble clef jump up and down and play musical chairs. Aaarrrggghhh! This is what they make mouse traps for: to catch computer mouses that have wreaked folly all over important pages of type. Grrrrr. (You see why I need my jungle noises.)
Our friends Carey Gene and Martha and their family came to look at our new computer; Carey Gene is quite helpful with computer snafus, and was able to solve a few problems for us--such as being able to see the status bar on Internet pages.
They gave us the CD they’d been burning when their computer got cantankerous and quit at 26 songs instead of completing the 30 it should’ve. Carey Gene calls the disks ‘coasters’ when that happens, because the disk cannot be reused and over-recorded.
Before they left, Keith and Esther came, so there were even more people to whom to show off the new piece of equipment.
Saturday afternoon, having completed the transferring of data, we took my nephew’s computer back to Susan, for whom he’d purchased it. Charles and Susan’s new house is absolutely gorgeous. Their little boy, Matthew, was delighted we had come, and looked after us forlornly when we had to go.
Yesterday the littles were in kitchen getting some string cheese out of the refrigerator.
“Do you want some, Victoria?” asked Lydia.
“Just a minute,” responded Victoria.
She came rushing down the hall to ask me, “Can I have some string cheese?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Oh,” she responded in a somewhat indifferent tone. With that, she whirled around and went tearing back into the kitchen, crying, “I DO want some!”
Saturday evening, I practiced with our Wright quartet [and yes, it is definitely the Right quartet] Pull for the Shore, an old song by Philip P. Bliss that is on the CD Martha and Carey Gene gave us. It’s so pretty. Keeping with the theme, I practiced a song with our young people’s octet entitled With Christ as My Pilot.
After a good deal of bookwork, and a corresponding good deal of check-writing late last night, I finally went to the grocery store for supplies for Sunday dinner. Back home again, I put all the soup ingredients together, since it always tastes better when the spices have time to steep. But why do scrumptious recipes never ever turn out as yummy for Sunday dinner as they do any other day of the week? I was finally all done and ready to go to bed by the wee hours of the morning. However, as happens regularly on Saturday nights, I couldn’t sleep. My head itched. My neck itched. The middle of my back, right where I can’t reach, itched. My arms itched. Legs. Feet. Head. Aarrgghh! The alarm went off altogetherly too soon.
Keith and Esther and Bobby came for dinner after church this morning -- potato/hamburger/vegetable stew, fruit salad with piná colada yogurt dressing, French bread fresh out of the oven, a big quantity of crackers, and chocolate chip ice cream. Every time Bobby arrives at our door, Victoria cries gleefully, “Bobby’s home! Bobby’s home!”
We are now packing for our second attempt at that trip to Colorado to get some vehicles, which we will then haul back to Arapaho, Nebraska. We plan to leave tomorrow morning.
The Wrights are also going to Colorado; they left tonight. They are taking three vehicles. Aaron Tucker, Annette’s youngest brother, is going, too. Perhaps we shall run into them somewhere, hmm? It most likely being the last time Bobby will vacation with his family before he and Hannah are married, they’ve planned an event-filled holiday of a week and a half.
We, however, will be home Friday or Saturday.
And now, I’d better get myself in gear! There are still lots of things to pack.
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