Sunday, June 13, 1999 - Gone Digital

A few days ago, I was visiting with Lydia and Caleb’s teacher, who was telling me about the day the kindergartners were supposed to be copying numbers. One kindergartner seemed to be taking an inordinately long time to complete the job. The teacher went to see what the trouble was. Seeing that the child was painstakingly ‘drawing’ the numbers in large, squarish shapes, she asked , “What are we doing here?” whereupon the little boy replied, “I’m making them digital.”

Monday we made an excursion to Wal-Mart to get Teddy several necessary items for his new job: namely, a straw hat {agreed to only after he acquired a severe case of sunburnt ears (he was afraid he’d look funny, don’t you know)}, thick socks {needed to cushion the poor blistered feet from the stiff new boots}, and Dr. Scholl insoles {because Teddy’s instep and most footwear insteps are not compatible}.

When we arrived home, everybody began bailing out.....everybody, that is, except Hannah and Victoria. Hannah, who had scooped Victoria up onto her lap, decided to sit still and do nothing, just to see what her little sister would say. Victoria sat calmly, watching her brothers and sisters clamber out of the Suburban. When the last one was finally out, and shutting the door, she suddenly came to life, whirling around to look up at Hannah, and patting urgently on her. “Go out!” she exclaimed. “Go in! I’m HOME now!”

Dorcas is crocheting a cute little sailor dress, the top of which is dusty rose, while the skirt is white. Hester has begun crocheting her first dress, using some red sparkly yarn Lydia gave her for her birthday.

I have finished Hester and Victoria’s dresses, and am nearly done with Caleb’s shirt. Victoria’s dress is pink, and has little pictures of wildflowers and plants printed all over it, with the label written under each picture. The skirt has five tiers, and there is a maroon sewn-on vest with a peplum. Hester’s dress has a black background, and is covered with pink and mauve roses and dark green leaves, and it has a large round dark green platter collar that ties in the front. There are two flounced tiers. Caleb’s western shirt has red, white, and blue patterned balloons printed on it, and the yokes and front band are navy, with red-and-white-striped piping. I still need to sew Dorcas’ and Lydia’s, and, if I have time, I want to make one for Larry. We already have clothes for all the others.....some are hand-me-downs from friends, and some are from our trusty old Salvation Army or the Goodwill.

Some time ago, a friend of ours, Suzanne Haddock, gave Victoria a little cardboard doll. The cardboard is slick and shiny, and there are a dress, a pair of shoes, and a hat made of a rubbery plastic that sticks to the cardboard. Well, last week I found the doll on the floor with its head folded over. I gave Victoria a lecture about being more careful with her things, and tried to straighten the poor doll out. Then, a couple of days ago, I discovered the hapless doll with its head gone entirely.

Now, I cannot be absolutely sure just what happened to this ill-starred doll, for Victoria readily admits to all infractions, whether she actually committed the crime or not. Whatever transpired, I can be relatively certain it was an accident. Even so, I launched into another lecture:

“.....natter, natter, natter...be more careful...natter, natter, natter...appreciate things people have given you...natter, natter, natter...now this doll is ruined....natter, natter, natter.”

Victoria listened, eyes wide, making appropriate noises at appropriate moments: “Ohhh... yes... ohhh... hmm... okay... uh-huh...”

When the discourse finally wound down, Victoria picked up Headless Hattie and hopped her spiritedly along her dresser. Then, in a high, falsetto voice, she queried, “Where’s my head??? I can’t find my head! Where’d it go???!! ”

If you think I exited the room quickly after that dialogue, you’re quite right.

Tuesday was Hester’s tenth birthday. We gave her a Scofield Bible with a black tapestry zippered case, a huge super ball, and a Winnie-the-Pooh cup/thermos whose straw pops out the side when the lid is twisted. With money from her Grandma Swiney, she bought herself a beautiful doll and a set of six miniature quarter horses. An elderly friend, a blind lady to whom Hester used to be a Secret Pal, gave her some money, too; and she decided to get a little silver marcasite watch with a rose-gold face. After the woman at the jewelry counter removed fourteen links from the band, Voilá!--it fit! No, Hester’s wrist isn’t very big.

Since I’d gotten three quarts of strawberries at the grocery store, Hannah and Dorcas decided we should have strawberry pie for Hester’s birthday. {Pie, in my opinion, is much to be preferred over cake.} So they began washing, stemming, and slicing. That done, Hannah made the crust and the filling. I made a topping of cream cheese, sour cream, and powdered sugar. Mmmm! That was One Scrumptious Birthday Pie!

That evening, we went to my mother’s house to visit with her youngest brother and his wife, who were en route from their home in Rogers, Arkansas, to their old home in Arthur, North Dakota, where they are having their Golden Wedding anniversary celebration with their children, grandchildren, and other members of the family. We always enjoy visiting with Uncle Howard and Aunt Evelyn. He is an amateur inventor, and also a painter, in spite of the fact that his hands shake very badly.

For the last week, my niece Susan has not been well, so I’ve been back at my old post of church pianist. And our organist, Sandy Wright, is gone with her family on vacation, so Helen Tucker, Annette’s mother, played the organ. About 25 or 30 years ago, Helen was the official organist, and my sister Lura Kay was the pianist. Wednesday night, my brother Loren didn’t feel well, so my friend Martha Haddock’s father, Frank Koch, preached. A regular band of ol' substitutes!

One afternoon, Hannah was talking to Dorcas, who was downstairs. Hannah was standing at the top of the stairs, Dorcas at the bottom. Hannah asked her sister a question, and Dorcas went off to look for something while Hannah waited. Victoria, standing nearby observing all this, must’ve been questioning why Dorcas hadn’t answered. After looking at Hannah for a moment, eyebrows high, she marched over to the basement door, stuck her head down the stairs, and yelled, “Do’cas! I wonder!!” And then she really did wonder--why everybody burst out laughing.

Thursday afternoon, Hannah endeavored to make chocolate chip/butterscotch chip/Heath brickle cookies for Hester to take to Jr. Choir, as treats for her birthday. She used honey instead of sugar, and I, not knowing about the honey, instructed her to use some of our overabundance of farina along with the flour.

The first couple of batches wound up more like steam-rollered pancakes than cookies. We scraped all the batter off the other cookie sheets back into the mixing bowl, where we added flour until its consistency improved. That time, the cookies stayed in better cookie shapes. But you know what? Those original, flat, run-all-over-the-cookie-sheet cookies that we had to pry loose with a crow bar and an air chisel tasted the best! Brother. We gave up on cookies for Jr. Choir that week, purposing to try again next Thursday.

That evening, we found several old-fashioned straw poke bonnets at Wal-Mart--for only $2.88. We bought several, and Hannah is going to decorate them to match the dresses the girls are going to wear for the Fourth-of-July picnic. One is for Amy Haddock, a young friend who is sewing matching dresses for Dorcas and herself. The hats have quite wide brims in the front, so I expect our girls to come home from the picnic with nothing but their chins sunburnt.

One night we were eating broccoli/cheese soup. Victoria requested seconds: “Me have some mir?”

Hannah, reaching for her bowl, smiled at her and said, “Can you say, more?”

Victoria promptly pointed one little finger at Caleb: “You say it,” she instructed him. {Caleb’s funny bone was thoroughly tickled by that.}

Friday evening, while Bobby, Hannah, and Dorcas went for a walk along the dike, collecting ticks {not to be confused with ‘tocks’, those perfectly innocuous effects inside your clock}, the rest of us went to Madison to look at a not-too-badly wrecked Toyota pickup in which Teddy is interested. The countryside north of Columbus is really pretty in the evening, with the sun shining on the just-getting-green hills. We saw a blue heron in a pond near the highway, and we saw a doe and her fawn crossing a flooded field, blue sky reflecting brightly in the water. Larry quickly turned around so I could get a picture, but by the time we got back, the deer had spooked and were across the water and heading into the woods on the other side of the field. I got a couple of pictures, but I wish I could’ve gotten one when they were crossing that pond!

Madison has had entirely too much rain, and the small river that runs through the town turned into a raging torrent some time last week. That river is near the salvage yard we went to, and the lot on which the vehicles sit is only dirt. That is to say, mud, now. By the time Larry, Teddy, and Joseph were done wandering around that pickup, peering under the hood, looking in the windows, and checking out its undercarriage, they had so much mud on their boots that they looked like two-legged Clydesdales.

The flowers around my house are blooming like everything--at least, I think they are, under the weeds. The truth is, it’s good for my flower gardens to have me so occupied with other occupations that I don’t get them weeded for a while...because, you see, when I get in one of my weeding frenzies, I wind up plucking flowers that I misidentify as weeds. This year, however, since I didn’t get much weeding done, I’ve got several beautifully flowering bushes that I don’t even recall planting.

Upon a closer inspection of their leaves, I realized that it was indeed one of those ‘weeds’ I had so diligently annihilated the last two years. Fortunately, the plant--whatever it is--must have good, sturdy, perennial roots, so it has come back better than ever.

A hummingbird moth showed up and began drawing nectar from one of those flowers that narrowly avoided getting plucked. Have you ever seen one of those moths' snorkels?!

Saturday and Sunday, there were little airplanes circling overhead at periodic intervals, letting out scores of parachuters. We watched them from the church porch. If we would’ve liked to try it ourselves, we could’ve--for only $175! Wheeee!!

By the way: that’s $175 each. So that would be only $1,750 for our family. Wheeee!! This afternoon after church, we went for a drive out in the country west of Columbus. There is a minimum maintenance road we like to take--so long as there hasn’t been a recent downpour--and we wind up on nothing more than a couple of tire tracks way out in pastures near the Platte River. Farmers have put up bluebird boxes, and sometimes we see several pairs of bluebirds there. None this time, but we did see Eastern kingbirds, brown thrashers, mourning doves, a bobwhite quail, dickcissals, grasshopper sparrows.....and literally hundreds of young calves, along with a few colts. In one white-fenced corral, we saw a newborn pony--all white. He was only about two feet tall! You should’ve heard the littles oohing and aahing over him.

“Just my size?” queried Victoria, clasping her hands together in delight.

Nebraska’s wildflowers are all in bloom. The wild pink prairie roses cover the ditches beside the roads, intermingling with all colors of wild morning glories, and lavender covers the pastures as far as the eye can see. Spotting some beautiful yellow roses, I cried, “Oh, stop, stop! I want a picture of those!”

Larry stopped. “Those aren’t roses, and you’d better be careful where you step.”

So I stepped gingerly.....and discovered they were cactuses. Cacti. Cactoose. Cac-tice. {???} They sure are pretty, in spite of their prickles. Perhaps I’ll dig some up and plant them beside the brick wall in the front of our house. It gets so hot there every afternoon, what with the bricks absorbing the heat, and no shade, we have a hard time keeping the chrysanthemums and petunias watered sufficiently. I don’t imagine the area farmers would mind if I took some of their cacti!
Now, I must get back to my sewing machine.