About the time I started this letter, Caleb and Victoria began playing some vague game that they named “Slid Game Go.” I’m not sure what the point of the game was, but they came tearing down the hall, sock-footed, and then slid around the corner into the living room before capsizing onto first their knees and then their stomachs, and continuing to slide. I figured that any minute one would have a terrible calamity and end the game prematurely, and with a good deal of distress. Fearing for the safety of their bone structure, I soon put a stop to the activity. But it did look funny.
I sure do wish my printer would print colored pictures… It is in dire need of a thorough cleaning. In my Outdoor Photographer magazine, there are advertisements for a Canon printer that prints pictures at 1200x1200 dpi. That would be snazzy. Now I must do the mending, get everyone’s Thanksgiving clothes done, work on the Christmas Program, and then sew Christmas clothes. Anyway, at least I don’t have so much to sew as I used to; my work is gradually dwindling. And I won’t have six purple taffeta dresses, one ivory satin flowergirl dress to sew and a wedding gown to redo, come January! I'll have time for a few other things before sewing Easter things.
Larry left last Sunday night to go to Ohio with a load of recyclable trailers, bringing back a load of cargo trailers from Elkhart, Indiana. He called late Monday night from a motel in Buckeye Lake, Ohio; he’d just gotten there.
It was a cool day, both in Columbus and in Buckeye Lake, where it had been raining; I actually wore a long-sleeved sweater all day.
Victoria loves for me to read to her, after the other children have gone to bed…and she also likes me to sing to her a song that goes along with the story. One evening she was having all sorts of fun with a box of small books I got out of the cupboard and let her play with. She wanted me to read them all to her. And, as she was the only one still up, I did so, reading faster and faster and faster, flapping the pages with all haste and speed, putting her into throes of merriment. One little book had pictures of a doctor in a white jacket …and suddenly I was reminded of a story a friend of mine, Kathy, once told me. There are two parts to the story:
Part One:
This segment of the story Kathy told me right in front of her children, making their hair stand straight up on end, and thereby triggering Part Two.
The setting was several large hospitals.
A man had been traveling from hospital to hospital in big cities across the country, kidnapping newborn babies from nurseries. He accomplished this by going into the clothes closets of the hospitals and donning a doctor’s or laboratory worker’s ‘lab coat’, along with a few props, such as a clip board, or a handful of syringes, or an IV pole, or a cart full of all manner of laboratory supplies. He would then march into the nursery as though he belonged there, and he seemed to know precisely what procedures he should follow. With a friendly smile at the nurses, he would ‘check’ a paper he had, ‘compare’ it to the name on the baby’s wrist bracelet, nod as if in confirmation, and very carefully wheel the bassinet out the door and down the hallway, having plenty of time to make a good get-away before the nurses realized anything was amiss.
Kathy told me this story, and her three young children stood and listened in horrified awe, eyes enormous. I gestured at them and waggled my eyebrows, but it didn’t faze her; she kept right on with her story, going into great detail about the anxiety and fear amongst new parents at big hospitals, the possible dire circumstances the babies might land in, and the worry and concern of the nurses. Boards of Directors all over the States were telling hospitals to lock their closets so no one had access to lab coats, and they were to lock the nursery doors from the inside and somebody was to stay with the infants at all times, not releasing them without the express permission of some known person in charge.
Part Two:
One rainy afternoon, not more than a week after hearing this dreadful story, Kathy’s children were playing in their basement. There was a large window that opened out onto their front walk, and it was along this lane that the mailman came striding--and he was dressed in a long trenchcoat that was flapping in the breeze.
As he passed by, his shadow fell across the window…and the children looked up. Then all three of one accord came tripping and scurrying up the basement steps in terror and panic, screaming, “Mama! The blabcoats are coming! MAMA!!! THE BLABCOATS ARE COMING!”
* * *
The children played outside Tuesday afternoon, for it was a beautiful day. I took Victoria for a long walk. Lydia is collecting bugs for school; fortunately she only needs a few, nothing like the monumental bug project for Seventh-Grade Science Class. She managed to catch a wasp and a honeybee, along with a few other less hazardous insects. Joseph is supposed to collect plants, but he plans to draw pictures of them and write an article about each one, instead, because he is so allergic to weeds. Tad, in the meanwhile, has been collecting squirrels and birds, although he does not preserve them well. He has caught three squirrels in two days, the horrible carnivore. What shall we do, muzzle the beast?
Hester went with her cousin Emily to their farm after school. She came home all bubbly, full of stories about the kittens--and especially about the horse she’d ridden.
That afternoon Larry got the recyclable trailers unloaded, and then went to Elkhart to get a load of cargo trailers. He slept for four hours that night between the hours of 9:30 and 1:30 a.m., and then I woke him up calling him on his cell phone. Being very tired, he’d driven onto a frontage road, looking for a place to park and sleep. There didn’t seem to be any good location to bring that big rig to a standstill, so he kept driving…and driving… And suddenly there was a sign announcing ‘Dead End’. Uh, oh. Now what?!
Up ahead he could see a farmyard, and he was hopeful he’d be able to get turned around there. He was relieved when he realized that the drive went all the way around the barns and sheds; he’d be able to get back out easily. And then he noticed that there was no house around--and decided it was the perfect place for a nap. And it must’ve been, for he slept longer than he’d intended, and wouldn’t you know, I woke him up. He was fifty miles east of the Iowa border.
He got back home about 4 p.m. Wednesday, in plenty of time for church. On his way, he stopped in eastern Nebraska and looked at a truck, a Kenworth, ’92. ‘Looking’ at a truck translates into ‘driving’ a truck. It has 700,000 miles (!) on it, which must not be so bad, when it comes to trucks, but what do I know? It’s in good shape, and is selling for a good price. The clutch on the pickup is slipping worse and worse; the brakes aren’t working well; really, all this driving and hauling trailers is too much for the maltreated thing.
In telling me about that truck, he started relating how the seat scoots up plenty far enough, and how short people would be able to see out quite fine, and all I’d have to do would be learn how to shift it, and I wouldn’t have any trouble at all, because I’m a good shifter… Wait a minute. What did you say?! All *I* would have to do would be learn how to shift?? When did I ever apply to be a truck driver??!! When? WHEN???!!! I do not recall once in my life ever saying that I wanted to be a truck driver when I grew up.
Yes, I mentioned flying a fighter jet. Yes, I remarked on the joys of teaching. Yes, I spoke of writing. Yes, I talked about photography. Yes, I chattered about playing piano. I even made reference to parachute jumping, once upon a time (although my father was not amused).
But NO! I did NOT refer to truck driving, not once EVER!!!
However… However. I DID natter on about liking to travel. So…is this my punishment? Well, of course, it hasn’t happened yet… But…
On a main highway on the way from Buckeye Lake to Elkhart, Larry met an oncoming funeral procession. He’d just topped a hill, and he was traveling about 65 mph. An older couple, two cars in front of him, slowed abruptly and turned onto the shoulder, where they stopped, a totally unnecessary and downright unsafe thing to do on the highway. This confused the young girl in the car directly in front of Larry, and she, too, stopped--right smack-dab in the middle of the road, exactly under Larry’s nose. He slammed on the brakes, but for the longest time--or at least it seemed like a long time--the pickup hardly slowed at all. And he wasn’t even loaded! Finally the brakes took hold, and the tires began squalling. The girl’s head spun around, and she looked into her rearview mirror with some bit of apprehension. As the hood on that big pickup began blocking the rear end of the girl’s car from Larry’s view, she pushed on the accelerator and slowly--ever so slowly--putt-putted forward…barely enough to give Larry room to get stopped. Whewwww…
Keith and Esther came visiting after church. It was Esther’s birthday; she is twenty-three. We gave her a musical globe with teddy bears, in and around it, and a figurine of those cute Beary Hill Bears with a Bible verse on the bottom. This one had a bear in a high chair, with a fine mess all around and on him. His bowl was on his head, and spaghetti was creeping out on all sides. He’d knocked his glass of milk off his tray, and a little dog was crawling under the rungs of the chair to lap it up. The verse on the bottom read, “Jesus saith unto him, Feed my lambs.” haha I wonder, which was the ‘lamb’: the bear, or the puppy?
We have some Mexican neighbors; our children enjoy playing with their children. The little four-year-old twins, Yänna and Katrina, like to come onto our porch and peer in the window, hands cupped around their eyes. They are delighted if they spot Hester or Lydia inside… A couple of times they started to open the door, preparing to let Kitty out, but I noticed and told them not to do that. They stood beaming happily at me, so I grinned back, waved at them through the glass, and closed the door in their faces. (I do not like people peering through my door, not even cute little four-year-old twins with big black eyes.) Hannah came to the door yesterday, and there was Yänna, pulling on the door, while Victoria, inside, was hanging onto the door handle with all her might and main.
“Hannah!” said Victoria urgently, “Do you want to help me hold the door?!”
She pointed through the glass straight into Yänna’s face. “She keeps trying to open up our door!”
Yänna gave Hannah a wide, cheerful grin.
Today the twins went to the Foreman’s house next door and opened their door, in order to let Mandy (their dog) out. Mandy gladly leaped out went bounding away. They shut the door. Seconds later, the door burst open again, and that time, Mrs. Foreman got out. Yup, plumb escaped, she did. She came bounding out onto the porch and yelled at Yänna and Katrina to “Go away, go home, and DON’T COME BACK!”
They rushed for their bikes and rode away, big black eyes wider than ever. After all!--they were simply trying out one of Curious George’s tricks! Remember the pigs he let out of the pen? He wasn’t being naughty; he was merely looking for somebody--or something--to pull a big pump he thought he needed.
Yänna still has training wheels on her bike, but they are so far off the ground that they rarely touch. She goes pedaling along, never dreaming that she is actually riding that bike sans training wheels.
Victoria was playing the harmonica one day… Then she quit with the playing, and instead sang a verse of Jesus Loves Me. When the song ended, she explained, “I was trying to play Jesus Loves Me, but you couldn’t tell it, so I sang it, and then you could tell it.”
I asked her to get my socks in my room; she came back, peeked around the corner, unable to keep from grinning, and said, “I couldn’t find them.” Her hands were empty…and then I noticed: she had them on her feet! Silly little thing; as soon as I noticed, she went into peals of laughter.
Thursday afternoon when I was getting ready for Jr. Choir, Victoria remarked, “I’m not old enough to go to Jr. Choir.” She tipped her head thoughtfully. “I’m old enough to go outside and play!--but not to go to Jr. Choir.”
Yes, she got to go outside and play.
Teddy, having found a squirrel tail, brought it into the house, of all things.
Hester stared at it in revulsion. “Is it real?” she asked.
Teddy affirmed that it was, indeed, real.
“Ewwww!!!” exclaimed Hester. “Where did you get it?!”
And Teddy, not wanting to tell her that her beloved Tad had brought another squirrel to its waterloo, replied, “It grew in the back yard.”
Guess what that kid did with that tail. He shut one end of it in his glove box, so that it appeared that a squirrel was inside the compartment, and someone had slammed the door on its tail. Aauugghh.
A neighbor and friend (?) of ours told Joseph that Tad was in his yard, chasing ‘his’ squirrels and birds. One of Joseph’s friends, by way of teasing Joseph, told the man, “Just shoot him.”
So the neighbor man, seeming to like that idea, said, “If he comes home with a bullet, you’ll know where it’s from!”
I called and asked him please not to hurt our cat, but to call and tell us if he sees Tad in his yard, and we’d come and get him. The man really wasn’t very nice. What does he expect me to do about it?? Cats will be cats. And did he ever stop to think, the cat is our personal pet? It belongs to us. According to the Bible, we are to ‘regard the life of our beast’--speaking of a domestic animal--and be merciful to him. Funny that the Bible has to tell us such things; but I guess there is more than one person like that neighbor man. The squirrels are rodents; they are nobody’s pets. Not that we like our cat to eat up the neighborhood animals--I’ll betcha *I* like the squirrels and the birds just as well, if not better, than that man does--but should we gag him? (meaning the cat, not the man) (although perhaps we should gag the man; then he couldn’t say such nasty things)
Larry left for Berthoud at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning. I thought it was possible he would get back home in the middle of the night… Sometime in the early morning hours, I walked out onto the porch, and there was…an opossum, scuttling across the street from the big Douglas Fir, toward Lura Kay’s lawn. He looked as though he were traveling at top velocity; but then, once he got into the lawn, he suddenly kicked in the afterburner and went shooting off around the house and out of sight, tail churning like a propeller. Moments later, I figured out what had scared him so: their underground lawn sprinklers were turning on with the usual hissing noise. He probably thought he’d somehow wound up in Yellowstone National Park, with geysers all around him.
I explained it to the children: “Whooaa!” he doubtless said to himself, “playing possum in this situation is not going to cut it! Run, Possy, run!!”
Larry called at 2:30 a.m.; he’d gotten to a motel in Sterling, Colorado, at about midnight, but he laid down on the bed ‘for a minute’, and then he fell asleep and didn’t wake up and call me for a couple of hours. It had taken him longer than he’d expected--a normal turn of events--to load the cars he was bringing back. He would unload them in North Platte later that morning. He got home at 3:30 p.m.
Although the doctor told Roger, the man who also hauls trailers and who had a heart attack two weeks ago, not to work for a month, he is planning to take a load of trailers to Ohio again this week. He must be feeling better.
Lawrence and Norma came visiting Friday night…we accused them of coming because they’d smelt the pear streusel pie I’d recently baked. It turned out good…well, almost good; I thought it had a bit of a strange, somewhat bitter wang to it, but everyone else said it was fine. We gave Lawrence and Norma Teddy’s 5x7s they’d ordered… Where, I wonder, are the 8x10s? Hopefully, in the rack at Wal-Mart’s Photo Lab, and the clerk forgot to look there. Larry, suffering from terminal lack of sleep, conked out long before Lawrence and Norma departed. Lawrence tried to rouse him to bid him adieu…but he discovered it to be an impossible task.
After they left, I, having a few more tricks up my sleeve than Lawrence, managed to awaken Larry, after which we drove to the store and then out on Shady Lake Road, where we saw two young raccoons and a herd of eight deer. I like autumn, when the corn crops are being harvested, and all the animals come out full force to take advantage of the wealth of fresh fodder.
Guess what, guess what?! Teddy finally worked up enough courage to ask The Question. What??? You don’t know what The Question is??? Why, you poor thing, here is The Question:
When could Teddy and Amy start dating.
The poor kid lost quite a lot of molecules off the palms of his hands during The Question, ’cause he kept rubbing them so furiously on his jeans. I promised to call Amy’s mother and ask about it.
So yesterday, I did as I had promised. We all agreed that they could start dating today. I then called Teddy at the shop (it was Saturday, remember) and told him he must start getting ready for church, because he was going to have to drive all the way across town to pick somebody up and bring them back to church. “And you mustn’t be late!” I concluded.
You want to know his answer?
His answer was, and I quote, “Hmm.”
As I write, Caleb and Victoria are playing “Math”. They play all sorts of games together. Some are real, honest-to-goodness games, some are made up; some have normal, understandable names, and some have totally nonsensical names. At the moment, Victoria is asking Caleb all the questions.
“What’s 5+9?” she queries.
He replies, “14.”
“Yep,” says she, quite as if she actually knew.
“What’s 8+2?” Caleb answers, “10.”
“Yes,” says Victoria. “What’s 5+6?”
“11,” responds Caleb.
“That’s right,” answers Victoria. “What’s 7+6?”
“12,” says Caleb.
“Yep,” replies Victoria, having not the faintest notion, of course, that he’s missed it. “You’re doing really good!” she tells him enthusiastically.
“Except he missed that one,” I say; “the answer was 13.”
“Oh,” say Caleb and Victoria in unison.
Saturday afternoon Hester, Lydia, Caleb, their cousins Jodie, Sharon, Jason, and a whole raft of Mexican kids from 17th Street were roller blading on 42nd Avenue. What a racket!--and what a harum-scarum sight it was, all those kids, racing madly along the Avenue, up the ramp and onto the school porch and then down onto the sidewalk, over the curb and out onto the street with a leap and bound.
The entire family--Keith and Esther, Bobby and Hannah, and Amy, too--came for dinner today. Last night I made three kinds of jello with different sorts of fruit in them, and another big pear streusel pie--five recipes worth of pie, all in one humungous pan. This time, I altered the recipe…adding ingredients, tasting it, adding more ingredients, tasting it, adding more ingredients…until it was just right. Much better than the first time. That pan was so heavy, I had to use a forklift to take it from the oven, and an industrial-strength crane to hoist it onto the counter. The pear filling ran over inside the oven and burned, spoiling the scrumptious aroma.
This morning before church, I put a couple of hams into the oven. Since they were already cooked, I set the oven on 250º, which wasn’t hot enough to cause any troubles. But then, before dinner, I turned it up to 350º to bake some dinner rolls and to finish baking the roast, potatoes, and carrots Keith and Esther had brought. I didn’t notice how much pear filling was spilt in the oven…until…
…there was a fire blazing away inside my nice new oven.
I, being of sound mind, saved the biscuits first. After that was safely accomplished, I jerked the baking soda from the cupboard and handed it to Larry, who tossed a handful of the stuff onto the flames.
The flames went out.
They didn’t stay out, however. Soon they were flaring up in another location. I opened the oven again and flung more baking soda on it.
The fire died down, spluttered, and went out.
By that time, the kitchen was filled with smoke, and smoke was billowing insidiously into the living room and down the hall. So I said the next logical thing: “Dinner’s ready!”
Anyway, the food tasted okay. And, with a fan in the doorway, we soon had the smoke cleared out. Good grief. Welcome, Amy!
Would you like to hear the rest of the menu? Is that cheering I hear? Okay, here it is: mashed potatoes with creamy country gravy, corn, lettuce salad, tomatoes, and cottage cheese. And, of course, the aforementioned ham, jello, rolls, roast, baked carrots and potatoes, and pie. I ate enough for five people my size, I think.
Tonight before church, not wanting to be late for the 8:00 p.m. service (or perhaps cunningly contriving to have a wee bit longer date), Teddy rushed off for Amy's house a little after 7:00, in order to bring Amy to church. (This is part of the formal and customary procedures of those Sunday or Wednesday night ‘church dates’ around these parts: the young man brings his date to church, and they sit together through the service. Afterwards, they might go for a short drive, or perhaps go visiting [Teddy and Amy came visiting the pear streusel pie, this evening after church], before the young gentleman {?} takes the young lady home again, hopefully before her parents begin entertaining thoughts of calling out the National Guard.) As I was saying, since they arrived back quite some time before church was to begin, they came into the house. Victoria was delighted.
“Amy’s here again!!” she exclaimed gleefully.
One thing is for certain: if the rest of us fail to make Amy feel welcome, Victoria certainly will not!
Teddy has injured his eye. It is all red and swollen, and light hurts it. Either he burnt it welding yesterday, or he got insulation or metal shavings in it. Tomorrow after school, if it is not better, he is going to the eye doctor.
And *I* have an injured nose. A broken nose, to be exact. For the third time, to be even more exact. It happened not more than three hours ago… You see, I was standing behind Victoria, holding her around the middle, swinging her… I swung her forward, set her on her feet, and let go. She, in a burst of exuberance, laughed and jumped…and my nose had not yet had time to get itself out of the way.
C r a a a a a c k c k c k ! ! !
That’s what my nose said, so loudly that Larry, on the other side of the room, knew just what had happened…again. I tell you, it sounded like a shotgun went off inside my head.
“Oh!” I said in a muffled sort of a voice, hands over my face, “She broke my nose!”
“I heard it,” said Larry, coming to view the damages.
And poor Victoria burst into tears.
The first time this event occurred, I was playing with Joseph, and he was eighteen months old. I was on my knees on the floor, and Joseph was sitting on my lap. He got up to walk off, and I stuck my finger through his belt loop and pulled him back down onto my lap, PLOP!, saying, “Hey! You come back here!”
He giggled and jumped up. I snatched his belt loop and hauled him back. PLOP. “I said, ‘you come back!’” I told him, and he laughed and leapt to his feet. I drug him back. PLOP. He screeched with laughter and bounced to his feet again. I snagged his britches and jerked him onto my lap…and that’s when he flung his head back, guffawing…and smashed his head right into my nose.
C r a a a a a c k c k c k .
Not saying a word, so as not to frighten the children, I set Joseph on his feet, jumped up, and rushed for the bathroom, where I leaned over the counter to peer into the mirror, a difficult job, on account of the tears streaming down my face.
My nose was indeed crooked, with a sharp break right below the bridge. We can’t afford a plastic surgeon, I thought, and, getting a good grip on the nose, I straightened it out.
And then I hung onto the edge of the sink with all my might and main and tried valiantly not to land in a heap on the floor, while walls spun madly about me. OoooooooOOO.
I was still nursing a sore, swollen shnozz--albeit, a perfectly straight sore, swollen shnozz--a couple of weeks later when we were driving somewhere…Joseph, in his car seat beside me, tossed his head back to look into the back of the vehicle…once again, my nose was too close, and --
C r a a a a a c k c k c k !
So much for my nose being perfectly straight. And now, it’s even less straight.
Larry is going to leave sometime soon to take a load of trailers to Ohio. “Wake me up in twenty minutes,” he requested at 1:00 a.m.
I did so.
He looked blearily at the clock, calculated a bit, and then said, “Wake me up at 2:00.”
I did so.
He opened his eyes, looked at me, and closed his eyes again.
“Did you hear me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, eyes shut tight.
“You wanted to get up at two,” I said in a helpful sort of way.
“No,” he dissented, “I asked you to ‘wake me up at two’; I didn’t say I ‘wanted to get up at two’.”
“Oh,” I replied, and returned to my letter.
Now…shall I let him sleep, or shall I go see if we have such a thing as a tray of ice cubes in the house?
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