Last Saturday night we bought several truckloads of cereal, because they were half price at UnSmart Foods. (You’ll recall, the Wright family came up with that pseudonym; it’s really ‘Sun Mart’.) Anyway, as I was saying, the fleets of trucks delivering cereal continued well into the night, until the garage was chock full from ceiling to floor.
Would you believe, there is only one truckload of cereal left? We may very well have to buy more, tonight!
Well, perhaps I exaggerated. But we did buy a lot of cereal. And there is very little of it left.
Bobby and Hannah came for dinner last Sunday; Keith and Esther were invited to their cousins Merle and Amanda’s house. We had roast beef on thick slices of French bread with beef gravy; carrots and onions; cottage cheese (an aberration of nature, according to a friend of mine); lettuce salad with tomatoes; a mixture of lime jello with crushed pineapple, raspberry jello with peaches, and strawberry kiwi jello with bananas; blueberry biscuits (hot, with loads of butter, and maybe even a drip or two of honey); and chocolate chip cheesecake (cherry is better). {Don’t you wish you could’ve been there?}
Hannah told us that their Sunday School teacher—my nephew David Walker—told his Sunday School class that when he was trying to study for his class the day before, all sorts of things kept happening to interrupt him. First, his seven-year-old son Michael’s four-wheeler ran out of gas. Since that Saturday might have been one of the few days he would be able to ride it, because of school and impending bad weather, David, sympathetic with his cause, went off to buy him some gasoline.
He returned home, filled the four-wheeler, and went back into his office to study. But it was no time at all before the van horn began honking…and honking…and honking… David went to see what was happening. There was three-year-old Sarah Kay, climbing out of the driver’s side, eyes wide as saucers. David disabled the alarm system, and the horn stopped honking.
He turned to Sarah Kay, whose eyes were still enormous, and asked, “Did that scare you?”
She gulped. “No,” she said, “it just scared my ears.”
Monday Larry called Roger, the man who rents our slant trailer to haul enclosed trailers, to find out where he was.
“I’m in Springfield, Illinois,” he told Larry, “and I’m in the hospital.”
“The hospital?” asked Larry in concern. “What happened?”
Roger told him that he’d parked at a truckstop Saturday night, intending to sleep in his pickup. But he was uncomfortable and couldn’t sleep, and the more he tried, the more uncomfortable he became. Finally he thought that he’d better get himself into the truckstop and ask for help while he was still able. The workers called an ambulance, which took about thirty minutes to arrive, since they were about thirty miles from Springfield.
Doctors at the Springfield hospital discovered that he had had a heart attack. He is only 56 years old.
His son, who is our age, drove there to take the trailers on to their destination, and his wife, Shirleen, with whom I used to work at Nebraska Public Power District some 22 years ago, went there to be with him.
By the time Larry talked to him, he was doing better, and hoping to be released from the hospital soon.
Tad is wanting outside, and is howling his fool head off. (Well, his head is sort of cute, but it's also loud.) It is past time for supper, and so far, the only thing I've fixed is a mug of coffee for myself, complete with Irish crème flavoring. Reckon I'd better get busy??
Teddy, Joseph, and Hester are playing soccer with the neighbor kids, who are raising an unearthly ruckus, and Lydia, Caleb, and Victoria are watching in amazement. Victoria just popped her head in the door and told me in her soft, low-pitched voice, "They're really yelling their heads off." hahaha --and just after I'd written that same thing about Tad! hee hee
Oooo... I'd better go rescue the pan of vegetables on the stove; it's threatening to boil over any minute. If Larry would hurry up and come home, we might rush off to the park for a quick game of tennis before bedtime...
Yesterday Joseph vacuumed for my mother, and Teddy cleaned the birdcage. The little girls take turns bringing in her mail and newspaper. And she finally has begun asking me to clip her fingernails, something she really didn't like to ask. Since she had that stroke, her hands are not strong enough to use a nail clipper. Also, because of the many vitamins and minerals and calcium she takes every day, her fingernails are very strong, making the job even harder.
Mama sounds congested all the time lately; her lungs keep filling with water. We worry about her.
Monday our friends’ baby Helen had surgery on the cataract on her eye. As far as I know, everything is all right… Poor little sweetheart.
Larry brought Dorcas’ ‘new’ car home Monday night. It’s a pretty car, maroon metallic. There is a bearing going bad in the air conditioner compressor, which makes it sound rather noisy. Larry hopes to fix it next week. Dorcas is tickled pink with it. She immediately thought of something she needed to get at Wal-Mart, and several siblings immediately decided they needed to go along for the ride.
Larry and I drove the car to the car wash that night after everyone went to bed, so that Dorcas could drive a shiny-bright new car to work the next day. We continued on out to Sapp Bros. truck stop for some coffee, then. In all the travels we have been on, we have found no place that serves coffee that can equal Columbus' own Sapp Bros. It is just right…not too strong, not too weak, exactly the right temperature (scalding), and never more than fifteen minutes old. Most coffee I’ve gotten elsewhere tasted exactly like brackish swamp mud, and if I didn’t want to chew the stuff, I had to water it down sometimes by at least half, after which it tasted like watered-down brackish swamp mud; much better.
There was no regular coffee, so I got decaffeinated, and then, even though I had originally wanted plain ol’ Farmers’ Bros. coffee, I suddenly spotted Irish crème creamer. True to form, I couldn’t be moderate; I would have to put in three little containers of the stuff. Now, I do like different flavors of creamer. Sometimes.
The first five sips were good…
Bleah.
Caleb has been having trouble with asthma this week; he seems to have improved today. This happens with each of our children who have asthma when school begins, and all through the school year, probably because they come into contact with children who have colds or the flu, and asthmatic children are susceptible to every germ that flies past, I think. Perhaps we should send them to school with Larry's paint masks on? They’d look like Martians on an invasion.
Hannah sometimes stops in on her way to school in the afternoon to teach her reading class. One day she brought three chocolate chip cookies she’d made the night before—one for Victoria, one for me…and one that I squirreled away for a midnight snack (although for some strange reason it disappeared about 5:00 p.m. when all the children were outside playing). (At midnight it was sorry it had done that; but at 5:00 it thought for sure it was doing the right thing.)
I finally broke down and called Connecting Point Computer Store to order a 15G hard drive to add to my computer. I must have more memory. (In my computer, that is.) (I do need more in my head, too; but I forgot the name of the store where they sell it.) Shortly thereafter, everything went awry while I was typing away in my ‘journal’, and several unheard-of programs performed Illegal Operations and lost my document. I shut down the computer, started it back up again…and was glad enough to find it had recovered Chapter 19, on which I’d been working. (Chapter 19 was on a window just under Journal.)
Unfortunately, four pages of Journal were converted to hieroglyphics, never to be seen in plain English again. And since I have no ancient Egyptians in my ancestry (or so I’ve always believed), I could not decipher it. {It was not Indian, or I’d have doubtless been able to make sense of it. After all—I am a descendent of Pocahontas.}
So the retyping began. Botheration. I’m always quite certain that the first time I wrote something was the best; and if I have to redo it, it cannot possibly equal my first effort.
Two days later, Larry, Teddy, and Joseph brought home my new D-drive. I closed out of programs and shut the computer down, and Teddy turned off the power supply. There was no manual in the box (I think the people from Connecting Point remove all the instructions so that people in general and Jacksons in particular can’t get the hardware installed properly, and have to bring their ’puters in to let the ‘experts’ do it; must keep the ‘experts’ in jobs, you know), so I got out my Compaq PC User’s Guide, removed the plastic wrap (nope; I’d never used it before), and opened it.
“Okay!” I announced authoritatively, “I will now read the destructions.”
Larry rolled his eyes, Teddy grinned, and Joseph cleared his throat, “Ahem.”
I flipped a few pages and, while Larry removed the computer cover, began reading: “Breathe fresh air deeply and regularly. The intense mental concentration that may accompany computer use may tend to cause breath-holding or shallow breathing.”
Hester and Lydia giggled. Larry and Teddy positioned the drive in the proper slot, and then connected first the spare power supply cable, and then the data cable.
I continued, “Are your feet firmly planted? Are the backs of your—”
I was abruptly interrupted by Joseph loudly stamping both feet, one after the other. “Now they are,” he said in as low a voice as he could muster, sounding remarkably like A. A. Milne as he narrated the Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
I turned a couple of pages and, while Joseph handed small screws to the shrinking workforce who was attaching the drive to the tower, went on with the handbook’s advice: “Do you blink enough?”
No sooner was that out of my mouth than half a dozen people were blinking with all their might and main, rather like toad frogs in a hailstorm. Caleb laughed until his eyes were squinted shut so tightly he couldn’t blink.
I ignored the clowns and studiously read, “Periodically, do you take inventory of the stress in your life and change what is within your control to change?”
Larry immediately popped up from his prone position on the floor, where he had gone to dozing after inserting the connector into the receptacle, evidently believing his job finished. “Yes!” he exclaimed, startling Kitty, who had curled up beside him and was catnapping (that’s what cats do, you know) on his arm. “I am experiencing a good deal of stress because it smells like supper is done, and I am hungry, and the kitchen is in there, and I am out here!”
“No supper until the hard drive works,” I commanded quickly, forestalling any precipitative exits.
Larry sighed and collapsed back onto the floor. “Oh, well,” he muttered, “I wasn’t done napping yet, anyway.”
Just as Teddy said, “Okay, turn the computer back on and try it,” I found the page we needed.
“To ensure proper installation, please read all the documentation packaged with the new hard drive,” I read. “Aauugghh!” I howled, “we were sunk before we began!”
Since the computer cover was off, and therefore the button with which to turn it on was missing, Larry inserted the tip of his pen into the hole that seemed to be in the appropriate location and pressed the button. The computer came to life.
Well, the men of the house had undeniably installed that hard drive, but the computer refused to acknowledge its existence.
I read further, “ ‘Close all programs. Remove all diskettes and CDs.’ Ah! There’s the trouble,” I announced, “I think there’s a CD in the drive!”
We removed the CD, shut it down, and tried again.
But the computer steadfastly ignored the new hardware (or is it ‘software’ ?—I should think, since it is a ‘hard’ drive, one should call it ‘hardware’; but how would I know?!).
We tried numerous ways of getting the computer to recognize the wonderful new memory box it was now in possession of, but it was entirely too stupid to figure it out. (Computers are stupid; you knew that, didn’t you?)
Finally I said, “I want to type!” and Larry countered, “I want to eat!” so we slid the uncovered mainframe back into my desk and did just that—with Larry's proposal taking first echelon.
Yesterday, Teddy talked to the man at Connecting Point.
“Oh,” he said matter-of-factly, “bring it in next Tuesday (reckon should we take an aspirin a day, till then?), and our computer expert will set it up for you. Things must be changed in the BIOS files; you can’t just plug it in and expect it to work.”
Aarrgghh! Why didn’t he tell me?! He very indisputably told me that I just had to know how to plug it in properly; and not to worry, if it didn’t work right the first time, just unplug it and then plug it back in a better way, and Voilá!—everything would be hunky dory; I needn’t be concerned about damaging any files or folders or such. Picture how he’d look in a monitor for a hat, hmmm?
Well, okay…till Tuesday, then.
Larry headed off to Trinidad, Colorado, Tuesday night at 9:30 p.m. with a load of enclosed snowmobile trailers. Trinidad, of all places! The town where he was born, and where he lived until he was thirteen years old.
It rained most of the day Tuesday. We’ve desperately needed rain all year long, but every shower we get is too little, too late.
That afternoon, I spent a good deal of time combing Victoria’s doll’s hair. It’s the doll Hannah put together and crocheted a bonnet for, and she had beautiful hair that Hannah glued on—but now its wig is starting to come loose, affording Victoria much anxiety. I shall have to buy a tube of E-6000 or J.B.Weld; that ought to hold it in place forever or longer.
Larry called me late that night, using his new cell phone, from somewhere south of Lexington. I could barely hear him through the static, and then we were disconnected. He tried again a little later, and this time, I could hear him just fine.
He said, “I am sitting on top of a—” and that was the end of that; he ran out of minutes.
I wondered, What’s he on top of? His pickup? A water tower? A tree? A dumpster? Hmmmm…
A good while later, he got to a truck stop at Colby, Kansas, and called again. What he’d been going to say, was, “I am sitting on top of a hill.” He said he would call again at 8:00 a.m. Guess when I heard from him? 5:45 p.m. I keep telling him, someday he’s going to wish I was worried about him, so that I would call the National Guard, or the Coast Guard, or the Army and the Navy; but I won’t be worried at all, not the slightest iota, because he’s only a day or two late, which is early, in his book. And there he’ll be then, stranded at the bottom of an arroyo, incapacitated, with nary a soul looking for him for days and days.
Joseph can’t find the ruler he’s been using in accounting class…it’s not his; he’s been borrowing his teacher’s ruler. (She’s one of Bobby’s aunts.) It should be easy enough to find, because before loaning it to him, she wrote in permanent marker on the back, “If found, please return to Marlene. Joseph lost it.”
That evening, I totally forgot to curl Hester and Lydia’s hair. I always curl their hair on Tuesday nights, so that they will be well-curled young ladies for church Wednesday evening. Fortunately (in Hester and Lydia’s view), church was canceled. So, after doing the dishes, sort of, the kids went out to play. The littles were soon rollerblading with their cousins--even Victoria and little Jamie Walker, who is just three months younger than Victoria. You ought to hear the cacophony when eight kids go tearing past the front window on blades. It sounds like the Indiana Tollway, it sho’ ’nuff does. Caleb is doing very well on his skates…but he goes so fast, it makes my hair stand straight up on end. I kept cringing, listening for SPLAAATS.
Dorcas will be having a few eight-hour days now at All About Kids. Turnover is terrible at that place. People find they can’t cope with all those children, or the boss, or both. Dorcas is doing fine; she really enjoys it, and she is hoping that soon she will be a full-time employee.
Larry finally got home about 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. Roger will not be able to work for a month, and there are umpteen loads of trailers to haul. Larry is leaving again tonight after church to take a load of recyclable trailers from Beatrice, Nebraska, to Buckeye Lake, Ohio, a little town about thirty miles east of Columbus, Ohio. Four miles east of Buckeye Lake is a town called Jacksontown. It’s an 970-mile trip, each way.
Dorcas made banana bread Thursday; we took half of a loaf to Bobby and Hannah, who were not home, and the other half to Keith and Esther, who invited us in. Tippy, their kitten (Kitty’s daughter; Tad’s sister), hissed ferociously at us. When we all laughed at her, she hissed something awful and growled a terrible growl, way down in her throat. I thought she was probably just frightened, because of all the strange people in her house. But later, after we’d been there a while and it seemed that she’d settled down, she suddenly snarled and attacked both Hester and Joseph, twice! Help. That cat!
My computer memory is down to 1.76G. I could start deleting things, but I’d just have to put it back in all over again, once that new hard drive is in working order; so I’ve been handling the poor ol’ thing gingerly. I have trouble getting it to start, the last few days, without Illegal Operations. That computer expert had better hurry, installing my hard drive! Thursday evening I told Teddy not to play a game on the computer; then when we came home, Joseph rushed in and started playing a game before I noticed.
Suddenly hearing the sound of race cars, I cried, “Hey! Exit out of that, right now before you lock it up!”
Joseph jumped, and exited. He exited not only the program, but also the desk chair, leaping up and fleeing for his life in mock terror. I checked the memory—and it was down to 1.69G! And he’d closed out of my document! Aarrgghh!! I hastily closed out of every running program I didn’t need, emptied Recent, Temp, and Trash folders, and managed to bring it back up to 1.73G. And I discovered that Microsoft Word had miraculously saved my document, thankfully.
I will soon be starting work on the Christmas Program; I plan to start practicing Christmas songs with the Jr. Choir around the first of October. Perhaps we have time to learn a song and sing it for church before Christmas Program practice begins…we’ll see.
Saturday I finally got the rest of my pictures from Colorado. Most turned out pretty good; one roll has been wrecked up, and I can’t imagine that I did it; it must have been PhotoWorks. There is a reflection or imprint on the pictures—and on the negatives—of the holes from the edges of film. How could *I* have done that??
Dorcas got me two more albums; I put all my pictures into them, and only have half an album left.
Nebraska played Iowa yesterday. It was chilly and windy, perfect for the players (well, other than the wind, that is, which was a little too stiff), a bit too cold for the fans. Iowa made the first score. They did well, the first half. Then the Huskers kicked in the afterburner, and really went to town. We won, 42-13.
And now it is nearly time to get ready for the evening church service… So, that’s all, folks!
P.S.: And now, I am going to tell you a very special secret: Larry and I are going to be grandparents!!!!!!!!! Yesiree, uh-huh, we sho’ ’nuff are…Bobby and Hannah are going to have a baby, next April. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!! Yippeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!
Yours truly, Granny
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