Victoria has been ever so very pleased with the Sunday School papers she receives each Sunday since she started Sunday School. The minute she arrives home, she wants me to read her the stories in it, and tell her the instructions on the back, as to which color to use on the pictures, and so on.
Last Sunday, her paper instructed her to draw a blue circle around the baby, a red circle around the two-year-old, and a green one around the five-year-old. Dorcas read her the directions. Victoria got out her blue color…Dorcas expected her to draw a circle around the entire baby--but she instead meticulously encircled the baby’s face, and nothing else. For some reason, that tickled Dorcas’ funny bone, and she suddenly went into peals of laughter. Victoria turned and looked at me, eyebrows up, a slight little smile on her face, wondering what in the world was so funny.
Well, I am still using Dorcas’ computer, but the computer technician from Connecting Point just called me to tell me my computer was all restored, and it will soon be ready to pick up. They are trying to install the new hard drive, but it seems to be defective. Fortunately, it was bought right there, and it has never been used, so they will probably replace it for me.
Last week I downloaded Explorer 6.0 onto Dorcas’ computer and threw out Netscape 6.0 and its plug-ins. Bleah! Every time I hunted for Explorer, articles from Netscape popped up, telling me how horrible Explorer is. I downloaded all the ‘instant messengers’ we use, too. The boys are unimpressed. They think those things spoil their games, and make them jerky. Joseph even thought that the mere fact the phone cord was plugged into the jack was creating disturbances in his racing game.
Dorcas and I, on the other hand, are quite sure that it’s those dumb games that are fouling things up.
I’ll be glad to get my own computer back; this one has quolly fobbles. Outlook Express still won’t send a new message. I’ve hunted all over the place to see what might be causing that. Perhaps it’s something to do with the gimpy spring on the bottom of my desk chair? Or maybe it’s because a light bulb is burned out in the chandelier overhead? Or possibly because I have the wrong color of socks on? Hmmmmm… Any helpful suggestions will be appreciated. I said helpful.
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| Hester and Tad |
One afternoon Joseph gave Tad and Kitty a bath. (Not both at the same time.) (You already knew that, you say?) Tad sits calmly during his baths, although he looks entirely toooo sad and mournful and done-wrong-by for words, and now and then remarks, "mmeeeeoooooorrr-rrrooooaaarrr," just to explain his feelings, you know. Kitty, however, is more frightened, and is liable to suddenly decide to depart the tub, using Joseph’s arm as a ladder. But if we are gentle with her, and continue to talk to her, and keep a supporting hand under her, she’s okay.
Victoria informed me, “Sometimes when I start petting Tad, he doesn’t even wake up! That’s probably because he’s sleeping as hard as he can.”
As I write, Tad has been missing since Saturday evening. Where is our little cat? I miss him. Oh, I do hope no harm has befallen him… Maybe whoever was keeping him in their house back around Thanksgiving time is doing it again.
As the children were doing their homework after school one day, Victoria sat nearby practicing writing her name. “I have a nice little name,” she informed Hester and Lydia (although her name is the longest in the family), “and I love it too!”
Wednesday night, Robert preached from Job 24, starting at verse 6, where he left off Sunday. It was a wonderful sermon--and that, in spite of the fact that he had a bad cold and a sore throat.
"Nothing serious," he told us.
He is known for never catching a cold, and hardly ever getting sick. Pastoring is a high-stress job, however; much more so than the manual-labor job he has done until now. That is, it's a high-stress job, if one does it the way the Lord would want one to, rather than just reading one's sermon from the Monthly Inspirational, giving everybody conciliatory pats on the back, and no more. (Well, maybe on the head, too.)
After church, Larry and I went to the grocery store. We stopped at a red light, and noticed a truck coming up behind us, a bit too fast for comfort, particularly since we were in the Isuzu rather than the Subdivision.
“I hope that third brake light is on this time,” remarked Larry, looking in his rear-view mirror.
“Why?” I queried, a bit anxious. “Doesn’t it work?”
He looked at me like I was missing a marble or two. “Well, of course it only works every third time you push on the brake; didn’t you know that?”
Saturday we cleaned house…well, the kids did, and Larry helped. Larry even cleaned out the oven, and was so proud of himself, he showed everyone who set foot in the door. I curled hair, washed clothes, folded clothes, and sewed on Lydia’s dress. I’m almost done. Computer troubles have taken a sizable chunk of time away from the scant amount of time I already have to get the Easter sewing done.
Dorcas had child care classes at the college Saturday morning--five hour’s worth. She is required to have twelve hours of classes each year. What ridiculous things they are taught! Well, there was a good recipe for silly putty. It was a combination of glue and starch, and they called it glurch.
Hannah came to show us the bargains she’d found at a few of Lincoln’s Thrift Stores. I bought several dresses, a book (God’s Smuggler, by Brother Andrew), and a purple jacket with black velvet trim and sequined lace from her.
She is crocheting ruffles of variegated purple thread onto socks for Victoria, and Victoria is tickled pink. Or purple.
This Sunday, Victoria’s Sunday School paper had the Bible verse “Praise ye the Lord” on the back, and she was supposed to color each big letter of the word PRAISE with a different color, cut out the entire square, glue it onto a larger piece of construction paper, fasten a string to it, and then hang it on the wall in her room. After dinner, she colored it and happily came to show me. I told her she could cut it out, and later we would find some colored paper and string.
Before church that evening, guess what I found glued to the bathroom wall?
Yep. The PRAISE verse. And it was glued good. Real good. So today I set her about pealing off as much as she could, and soaking the rest off with a hot cloth. She kept at it until she got it all off, and it was no easy task, either. Goofy little kiddo.
Bobby and Hannah came for dinner Sunday. We had blue hake baked with lots of butter and green peppers, stuffed pasta shells with sauce, peas, Italian bread, jello with fruit, and pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. Keith and Esther went to Lawrence and Norma’s for dinner.
Hannah told us that Bobby asked her if the reason she hasn’t been wearing hats to church as often as she used to is because she’s afraid the baby will be born wearing a hat.
“No,” said she, “but I was afraid he’d have hat hair.”
Keith and Esther came visiting that night, and I finally remembered to give them their second-anniversary present--some potholders, mitts, and hand towel with apple motifs to match their kitchen.
* * *
Monday afternoon we had a most dreadful calamity: we discovered Tad had been run over and killed by a car. The news was not totally unexpected, for I knew that he would have been home Saturday night, if he had’ve been able to come home.
Our beloved little kitty is no more.
You know how we loved that little cat... The children were heartbroken, and were all crying...
I thought, Well, it looks like I have a choice: Either I do something to make them feel better, or I order in a truckload of Kleenexes.
So, although I really didn't want another cat, I snatched up Sunday’s Columbus Telegram and turned to the advertisement pages. Sure enough, there was an ad for free kittens. Before long, we were pulling into the driveway of a farmhouse where the kittens were.
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| Teddy and Socks |
The lady first showed us a four-week-old litter of five kittens. They were not ready to be given away yet; the ones she wished to give away were from an earlier litter, nine months old. She led us out to the barn, and there they were: an orange marmalade stripe, and another mostly black, with charcoal stripes, and white feet, chest, and stomach. He's a pretty little cat, but his face is not as pretty as Tad's... I've never seen another cat with such a pretty face as Tad's. And in comparison to Tad’s long bushy tail, this little cat’s tail is seriously lacking in molecules.
But when Joseph held his hand down, he immediately came running to him, and when Joseph picked him up, the kitten snuggled under Joseph’s chin, butting his head up against his face, purring like a sewing machine. One look at Joseph’s face, and I knew that was the kitten with which we would be going home.
We've named him Socks. I said we should name him ‘Aerodynamic’ (‘Arrow’ for short) (or ‘Dynamo’) (“No, ‘Dino’!” said Hannah) (“NO!” said Joseph) because he has a narrow face, eyes that are too big for his head, and ears to match the eyes. But he purrs at the top of his lungs, he’s loving and affectionate, he loves to play, and the children really like him. He is sitting on my lap as I type, and my arms are getting tired from holding them up so I don't bump him--although if I do bump him, he purrs vociferously. We debated for a while between the names of Socks or Boots. I chose the name Socks because he looks like he has them on ... and because I thought the Clintons' cat was named Boots, and I didn't want a Democratic cat.
About the time Socks got to know his name, I learnt I was wrong. Clintons' cat's name was Socks.
The lady at the farmplace told us they'd given him and his brother to her mother-in-law, who lives in Lincoln. Then, a week and a half ago, the elderly lady had a stroke and could no longer care for her cats. So this lady brought them back to Columbus.
They're accustomed to being in the house all the time, and were rather lost on the farm. But she didn't want them in the house, because she already has a house cat.
We are planning to keep him in the house... no more kitty run over by another car, please! We will have to have him declawed, though; he wants to sharpen his claws on sofa, loveseat, recliner, carpet, bed, walls, ceiling, anything!!
I like Socks... but I miss Tad. Socks doesn’t have the right fluffy tail, swooshing around my legs as he rubs on me.
* * *
And now it is Tuesday, and guess what I am doing?
I am putting all my documents and pictures and important things back onto my computer; it has been restored; I just picked it up. I drove to the ’Puter Hospital, opened my purse to get out the checkbook—but the checkbook wasn’t there. So I drove back home again, hunted all over for the checkbook, gave up, and got out a new book of checks. As it turned out, the checkbook was in—you guessed it—Larry’s car.
That’s the trouble with being married: you have to share things—without warning!
And you don’t get them back again, when your mate is done ‘sharing’ it with you.
It's sort of nice to have a nice, fresh computer, but it is NOT sort of nice to have to redo everything. And those lazy bumpkins at the computer shop, after telling me they'd be able to save the things I put in folders on Desktop--DIDN'T.
The new hard drive that had been lurking in the tower since Christmastime was defective; so, rather than put a different one in and saving my things to that, they simply stuck in the restore disks, and that was that. No more Intel videos! (I couldn't save those to 3.5" disks; the files were too large.) I know why they did that, too: it was because the kid with the green spiked hair had to get home and put more stiffening agent on his hair, quick before it collapsed.
I hardly got any sleep last night, because Socks kept getting on my bed and attacking my feet. I finally shut him out of the room—and then Kitty came and scratched at my door. I let her in and groggily went back to bed…and if Kitty herself didn’t then land on my feet! Kitty is unimpressed with the new acquisition to the family. Every time poor little Socks gets near her, she growls and hisses.
I do hope they get along, eventually.
Now...the sewing is languishing on the vine--and I only have two weeks in which to complete Lydia's dress, Victoria's dress, two skirts for me, and alter three suits for the boys. Yikes! Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go!
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