Each week after typing my letter, I print it in triplicate, with slightly different versions. One goes to Uncle Don of Shelbyville, Illinois. He is my father’s brother, and has always been special, in part just because of how much he reminds us of Daddy, although he’d be well loved on his own merits, in any case. Nowadays, I do not know if he understands anything about my letters at all; he is in a nursing home, and, according to my cousin Patty, he does not always recognize his family.
Another goes to the missionary’s widow in Temple, Texas, Mae Chizum. Have I ever told you about her? She is the widow of Gaylord Chizum, who ran The Servicemen’s New Life Center in Killeen, Texas, for many years. I remember visiting them often when I was small. Daddy spent quite a bit of time traveling to visit the missionaries and evangelists we supported--the ones who weren’t on the other side of the world, that is; and, you can be sure, we did not go away without leaving them a ‘little extra’, as Daddy so modestly called it.
In the years since his death, we have heard stories from them, or perhaps from their children, about how Daddy would so often arrive just when they were most desperate, wondering where in the world they would find money for their next meal. And then, without them ever asking, Daddy would hand them some money, usually more than they needed.
No, there aren’t many as generous as Daddy was. People often thought he was well-to-do, because he gave away so much; but he wasn’t, really; he had no savings to speak of, for he gave it all away.
I loved going to the Servicemen’s Center, because it was always full of sailor boys, and I thought they were jolly fun to play with. In fact, it was a young serviceman--a sailor boy, newly born again (he told me all about it, and even shed a tear or two while he was at it)--who taught me to play checkers.
I pestered my parents on the way home about whether or not that boy would have to be in a war, and might he get shot, and just how dangerous was it to be a sailor?
Daddy told me that sometimes things were dangerous, and that was why we should be so thankful for a man like Gaylord Chizum, who loved those boys and faithfully taught them the way of salvation. Then, if anything did happen to them, we could at least be assured we would see them again someday in heaven!
I was satisfied with that.
Back to my letter: the third copy, I keep in a large notebook; I am on the fourth three-inch notebook now. But before I put it into the notebook, I send it over to a friend of mine. This copy is all full of stories of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Jebusites, the Gergashites, and so forth. (Those are Bible names that we also use in referring to some people we know: the A--------, the H---------, the J----------, and the G---------. HAHAHAHAHA) (You didn’t think that was nearly as funny as *I* did, did you?) (That’s why I had to laugh so loud, to make up for your not doing so.)
Anyway, I send all that to my friend, who of course knows these stories already…so she might as well know my viewpoint on the issues. (And I don’t know of a time when our viewpoints don’t agree.) Furthermore, I want to keep the story in my notebook for future reference; and, you know, a story is not a story without drama. I wrote a small note to her, explaining these things, and this is the note I received in reply:
“Dear Sarah Lynn:
It sounds like a good plan to me. After all, you want it for posterity; and the uncles and aunts might begin to feel like Piglet did when Owl was telling him about an accident that nearly happened to a friend of his relations.”
I wonder: do you, after reading one of my posts, feel like Piglet did when Owl was telling him about an accident that nearly happened to a friend of his relations? Does everybody I write to feel like Piglet did when Owl was telling him about an accident that nearly happened to a friend of his relations?
Now as I type, debating on exactly what to write, I keep thinking of how Piglet felt when Owl was telling him about the accident that nearly happened to a friend of his relations.
Last Sunday night Larry put broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots on to cook before church--but he waited too long to do it, and they weren’t done when it was time to go to church. Unbeknownst to me, the poor kiddos went off to church with their stomachs empty. I realized this when, the instant we came home, Victoria made straight for the refrigerator and began burrowing about in it, searching for something to eat. I looked at the table--and the only thing on it was the relics of afternoon dinner.
“Didn’t anyone have supper?” I queried.
Nobody had.
And there in the pan was a soggy-looking mess of over-cooked broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. But Larry was preparing to cook something, so I went away and let him.
Guess what he cooked? A large egg omelet, using a dozen and a half eggs…and then!!--he mixed it with those wilted vegetables! I was rather astonished. I thought it looked--well, to be perfectly honest--gross. (Even if I don’t use that word.) (But no other word accurately describes what that stuff looked like.)
But looks aren’t everything. I discovered it was really quite tasty. In fact, it was downright scrumptious. I want more! The children liked it, too--even Joseph. It MUST have been good.
Last Monday, I went to the Social Services Department to see if Medicaid would pay Teddy’s doctor bills for his cut finger. I had been told to bring birth certificates, Social Security cards, pay stubs, nose length, shoe size, and baseball team preference for every person in the house, whether they were my own personal blood relative or not; and thumb prints from each of the mice.
People at Sordid Sorghum Departments are not known for their levity. On the converse, agents have been known to frown the full way through a Laurel and Hardy routine, without the slightest mirthful twitch. Why, I once saw a Snide Starched Dignitary stare expressionlessly down her snide starched nose when her arch enemy, a snooty, ostentatious dame, during a indomitable stride down a courtroom hall, broke a three-inch spiked heel off her shoe and made like a pogo stick for the ensuing fifteen feet.
Monday afternoon, however, I actually made one sourpuss laugh.
I was seated in front of her imposing desk, Victoria in a chair beside me, several large envelopes full of the necessary documents in my lap. I handed the lady pay stubs from Larry’s checks…pay stubs from Teddy’s checks…and pay stubs from Dorcas’ checks. I gave her cards with Social Security numbers on them--all but Caleb’s, whose card seems to be lost.
I pulled out one birth certificate after another: Larry’s… mine… Dorcas’… Joseph’s… Hester’s… Lydia’s… Caleb’s… Victoria’s… But where was Teddy’s? The very child for whom we were having this visit--and I couldn’t find his birth certificate.
I extracted the last two papers from the envelope, unfolded them, and read them, with the caseworker looking on.
They were not birth certificates. They were not Social Security cards. They were not pay stubs, and they were not report cards, although the latter might have been a possibility, since the report cards are stored in the same cubbyhole as the birth certificates.
Guess what they were?
No, they were not my weekly grocery lists. (Caleb took one of those to school with his Heritage Studies book the other day. His teacher, wondering what it was, pulled it from his book and read, “Juice, cat litter, -- oops!” and she burst out laughing, and Caleb joined right in.)
Those last two papers were bills from the veterinary clinic: one for Tad, and one for Kitty.
I held them out. “Can I substitute a couple of vet bills for our cats, in place of the birth certificate?” I queried.
And then something peculiar and extraordinary happened: the lady laughed. It was a real, honest-to-goodness laugh; it was unmistakable; it really was a laugh. I stared at her for a moment, nonplused. Was she not of the same species as the rest of the populace in that stifling, unfriendly building?
Once more, I searched methodically through those envelopes, but Teddy’s birth certificate did not materialize. Furthermore, he was the kid for whom I had two certificates, having once accidentally ordered another before the first arrived--and they cost $10.00 apiece.
I promised to go home and find the certificate, and bring it back that afternoon; and I was allowed to go without penalty or punishment or ankle-bracelet monitor.
I found the certificate right where it was supposed to be, in a niche in my hope chest. In fact, I found both certificates. Please, would you tell me a good use for two birth certificates, so I won’t feel like such a wastrel, every time I see those things?
I took one back to the Stagnant Stoolie Department, and then went to City Hall to get a copy of Larry’s W2 form, another of those documents that took wings when I wasn’t looking. Or perhaps it took legs. Who knows. I took it to the tax man and scurried home to get on with the sewing.
Hannah came then with a big box of hats that had arrived that morning, including a pink one with a big bow and ‘feathers’ that was mine. Oooo…I like hats. I want more! Big hats…little hats…wild hats extraordinaire…I like hats.
Larry didn’t get home till 10:00 p.m. that evening, after having worked fourteen hours. The crew he’d been with had worked in Omaha.
Joseph had a dentist appointment at 6:00 p.m. (strange time, but handy, for us). We thought they were going to do a root canal, but they keep telling us the tooth isn’t in far enough yet, so they just repacked it, putting medicine right into the tooth. He has an appointment for October 8th, but I will have to call the dentist tomorrow, because each day since last Monday that tooth has hurt him worse, until today I think he was living on Tylenol.
It was hot that day; and the kids played outside from the time school got out till the sun was sinking in the west.
Helen, Hester and Lydia’s teacher, is once more reading to the children out on the school’s front porch in the afternoons. The days are getting warmer and sunnier--and tornado season is upon us. Already there have been several tornadoes strike towns in Nebraska, resulting in a few injuries and many demolished buildings, but fortunately no loss of life; which is more than can be said for Iowa, Oklahoma, or Missouri, where a total of four people were killed last week.
One day Dorcas’ friend Stefani sent her this story:
The Whale
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though they were a very large mammal, their throat was very small. The little girl stated that Jonah was indeed swallowed by a whale. The teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was impossible.
"When I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah," said the child.
The teacher asked, "What if Jonah went to hell?"
"Then you ask him," replied the little girl.
We are in the process of having most of our window screens repaired. They were all loose at the bottom, allowing children to stick their heads entirely out and search for earthworms from the comfort of their own living room; and permitting inside cats to go out, and outside cats to come in.
One morning not long after moving into this house, in the early winter of ’86, I was trotting down the hall when my bare feet and ankles detected an Arctic gale blowing about them.
“Brrrrrrr!” said the right foot.
“Wuzzat?!” said the left.
So I took them to find out.
No, the back door had not blown open, as it was oft wont to do, having a faulty latch.
No, Larry had not left the front door open when he went to work. I checked the living room windows…the kitchen windows…my bedroom windows… No, no, and no. They were all closed. I ventured again into the hallway, and was once more assailed by a cold Subarctic breeze.
Puzzled, I quietly opened the door to Teddy and Joseph’s room. They were usually still sound asleep at this hour of the morning…but not this morning.
There stood Teddy, age three, on his bed, peering out the window--he’d pealed the rubber gasket out of the screen frame, rolled the screen up, cranked open the window, and had his head--indeed, the whole top half of his body--practically hanging out the window.
“Look, Dosheph!” he was exclaiming as I entered the room, “It shnowed last night!!!”
He no sooner got that out of his mouth than he got whopped on the setter. He yelped and jumped a mile, startling me; and had I not grabbed him quick, he’d have gone right on out the window.
“You’ve ruined the screen!” I rebuked him. I turned to lay Joseph back down in his crib, covering him with two or three blankets. “And Joseph is as cold as a chunk of ice! You know better than to open your window when it’s so cold outside!"
I tossed a blanket over Teddy and departed the room quickly, before he noticed that I was having a difficult time keeping a grin off my face.
A friend of ours is redoing the screens for us. He normally does auto-glass tinting and also installs magnetic windows in houses. These are windows that snap onto magnetic strips along the edges of the window frame, a few inches to the inside of the original windows. They effectively seal off the window so that a home is more energy efficient. Some years back, we had him do Victoria’s windows. Her room is in the northeast corner of the house, and the stiff winter winds of Nebraska did not seem at all deterred by the original windows. Nor did the oppressive summer heat, for that matter.
When I called to ask if he repaired screens, he told me that he ‘didn’t go out looking for such jobs, but does them for friends.’
Now we will be able to open our windows without Socks exiting and all the neighborhood six- and eight-legged critters entering.
Last week Larry sold his pickup. We are once again out of debt. That is, we will be out of debt, if Medicaid decides to pay the doctor bills for Teddy’s finger. Further, we are going to get money back from the IRS! I am quite surprised; I really thought we would have to pay them.
There is little doubt that we will have a sizable sum to pay next year, however, because of selling the business and all the vehicles. Larry has been claiming only a couple of dependents, so that more would be withheld from his check, and we will not have to pay quite so much next April.
Monday there was an article in the Columbus Telegram, complete with a large picture, about our friend Laurence’s gasoline/electric car. He’s 86, and he has quite the colorful history with the BBC. And that’s not the British Broadcasting Company, either.
The first stories I know about him concerned his marriage, which was not made in heaven. His wife, being of a particularly volatile nature, particularly where her husband was concerned, was known to have chased him around the house with a butcher knife on at least one occasion. He, realizing that the theatrics were not being performed in jest, ran for his life. Finally he decided to come to our church, in the hopes that my father could help him, and perhaps even save his troubled marriage. His wife was unimpressed.
One of the children, however, a fourteen-year-old girl, came with her father to church, and loved coming. It was not long before the wife put up an ultimatum: either me, or that church. Laurence, figuring that he’d never had her in the first place, chose the church. Well, actually, in his mind, he chose the Lord.
She then took the children and left him. Janet stayed with her father. The wife went to the law to get the daughter back, and they of course took her side. They always did, if it concerned whether or not a child--even when the child was of an age where he should have been competent to decide for himself--should attend that church. They ordered her back to her mother. So Laurence took the girl and fled.
The wife threatened to kill him if she saw him, and no one thought it was an idle threat; everyone knew she was quite capable of it. It was for these and other reasons that someone took Laurence, by the dark of the moon, to a certain location--with Laurence riding in the trunk. Being unsure where the next turn was, this Good Samaritan stopped to ask directions.
There was a man atop a tanker truck filling it with oil, truck motor running, and it was to him that the question was posed. The driver shouted up to the man, “What road do I take to get to Route 20?”
The man atop the tanker started to reply--and at the same instant, to our hero's horror, the bloke in the trunk began replying, too, although he, of course, had no idea how to get to Route 20, since of course he had no idea where they were right then. The man on the truck stopped talking and stared down at the car, clearly puzzled.
The question was re-asked. Once again, the man on the truck and the man in the trunk both answered at the same time. The man atop the tanker stuttered to a halt, totally bumfizzled.
Spooked already, by now the hackles on the back of our driver's neck were rising. “Okay, thank you,” he called politely out his window, and took off.
Not far down the road, he found a good place to pull over. He climbed out, walked to the back of the car, and opened the trunk.
“Laurence, you blockhead!” he exploded. “Don’t you know, when you’re in the trunk, you should keep your trap SHUT???”
He thereafter kept his trap shut. At least, until he finished his sojourn in the trunk.
Laurence is a full-blooded German, and he speaks English more backwards than any other good German has ever yet been known to do.
“I’m off to the bank to borrow ’em some money!” he was once heard to announce.
Upon being advised that that wasn’t quite right, he amended it to, “I’m off to the bank to loan ’em some money!”
He decided to redecorate his house. “I’m a-gonna hang some of them Bombay curtains in the parlor!” he enthused.
On a traveling junket with my father, many years after that first memorable expedition, they were preparing for bed in my father’s Airstream camper. They each lay down in their beds. Daddy almost fell asleep--and then Laurence sat bolt upright, rocking the trailer like a ship on the high seas.
“What was that!!!” he hissed, causing Daddy to sit bolt upright in like fashion.
“What!!!” barked Daddy.
Laurence peeked out the window. All was quiet on the western front.
He stole a cautious glance out the opposing window. All was quiet on the eastern front.
“I thought I heard something I couldn’t hear,” he explained, still whispering.
His erstwhile teachers have all ceded defeat. In fact, they have all gone to quoting him: "I thought I heard something I couldn't hear." We even say it ourselves.
As for the rest of the story about the custody case, one day a turncoat informed law officials the whereabouts of Laurence's daughter, and she was returned to her mother. All these people knew that woman was unstable and violent. But by that time, the girl was approaching her sixteenth birthday, and the very day she turned sixteen, she came back to her father. She has attended church here ever since.
And this is the Laurence of the newfangled gasoline/electric car.
“You gotta stay up with the times!” he told the reporter, still just as happy as ever to have his name in lights. He patted the fender of his car. “And this baby really goes!”
Ah, Laurence. They say it takes all sorts to make the world go round… Well, there are some who make the world go round…and round…and round…
* * *
Meanwhile, back at the Jackson Ranch…
Do you think Victoria is destined to be a mechanic? One of the videos she likes to watch is all about how to use the Snap-On Scanner (for those cars with computerized gigbacks, gripplers, and gunlocks). Well, actually, I think the reason she likes it is because of the lively piano music, and the comedic scenes at the beginning and end, with smoke issuing forth from frustrated fluers’ ears.
At suppertime Tuesday evening, Caleb exclaimed, “I can’t wait until Easter!”
“But you have to,” I informed him, “there is no choice.”
He giggled.
Larry patted on his arm. “Wellll… (he made a couple of tsk-tsk noises) we’ll boil you an egg.”
Hannah came visiting for a few minutes, and during the conversation asked, "Did you see the picture of the moose in the paper--" and quicker'n a wink Teddy interrupted her and said, blank of face, "No, that was Laurence."
It was quite a while before she could quit laughing long enough to tell us about the big bull moose that is making its home near Lindsay, not far from here.
That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Socks fell out the window right in the middle of a crashing thunderstorm. I had earlier seen him at the window, leaning out to look at the drops of water spilling over the edge of the gutter and landing on the ground. Then suddenly I heard a funny noise, sort of a scrabbling sound, a plop, and then a pathetic meeeooow. I jumped up and went to see what it was.
Socks was nowhere to be found.
It occurred to me that he could have tumbled out the window, and when I looked at it, I discovered that it was indeed open far enough that he could have done just that. I looked out the window, but saw nothing. I called him…I went to the front door and called again.
Nothing.
I went back to what I was doing. A couple of times I again heard a strange noise, but wasn’t sure what it was. I was very definitely thinking I was hearing something I couldn’t hear.
Later I discovered that I’d been hearing just what I was afraid I’d been hearing: the poor thing had been jumping at the wall, trying to reach the window!
Then finally, a long time later, he made his way around to the garage, and fortunately, the walk-in door was open. Twice I heard something in the garage, looked out, saw nothing. But eventually poor little Socks, desperate to get in, was simply throwing himself at the door--and then tumbling back down the wooden steps.
The third time I opened the door, there was a poor little wet, muddy, bedraggled kitten, all hunched down, staring up at me with those huge tilted eyes of his. He came half-creeping, half-running in, and I scooped him up, mud and all. And then, didn’t he purr! Such twubbles and twials cats get themselves into with their boundless curiosity.
The next morning, Victoria told of the thunder and lightning of the night: “There were too much noises, and too much bright stuff, and it sure wakes me up!”
Each month, we get a little devotional entitled Our Daily Bread. It usually comes a month and a half early. The reader is supposed to read one page per day. But, just as I used to do with my reading book when I was in the first grade, I read the entire thing at one shot; I can’t seem to help myself.
My teacher would instruct us firmly, “Read only today’s story, and then stop. Read no farther.”
But I couldn’t bear it…there was the rest of the book, simply begging to be read…so I waited till she gave us “free time” and got busy grading papers, and then I read. I read as fast as I could…
Of course, the next day, I had to reread the story for the day, and pretend that I didn’t already know it… Anyway, that habit of mine sure stood me in good stead on the quizzes and tests!
I just finished the May issue of Our Daily Bread. I really enjoyed April’s booklet; it was a commemorative issue with nothing but back articles written by the co-founders, Dr. M. R. DeHaan (1891-1965) and Henry G. Bosch (1914-1995).
Wednesday, I finished Victoria’s dress. It turned out ever so cute…but I almost made it too tight around the middle. It was just the right length to go under the purple-thread crocheted dress Hannah made.
The children got out of school an hour early Wednesday, and didn’t have to return until the following Tuesday.
That evening, Robert preached from the same chapter (Luke 22) that I had read to the children the previous night, which especially pleased the littles.
Thursday afternoon the kids went outside to play. A while later, I found Victoria frozen half to death out there; the wind was making it downright chilly outside. I brought her in to put a sweater on her--and the only one I could quickly come up with was a size 3. I tugged and pulled at it, and she squished herself into it.
“This fits a little bit,” she said happily, “but not too much.”
She put her hands into the pockets.
“There!” she exclaimed. “Now my hands are cooling up!”
She's just as likely to say that her soup is warming down, which is every bit as rational.
Thursday evening, Amy sent us two caramel-peanut cheesecakes, still warm. Mmmmm!
Socks gets more loving every day…he follows me around at night after everyone else has gone to bed, purring. I’m glad we got him. Even Kitty is glad, I think… sometimes.
Hester, Lydia, and I went to Wal-Mart for the last of the Easter things: fancy socks and tights, some cute little crocheted hat-and-purse sets for Victoria, and fifteen yards of netting for the cancans. We got Lydia a pair of off-white shoes to go with her ivory satin and silk dress. The people in front of us at the checkout stand were getting Easter things too: lots of candy and toy bunnies and chicks. Fine way to teach your kids, eh? And that’s ALL some people teach their children about Easter. Dorcas said that when her boss at the All About Kids Daycare asked the children what Easter was all about, there was only one little girl who knew it had something to do with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Every day of the week was spent sewing, sewing, sewing. I shortened the hoop Victoria wore under her flowergirl dress so that she can wear it under her Easter dresses. (“I’m sooooo puffy!” she says in delight, spinning this way and that.) Hannah fixed up a hat for Hester; it now has a band of blue check that almost matches her dress, and flowers and a little blue check bow all around it. Sooo cute!
I had a gazillion (guh-zill'-yun) - (more than two) and one things left to do before Easter--and suddenly there was a horrendous flood in Hester and Lydia's room, and piles and piles of their clothes and bedding and things were all wet. Colored markers leaked all over the clothes... and a whole lot of them are dry clean only... and --
AAARRRGGGHHH!
Please, we need a boat. And be sure it has plenty of life rafts. I'm not sure just exactly WHERE all the water came from, but IT CAME. Just what I needed, right before Easter, when I was so busy sewing... altering suits... ironing… And then here's Lake Erie all over their room, in their closet... in all the clothes... What a mess!
We need air boats! Fog horns!
HELP! Where's the port??? Man overboard! Mayday! Mayday!
Now, neither plumbing nor the building of dikes is in my job description, nor has it ever been. And the bloke around this joint who is capable of such things did not appear duly concerned. (One does not appear duly concerned when one is reclining snoringly in one’s recliner.)
I tried various stunts of arousal, such as throwing both hands wildly in the air and racing madly past the recliner shouting, “FLOOD!!! Get the women and the children out first!”--which was entirely the wrong thing to say, since he then calmly assumed he could stay put.
Then, to add insult to injury, the skirt I had just completed had a hem that dangled all the way to the floor at the sides, whilst hovering above mid-calf fore and aft--the side effects of sewing with thin, stretchy, slippery chiffon.
AAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!
But it did look pretty funny; Dorcas and I had a good deal of merriment over it. It made her feel better, you see, to know that all sewing calamities don't happen only to her, as she had assumed. Anyway, the skirt was trimmed properly (while I wore it; there was no other way) by the Sleeping Plumber, of all people, and soon had its hem back in--straight, this time. Well, sorta straight.
Larry put in 69 hours last week, and this week is looking to be about the same. If the government just didn’t take so much of it--!
By Saturday evening, jacket seams had been taken in; snaps were sewn on Lydia’s suit to hold the blouse ruffles out where they belong; a little mint green florette was sewn onto Lydia’s mint green satin bow; pleats and sash were fixed on Lydia’s navy dress, and buttons and buttonholes were put on the cuffs to hold the sleeve up at her wrist, rather than letting them fall clear down to the tips of her fingers. Pleats were put in Teddy’s pants at the waistband, making them rather too small for comfort; but there was no time to fix them; he had to wear them that way, holding his breath all day. (“Fortitude, my boy!”) The hem was put in, and then it was discovered that mother does know best: one should not have one’s Sunday-Go-To-Meetin’ britches measured when one does not have on one’s Sunday-Go-To-Meetin’ shoes, because one’s seamstress is likely to make one’s britches too short in such a case.
She did, and they were.
For that state of affairs, I had to find time for restoration; I would not send Teddy to church looking like I’d prepared him for The Great Deluge. I took in the sideseams on my dress, my suit jacket…and then somebody from our tax club called (that’s what they are, aren’t they, ‘tax clubs’? We feel like we’ve been clubbed, when they hand us their bill), telling us our papers were done. I wonder why it’s impossible for them to complete our taxes until the very last day, or, if we’re lucky, the second to the last day, no matter how early I take our papers to them? It doesn’t seem to matter whether they have three months or three weeks to do them; the papers are never done until almost the very last minute.
Dorcas went to get them for me. I was rather astonished to learn that we will get a nice refund from both state and federal--and we owed the tax man himself a paltry $285, which ate up the entire refund from the state and then some.
At 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening, I was ready to sew cancans. I cut out strip after strip of netting, then began sewing it all together, pushing pleat upon pleat into the netting with my fingers. I finished the last cancan at 3:00 a.m. and turned to the ironing. Newly sewn things must be ironed, you see (no, I didn’t iron the cancans); every new seam must be pressed down carefully, or all one’s skillful sewing will be in vain. The ironing was done at 4:00 a.m., right when it was time to get ready for the Sunrise Service. So I washed my hair, woke everyone up, and we got ready for church.
We made it to all the services on time… and I didn’t even fall asleep once!--that, partly because Robert is so inspiring to listen to.
I love all the beautiful Easter music; it is so majestic and thrilling. A group of little children, first and second grade age, sang Early In The Morning before Sunday School. I mean, they sang the song Early In The Morning. Well, yes, they did sing early in the morning; but what I mean is, they sang Early In The Morning. Hmmm… There really is no way of explaining that, is there?
Teddy is unimpressed with the pleats in the front of his pants (although he was the one who ordered them); they ‘stick out and make him look funny’. And he never noticed till he was ready to go that his suit coat has double vents at the side back, rather than one in the middle. He thinks it makes him look like he has a heavy-duty differential. Brother.
Keith and Esther, Bobby and Hannah, and Amy came for dinner that afternoon. Esther brought a noodle/vegetable salad that Joseph labeled as “strange”, for which his mother chastised him, and a meatloaf. That is to say, uh, I didn’t chastise the meatloaf, I mean, um, Esther also brought a meatloaf.
The language English its confusions has, yes?
Or perhaps it’s just me with the cornfusions.
I industriously fixed Campbell’s Sirloin Burger soup (I actually had to scrape it from the cans into a pan, turn on a burner, and then stir it) and a large bowl of fruit with strawberry yogurt mixed in it.
I took lots of pictures at our church services; the children are always too cute for words on Easter Sunday. Counting the film I used the previous week on the Sandhill cranes--three rolls, I think--I had eleven rolls of film to send off to PhotoWorks.
I have now reinstalled most of the things I saved off my computer two or three weeks ago when it went kaput. And I downloaded WebShots (a screensaver from the Internet) again, so that I could use my very own pictures as a screensaver.
Hey! I just discovered, in my crossword puzzle dictionary, that another name for ‘computer’ is ‘maniac’. HAHAHAHA How do ya like that! (How old is that dictionary, anyway??)
And now I shall return to The Jackson Malodorous Socks ’N Things Laundromat and, after and in between that, The Jackson Digging and Planting Crew (yep! I håve seeds) (flower seeds, that is), and, just for the sheer enjoyment of it, Pianist’s Piano Practice and Playing Party. By the time that is done, I will have to go to the Jackson Chow Joint, and that will surely be followed by the Parleyer’s Prose and Print Palpocilry. Oh, and I will take Victoria for a walk--hopefully in a new one of those pull-behind-the-bike or push-by-the-handle children’s carts with the bicycle tires.
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