Monday it snowed up a storm…a real storm. Winter storm warnings abounded. It sleeted first, so it was quite slippery. Teddy had an appointment with our doctor in David City, which worried me; but luckily, Larry did not have much work to do that day, on account of the weather; so he went with Teddy in Teddy’s pickup, letting him drive. It’s four-wheel-drive, and goes quite well on snow and ice.
Teddy was going to see the doctor because he’s been having so much trouble with nosebleeds. The doctor looked at Teddy’s nose, and immediately saw the problem, which was what we had suspected: a blood vessel was too close to the surface, and it kept getting irritated by such things as dry weather, a cold Teddy had had, and so forth. And irritated blood vessels are nothing to fiddle around with, let me tell you. Why, they’re liable to slap you with a wet trout, if you just look at them wrong.
The doctor put silver nitrate on the area so it would heal quickly, and said that should take care of the problem.
And it did, too--for a couple of days. Tomorrow I must call him again; Teddy is still having troubles with nosebleeds.
I looked up ‘nosebleed’ in my Encarta Encyclopedia; it was no help in the slightest. (Well, it did explain to me that a nosebleed is when blood is issuing from the nose; and I was certainly glad to know that.) Neither could I find answers on the Web. eBay, however, thinks it knows something... it assumes 'nosebleed' is an item I wish to buy, and it tells me I will be able to find not only that, but also a gazillion other "cool deals" on their Web site.
The title says, "Find nosebleeds on eBay at tremendous bargains!” [Find What?]
Larry and I went to Wal-Mart that evening. It was so pretty that night, with snow heavy on all the trees and roofs.
Larry was looking for some tools with which to fix Dorcas’ old gray Isuzu, which he was planning to drive as soon as he got it running again. There were none of the tools that he needed. He finally borrowed back some of his old tools David had bought from him; but that didn’t do any good, except for confirming the fact that the car was not fixable. At least, not without spending a whole lot more on it than it was worth, it wasn’t. He eventually gave up on the fixing, and started looking for a good used vehicle.
Before Christmas, Hester was Loren and Janice’s secret pal. So, at Christmastime, they gave her a special gift: a little Singer sewing machine. One day she had it on the little table in the middle of the living room, sewing together little pieces of material. Victoria, on the other side of the table, was busily cutting small pieces of material.
She handed me a rather uneven shape. “Here you go; this is for you!” she said. Then, in the next breath, “What is it?”
I took a good look at it. “Well, it’s almost a diamond shape,” I replied.
“Nope!” she responded triumphantly. “It’s a boat!!” And it did look like a boat. She giggled. “Did you know I was going to make that?” she asked.
“No,” I answered truthfully.
She raised her eyebrows. “Neither did I,” said she.
Next, she cut out a rectangle with a slightly rounded end. “What’s this?” she queried.
“A rectangle,” I answered, thinking I couldn’t go wrong this time.
“Nope!” She grinned happily, having fooled me again. “It’s a mailbox!” she informed me gleefully.
The next item it seemed, was a perger. After that, she cut out a purler, and then a surler collar. And no, I did not guess any of those.
I am all covered with bits and pieces of material that Victoria has been cutting out and sticking all over my sweater and skirt; she says she is having a Decoration Party.
She just informed me, “Mama! The dryer is honking.”
A friend of ours, husband of Hester and Lydia’s school teacher, was in the hospital in David City for almost the entire week, because last Saturday he fell in UnSmart Foods, landed on his cell phone--and wound up with a blood clot in his leg. Blood clots are sometimes like snowballs--they grow. This one kept growing until it spread from his hip to his knee. The fact that he has diabetes didn’t help matters any. He is improving, but he still cannot do much without his leg hurting.
Last Sunday night after church one of Bobby’s aunts called to tell us that her little nephew, Timothy, might have spinal meningitis. Perhaps you will recall, he was one of the two children who had to have a metal rod put in his back to counteract the effects of scoliosis. He’d been taken to the hospital that evening, and at the time Leanne called, he was not recognizing anybody. There was swelling around the brain.
By the next day, the swelling around the brain had gone down and he was answering questions, but he still didn’t recognize anyone.
He seemed to improve a bit during the next couple of days, but then he started having troubles holding his head up, and he couldn’t move his left arm and leg. Everybody was so worried about him. He’s only seven years old.
Tuesday we canceled Teddy’s appointment with the doctor and therapist in Lincoln, because the roads were slick and the weather was expected to deteriorate.
Victoria, in hopes of putting her new shovel to use as soon as her elder siblings returned from school, put her shiny red boots on early in the afternoon. She has found a shiny little red purse that perfectly matched them, and was toting that around, too, filled to the brim with all manner of Very Important Particles (VIP). She is especially fond of the purse, because it used to be mine when I was "just her size", as she says, and we have pictures of me all dressed up in a sailor dress and sailor coat, carrying that purse.
I said to her, "Now you need a red hat to match," just teasing; but Victoria soon showed up in a navy and white straw hat with a wide brim and a big red flower on the side. Straw, in the dead of winter.
"Will this do, do you think?" she asked me.
Again Tuesday evening, Larry was working on the gray car, out in the garage--and the house was reeking of exhausts fumes. Ugh!
When I was little, my father used to work on vehicles in the garage attached to the parsonage. He would sometimes start the vehicles and let them run for a little while, not realizing that the exhaust was coming into the house. My mother and I would be sooooo sick...while Daddy seemed immune to it, and of course he had no idea under the sun how very bad that was for all of us, or he wouldn't have done it.
Breathing all those fumes when I was so little made me so sensitive to that odor that I cannot take the slightest whiff of it without feeling like somebody has whacked me in the forehead with a club. Bleah, yuck!
When I used to travel with my parents, we often were either in a station wagon--Daddy favored Peugeots--or a Suburban or Travelall, if we were towing a camper. Daddy, not wanting to run out of gas in the Great Salt Lake Dessert, nor yet on the backside of Chicago, always had several cans of gas in the back of the vehicle. Now, as you may know, things inside receptacles increase in pressure when one travels over the Continental Divide. (No, there is no Continental Divide in Chicago.) And we spent half our lifetimes doing just that--traversing the Continental Divide--with gas cans belching out their horrendous stench. Ooooooo...it was bad.
Furthermore, it was my job to clamber over the seat and press the little rubber release valves on all those cans... ooooooooo, the malodor that issued forth!
Another job I had involving scrambling over the seat was to peer out the back window to see if the 'dollies' (a set of wheels) Daddy had put on the front of the trailer to help support its weight were running nicely in their tracks, or if they were 'shimmying'. Most of the time they were shimmying--whizzing back and forth with dizzying rapidity, threatening to fly off to the moon or farther at any moment. So then we would have to stop and make all sorts of minute adjustments to torsion bars, cams, and wheels... Finally, a good long while later, we were ready to proceed. Soon I'd have to crawl over the seat to look out the back window...
I finally said, "I'll just sit back here, so I don't have to keep going back and forth over the seat." (I was eleven or twelve, and didn't appreciate all that scrambling...)
But NO!!! That wouldn't do!--I would be putting extra weight back too near the hitch, and cause the dollies to get unbalanced again! I weighed all of 90 pounds, I sho' 'nuff did.
I rolled the window down. Mind you, we were in the beginning stages of a good blizzard, and the snow was swirling into the window--but it was missing Victoria and I, and blowing right onto Larry. So, when we made a short pit stop in Humphrey, Larry got out and shuffled around in the snow while Victoria and I went inside. Ahhhh… much better; no more gas fumes.
I took lots of pictures of the trees, heavily laden with snow…it was really pretty. All my pictures were taken from the inside of the Suburban. What I’d really like to do is get out and trek around through the fields, over hill and dale…with a friendly little pack mule beside me, hauling my camera cases with all the lenses and filters and film, and the tripod, too. When other people are toting my case around for me, they have the irritating habit of heading off in the opposite direction I want to go, efficiently separating photographer from photographic equipment. Lucky thing I learned how to whistle good and loud, once upon a time when I was eleven or twelve.
Once in Madison at the auto shop, it seemed that the only vehicle worth anything at all was a little red Ford pickup. Larry looked it over, and then we headed for home again through steadily worsening weather. Later that night, Larry called one of the owners of the auto shop and told him he would take the pickup...and the man said that was fine; he'd write up the sale in the morning.
Guess what we learned the next day? The pickup Larry was going to buy had been bought right out from under his nose. This morning when the man got to work, lo and behold, he found out that after he'd left work the day before, somebody had come and put money down on that very pickup.
Yep, it was sold.
Funny how, when that sort of a thing happens, even though a person may not have been totally positive that was the exact vehicle they wanted, once they lose it, they realize it really was exactly the very pickup they not only had wanted, but also had needed!
Ah, well...we knew there were plenty of other vehicles lurking about, waiting for somebody to buy them.
The next night after the children went to bed, Larry and I went to the store, and then we drove around and looked at Used Car Parking Lots. Yes, he needed to get up early in the morning to go to work, but you see, his Dagwood nap had just expired, and he was rarin' to go (well, uh, that is, er, at least, he was awake), soooo... off we went.
“Bleah!” she said, “Those went right down into my tummy!”
Wednesday, we had rain before snow... and it froze... and guess where all the cars and trucks on the highway were winding up? People who'd had no formal training at all in becoming linesmen were prolifically ascending phone poles. It appeared that the safest lanes around these parts were the ditches and the medians.
But!-- it makes mighty good sledding! And snowballing. The children were delighted.
Larry and his brother Kenny, when they were little, employed shovels for sleds. They sat on the scoops of their shovels and used the handles to steer with.
So you see, being too poor to buy fancy sleds encouraged creativity… (and occasioned a few slashed heads). {Need (:::| |:::) .} Moral of the story: fancy sleds are safer than shovels.
One day I was talking to a friend who was complaining because she didn’t get enough email to suit her.
I have the perfect solution. I shall give her email address to a friend of mine who is the undisputed Queen of Forwards. She will get 123,653,362 emails a day. She will learn how to wax her whitewalls...she will learn how to bathe the cat...she will learn that there are bugs in her eyelashes. She will learn that she must check in her trunk before she gets into her car...and if anything moves, she must hit it with a crowbar.
She will learn that chocolate covered raisins, nuts, and fruits are all considered as fruit...so she should eat all she wants. And further, if she eats while standing over the kitchen sink, the calories all go down the drain, and she will never gain an ounce.
One of my forwards informed me that there is a very low calorie count in white chocolate. Pity, I don’t much like white chocolate. It's suffering from anemia. It's just hard milk. Or dried, bricked potatoes, maybe.
Wednesday evening it was snowing again. The lights of the city were shining on the flakes, making them all sparkly. The streets and the trees are covered with ice, and they are glittering like diamonds. It’s so pretty…I wonder if I could get a decent nighttime picture, if I were to use my tripod, and set it to hold the shutter open for a couple of minutes…
You know what I need? I need a cable for my camera, so I could trigger the shutter off-camera. You see, when it is set on manual shutter, my camera must have the shutter button held down the entire time I desire the shutter to be open. Only when I let my finger up does the shutter close.
You know what I need? I need a cable for my camera, so I could trigger the shutter off-camera. You see, when it is set on manual shutter, my camera must have the shutter button held down the entire time I desire the shutter to be open. Only when I let my finger up does the shutter close.
This doesn’t work out just the best, because usually when I am in a situation where I want to keep the shutter open a while, it is nighttime…or under a cloudy, stormy sky…and it is cold. Soooo…guess what happens when I am holding the shutter down? Yes…I am shivering. So guess what happens to the picture? Yes…it is blurry. Bah, humbug. With an off-camera shutter cable, I could trip the trigger without jarring the camera in the slightest.
It is already February 5…January certainly went fast. It is time for me to start sewing Easter clothes. All three boys need a new suit, and there are absolutely no places at all where one can buy a decent boy’s suit in this corny burg. The very best place to go is Burlington Coat Factory. There is one in Omaha, and also one in Lincoln…
Hannah bought me an ivory taffeta moiré suit with Battenburg lace on the collar and shoulders…and I bought a brand-new dress at the Goodwill in Grand Island a couple of weeks ago…and Dorcas bought me a white jacket with black trim in a sideways V-shape in the front (I need to buy or make a white skirt to go with it)… so I will not have to sew myself anything more. Dorcas has bought herself a couple of dresses, too, so perhaps I won’t have to make anything for her. I will make at least six dresses, perhaps more, for the little girls. (I’m soon going to have to quit calling Hester and Lydia ‘little girls’; Hester is almost as tall as I am!)
That’s not as many things as I usually have to sew. Good thing, because there is also the monthly and the year-end bookwork to do…
Here’s a story Hannah told me:
An elderly lady was driving her car down the highway, three friends along with her. She was only going 20 mph, so an officer stopped her and asked her why she was going so slowly.
She said, "Why, I always go the speed limit!" --and she pointed at a nearby sign.
The policeman looked. "Ma'am,” he explained with a sigh, “That sign is the county road sign. This is Route 20.”
The officer then leaned down and peered into the car--and discovered three old ladies staring back with huge eyes and very pale faces.
"Whatever is wrong with your friends?" he queried.
“I have no idea,” answered the woman. “I just came off Highway 110," she continued, “and…”
I’m sure you’ll be relieved to learn the following:
Study: Penguins Do Not Topple Watching Aircraft
Reuters News Service
Feb 1 2001 1:46 PM
Reuters News Service
Feb 1 2001 1:46 PM
LONDON (Reuters) - Do penguins topple over when they peer into the sky watching planes and helicopters fly over?
Finally, a full blown scientific study has come up with the answer. They may waddle away in fright but they do NOT lose their balance and topple over.
Rumors of falling penguins have abounded since British plane and helicopter pilots returning from the 1982 Falklands War claimed their flights had toppled the earth-bound birds. To settle the issue, a favorite of cartoonists and penguin jokes, environmental research scientist Richard Stone spent five weeks watching helicopters fly over two King Penguin colonies in the Antarctic, studying their effect on more than 1,000 birds.
"We saw birds moving away from the noise (of helicopters and planes)," he said. "Not a single bird fell over after 17 flights. As it (the helicopter) approached, the birds went quiet," he said. "They didn't appear to turn around and look."
Some birds waddled away from the helicopters. Others became quiet. A few minutes later, they waddled back.
"We don't know if it's the noise or the visual aspect -- whether it looks like a potential predator," Stone said.
Aren’t you glad to have that cleared up?
Victoria is having a race, tearing up and down the hallway… she said she was on the WinnerState--and she’s winning, too!
Victoria went with us to the grocery store one night. We came home, and she found her sunglasses and put them on. “If we went back to the store and I wore these sunglasses,” she said, “they’d think I was a whole different kid!”
Thursday, Larry found his pickup. He got a ’91 Ford Ranger supercab 4x4 2.9 liter V6, maroon, with 105,000 miles. It had a tag of $5,900, but Larry discovered one hub wouldn’t lock into four-wheel-drive, so he managed to get it for only $4,100.
On February 1st, we turned the pages of our calendars all around the house. I like calendars with photos of scenery or animals. One calendar had a beautiful picture of the coast. A rock cliff was at the side, with a lighthouse high above the water. It reminded me of the shoreline of Newfoundland, where I went with my parents when I was twelve years old.
I like the beaches of Newfoundland. The sand is black, and the cliffs rise up starkly at your back, while the waves come crashing in with tremendous roars. The breakers curl up and threaten to engulf you, and then they thunder down and roll right up to your feet.
Some little kids nearby, when the tide began to turn, ran shrieking back up the footpath to the top of the cliff.
There were icebergs in the harbor. I didn't realize how enormous they really were, until I suddenly spotted a longboat with sixteen men in it--and it looked like a grain of rice next to a mountain, by comparison. I could see all those men only by looking through my mother’s binoculars. I was totally amazed when I understood how big that iceberg was.
Thursday afternoon, I let Caleb and Victoria go outside for a little bit to play in the snow and use their new snow shovels--because I thought, from looking out the window at the bright blue sky, that it was a balmy February day.
I was wrong.
It was only 4°.
They came back in about 20 minutes later, and Victoria said, “My hands and feet are so cold they’re burning up!”
I turned around and looked at her--and her cheeks were the color of cherries, while the rest of her face was snow white. I felt her hands, and they were like chunks of ice. Caleb was in similar shape. Poor little kiddos! Some mother I am! I usually look at my window thermometer first… Guess I sho’ ’nuff will, next time. I wrapped afghans around them and turned up the furnace, and they were soon toasty warm.
“But we sure had lots of fun, anyway!” Victoria assured me.
Friday night Bobby and Hannah came, bringing a tray full of some kind of banana/chocolate-chunk dessert. Later, Teddy and Amy came, bearing a big pan of cinnamon rolls Amy had just finished baking. Mmmmm, yummy…but we’d just eaten pizza! Whew…tooo full.
Imagine, if after all our kids are grown, even half of them arrive with yummy desserts--all on the same night. Yike. We will have to set up certain days each month for each one to bring their food over… Either that, or call up the neighbors to eat it with us.
Dorcas got a Bible CD at Wal-Mart, having concordances and all sorts of Bible translations and dictionaries on it. She downloaded it onto the computer, and we’ve all had the benefit of its use.
My Uncle Howard, who broke his hip January 1st, was able to drive to his favorite coffee shop Thursday. He’s now getting around with a cane. He wrote to tell me he’s been enjoying the balloons we sent him, attached to a big ceramic mug with chocolates in it:
Subject: fun never stops
Before I forget to tell you, I am still enjoying those balloons. I keep cutting the strings off so they just do float. They wander all over the house, up and down the hall for no reason, then follow you into a different room, or maybe hide in the corner.
Howard
I answered:
That's funny, Uncle Howard. You know that we, of course, have many occasions around here that call for helium balloons... latex and mylar both... Well, there are times when I open a door, only to be suddenly greeted by a balloon wafting into my face... YIPES!
Once, I was wandering down the hall in the middle of the night, and my heart did a double back flip, because I thought somebody was sitting in the rocking chair in the living room... but it was just a balloon, floating right at about head level. hee hee
We are helping the little girls sort through all their clothes and hang up the multitudes of things that they have neglected to hang... I think perhaps, if we have no interruptions, we will be done in the year 2015 AD.
Love,
Sarah Lynn
P.S.: After that, we will start on Joseph's room... projections for completion are the year 2050 AD.
Friday, Timothy was taken to Children’s Hospital in Omaha by ambulance. There are 14 other children in the hospital there that have spinal meningitis, too, imagine that!
They learned Saturday that he had had a massive stroke, probably last Sunday. That’s why he couldn’t lift his head, and could not use his left arm and leg. Shouldn't they have known that sooner?? By yesterday, he was improving, and beginning to move that arm and leg.
Last night, several people were visiting Timothy, and a couple of nurses were in the room. One person said, “Timothy! Your sock is falling down!” -- and without giving it a second thought, the child drew his leg up--the left leg--and reached down--with both hands--and pulled up his sock.
For a few minutes, those in the room stared, dumbfounded. Then somebody laughed, and then, suddenly, several people were in tears. They’ve been so afraid he might never walk again, you see…might never be able to use that hand again…
In fact, Timothy told his grandmother that he’d heard two of the doctors talking--evidently they didn’t think he could hear them--and they’d said he would probably never walk again. Why do doctors do that--talk like that right in front of their patients??!!! So many times, comatose patients have awoken and accurately repeated things they heard while in a coma.
But we are all just so relieved and grateful, for it seems that child may recover better than anybody ever thought he could.
It was 45° Saturday. Snow still covered the ground…sooo…well, what would you do? We went sledding. Keith came, and some other friends were there, too. Lydia came whizzing down the side of the hill, and plowed right into Teddy, who was standing talking to Amy, upending Lydia and Teddy both. They wound up with Teddy sprawled atop Lydia, both laughing too hard to get up.
Judging from the general sound of things, Larry had by far the best time of anybody--every time he went flying off down the hill, one of the littles tucked in front of him, he war-whooped and hooted till he reached the bottom.
I clambered around taking pictures, trying not to get hit with snowballs--and I managed to avoid it, too, until we were leaving, when I had Victoria by the hand, and was standing by the road--and all of a sudden, SMACK!!! -- I got hit in the chest so hard, it caused my heart to beat irregularly--and it still is doing it today, every now and then. (I have that phenomenon already; it just made it a bit worse.)
Did you know that it is tricky to get down a long, steep, snowy, slippery hill without using a sled or your setter, either one? Especially while holding a camera with a long lens and a tall flash on it. The camera strap was around my neck, but I can’t let the camera dangle; something might get broken. Well, I found the perfect method--and it worked like magic. I walked down the ridge till I came to a part of the hillside that was covered with Douglas firs, then slid down a little ways and grabbed a branch. Holding the branch in one hand, and my camera in the other, I went swinging down the side of the hill Tarzan style and didn’t let go until I was close to another branch. I jumped for it…swung and slid…let go…grasped the next branch…wheeeeeeeeEEEEeee!…caught another branch…and so on, until I wound up at the bottom. Getting back up the other side of the ravine to the road was tougher, but by sidestepping all the way up, doubtless looking exactly like a crippled mountain goat, I made it.
On our way back home again, we drove through streets that were thick with melting snow and water.
Caleb said, “There sure is a lot of mush on the streets!”
Larry is going around trying to play Teddy’s trombone, sounding quite a bit like a rabid elephant. Not that I’ve ever heard a rabid elephant, but I’m quite sure if an elephant ever did contract rabies, this is what he would sound like. It wasn’t long before Teddy came and rescued his horn, and now he and Dorcas are playing together. Well, uh, that is, Dorcas is playing the piano, while Teddy plays his trombone. (You thought I meant they were both playing the trombone at the same time, didn’t you?) (Probably one at the mouthpiece, the other at the bell.) When Dorcas pauses and hunts around for the right note, Teddy calmly holds it…on…and on…and on…
It is sort of a melee around this household when we are all getting ready for church, what with everybody wanting to make use of the three bathrooms all at the same time. We all race around like chickens with our heads cut off. There are shoes to be tied or buckled...ties to be straightened...cat hair to be removed from suit coats... We hear, "SPLAP! SPLAP! SPLAP!!” --- that's the boys, using packaging tape to get the hair off their clothes. (Or maybe the girls splapping their mohair sweaters that are really supposed to be silk blouses.) (Naaaa... it isn't really that bad.)
The family all came for dinner yesterday. We had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and yellow wax beans, blueberry biscuits, cottage cheese, lettuce salad, and fruit salad.
When dinner was over, Dorcas put the bread and butter pickles back into the dill pickle jar, and the dills into the bread and butter pickle jar, and I didn’t notice until today, after they’d had a good many hours to marinate. Aarrgghh! Pickles del Olio, anyone?
Teddy, Amy, and Lydia went for a Sunday afternoon drive in Larry's 'new' pickup, because Teddy hadn’t had time to remove sleds and inner tubes from his pickup, or vacuum it, or fill it with gas. But wouldn't you know--he wound up with a flat tire. And they all had their church clothes on! And the wrench didn't fit the lug nuts. And the nut holding the spare tire in was rusted to the bolt.
Fortunately, they were not far from Loren's house, so they walked there, and he helped them change the tire. Teddy usually gets home about a quarter till four on Sunday afternoons...but when he wasn't home by 5:00, we were getting worried. Teddy didn't call, because he thought we would be taking a nap. We weren’t taking a nap, though, because I knew that pickup didn’t have the best tires, and not so very good traction, and I wanted to make sure they got home safely.
Amy, however, had called her mother, and when Larry called their house, just a little after five, her mother told us what had happened.
Teddy walked in, about three minutes later. He handed Larry the keys and said, “Here! You can just have your ol’ keys back!”
Poor Teddy.
It’s supposed to snow again soon…and I think it just might do that--that is, I saw a flake not more than an hour ago (unless I’m mistaken, and it was the neighborman).
Now, a little bit of helpful advice for those of you who are worried about your house getting broken into: Put six locks on your door, all in a row. When you go out, lock every other one. Then, no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they will always be locking three of them.
Yeah, the Queen of Forwards sent me that. What's your email address, so we can share her?
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