If my washer and dryer should happen to live to a ripe old age, I cannot imagine why; they chug and churn sometimes eighteen hours a day. Finally, there were only two more loads of clothes to wash... all the broken jeans had been nailed back together again... a Coat of Great Importance had been patched (with an almost-matching swatch of fabric, I might add) (and with an enormous amount of effort and expended energy, I might add) (and at great personal risk, I might add) (it was Larry's work coat, I might add), and if people would stop skidding about on knees and elbows around this joint ( ! ) (was that a pun???) (I never makes puns, except by accident), I might be done with mending for a week.
Teddy began working at some friends' Uni-Body and Frame shop, where most of his work involves straightening the frames on wrecked vehicles. They also rebuild vehicles. There should not be many things for Teddy to do that he does not already know how to do. He’s wearing his splint, to protect his finger from possible injury. Tuesday after lunch, I spotted Teddy's splint on a chair in the kitchen. He'd forgotten it after coming home for lunch. I promptly called Tom’s shop and ordered him straight back home to get it... That kid! He dashed in, snatched it up, bid me a cheery adieu, and rushed off again.
Now, I think he is still wearing that splint to work…I have not found it lying around anywhere…but I am not certain, and I keep forgetting to ask. I am quite certain he uses that finger a great deal more than his doctor and therapist have recommended.
You ought to see Teddy's splint, after only a couple days of working at Tom's shop: it is not only dirty, it also has weld burns all over it! Teddy's arm sports a weld burn trophy, too.
Teddy has always been the sort to do things on his own…he was only a year old when he often said, with a small smile on that cute little face, "Me do byself."
When recently I typed his report on J. Gresham Machen for him, he said regretfully, "I really wanted to do byself."
Meanwhile, Dorcas is outlasting one after the other...after the other... after the other...after the other employee at All About Kids. There have been times when she told me about an employee that had been recently hired, who was being rather troublesome… Most of the newest ones were girls in their late teens, and the more notable common denominator amongst them was laziness. The last girl they hired did not prefer to change diapers, and once Dorcas picked up a child to find him totally sopped. She rushed off to change his clothes--and discovered his diaper on…backwards. Several times the girl said she had changed all the toddlers at the set time, when in fact she had not at all. Parents were arriving to get their offspring--and their offspring were in extraordinary States of Sogginess and Worse.
When the lady in charge asked the girl about it, she first said she most certainly had too changed those kids; then, when it was pointed out that all the diapers she was supposed to use were still on the counter where Dorcas had put them when she was showing the girl where everything was, she excused herself by saying, “Well, I was waiting for Dorcas to do it.”
But Dorcas was not even taking care of the children in that particular room that day. There were other things the girl blamed Dorcas for, and Dorcas was concerned that her boss might believe the girl.
I told her, “Don’t worry; your boss will figure it out. And that girl won’t last long; those sorts never do.”
The girl was fired the very next day.
It’s a fairly safe assumption to make, that a dishonest, lazy employee who refuses to do as they are told, especially since they are dealing with other people’s children, will be terminated before very much time has passed.
Her temperamental boss trusts Dorcas and likes her. I think. She has been growly and grumpy with not only her employees, but also with the children. Nevertheless, in spite of the woman’s crabbiness, Dorcas has not been treated badly.
"Just remember,” I told her, “you haven’t the faintest notion what makes the woman act like that. She could be having all sorts of problems you know nothing about; no telling how badly her feet hurt! (Dorcas snickered) So be congenial and sympathetic, and don’t let it bother you. If she acts grumpy with the children, go out of your way to be cheery, and play with them as much as you can.”
Well, guess what Dorcas just learned Friday? Her boss is quitting. This coming Wednesday will be her last day; after that the co-owner, a woman Dorcas likes and with whom she gets along well, will be the boss. Dorcas was astonished; she could hardly believe it.
{Did you know it's hard to eat mozzarella cheese in shredded form without spilling it all over the keyboard? I got myself a spoon, and it helped somewhat… but don’t be surprised if this post has opened with cheese smeared all over it.}
When Bobby and Hannah got married, David (my nephew and Bobby’s boss) remembered to change Bobby's number of dependents on his paycheck, but he forgot to add, "Married". So guess what? Bobby and Hannah now have enough money coming from the IRS to buy all the baby furniture they needed, plus pay the doctor and hospital bills--barring unforeseen complications.
We, on the other hand, are wondering just exactly how much we'll have to pay. And next year will be even worse, on account of selling the business, effective this January. Maybe we will finally have that garage sale I've wanted to have for lo these many moons! (Somebody has to clean the garage for me first, though; that's what has me stymied.) (I have troubles lifting motors and steel chests and old stoves, you see.) (Perhaps a few sticks of TNT would do the trick?)
There goes the dryer again! I’m off to chase it down.
* * *
Victoria is playing beside me as I type; she has a few pots and pans out, along with a stack of bowls, and a handful of silverware. She's cooking up a storm, and periodically brings me something to 'eat'… and I must be sure to listen carefully, so as to discover if it is hot soup, and I should blow each bite before slurping it from the spoon, or if it is carrots, and I should stab them with a fork and then chew them good and proper. One must get these things right.
The last thing I ate was blueberry comper; I only discovered this after I 'ate' it.
Makes you wonder just what sorts of experiments her future husband will have to endure someday, eh?
I have been saving the clothes we bought for Victoria at the Goodwill for her birthday, because I thought she hadn't noticed most of them, when I tucked them into the cart…I was wrong. One morning she asked, just the tiniest bit forlornly, "Today can I wear one of those pretty new dresses?--and maybe even the sweater too?"
I gave up and got them out of their hiding place. She was soon wearing one of the new dresses, a dark red calico with little teal flowers, and the new red sweater, too, with the pictures of little spouting whales all around the bottom. And she thinks it's exactly the cat's meow.
Friday afternoon, I took Tad to the vet. We were worried about him, because the previous day, he’d seemed to be getting a bad cold. During the night, he was breathing with some difficulty, and I was afraid he was getting pneumonia. Of course, by the time we finally got him to the veterinarian, he was greatly improved, and hardly seemed sick at all. (Pets and offspring are alike in the peculiar habit they have of doing that.) The doctor checked him over and proclaimed him hale. (That is just one step down from ‘hale and hearty’, in case you were wondering.)
Tad allowed the inquisition into his health with a great deal of dignity, although he did once say in rather mournful tones, “Mrrrrrowwwwrr.” But it was more a factual remark than a protest.
That evening, we splurged on Kentucky Fried Chicken. On our way out to KFC, on the other side of town, Caleb, who was riding in the middle seat between Larry and I, picked up a plastic bag.
“What’s this from?” he asked.
“I carried some boxes into the post office in it,” I replied.
“Why?” asked Caleb.
Why what? I wondered.
“Because when I stacked them on my head,” I answered, “The top one kept falling off.”
And he thought I meant it! (Maybe I have stacked stuff on my head and walked off down the hall, just to entertain him, once too often?)
Saturday night while I was curling Hester’s hair, there was a dreadful crash somewhere on the other side of the living room.
“What happened?” I exclaimed, whirling around to see.
A helter-skelter pile of videos had fallen, it seemed.
Caleb replied quickly, “A trick brick stack quickly tumbled over!”
(Has he been reading too much Dr. Seuss?)
Dorcas put her hair up in a French ponytail. Victoria, suddenly noticing, stood quite still and took a hard look at her sister’s head.
“It looks like somebody else’s,” she gave final verdict. She gestured with one hand, palm up, and shrugged a shoulder. “Like somebody’s we don’t know,” she clarified.
Yesterday morning I came home from church with Victoria…and it was just beginning to snow. We were trotting along at a good clip, because we didn’t want to get our best church duds all water spotted, nor did we want our Sunday locks to lose their curl. Victoria likes to stop walking and just slide while I pull her along, when we get to an icy patch.
I jerked open the outer door, reached for the doorknob, and discovered--the door was locked.
Victoria had locked it earlier, when the door was open…and we’d all rushed off to church without knowing, and pulled the door shut behind us.
So we had to go around the house to the other door, while the snow fell heavily all around and upon us. I like snow…but not piled atop my head and shoulders when I am planning to go back to church!
We had Larry's scrumptious waffles Sunday afternoon. Needing a few things from the grocery store, we sent Dorcas to the store. As soon as she was gone, we discovered all the other things she needed to get…so, immediately upon her arrival home, we sent her back to the store again. Poor Dorcas… Good thing she enjoys driving! (And good thing there is more than one nearby grocery stores, to spare her self-esteem.)
Just before bedtime last night, we were having a snack, including but not limited to peanuts. Peanuts in the shell.
Lydia, struggling to open one, sighed. “This takes so looong,” she said.
“No, no, it doesn’t,” I disputed, “Do it like this!” -- and I proceeded to give her a Peanut-Opening Tutorial. I showed her how to position one’s thumb at the seam right at the top of the peanut, and press, using the other thumb to provide more force, fingers holding it firmly. The shell popped open.
Once I had one side of the shell off, I gave a quick upward fling of the hand, sending the peanuts flying out of the shell and straight up into my mouth. I snatched up another, popped it open, flung it in my mouth… another! pop! fling! another! pop! fling!
By this time, the littles were laughing, and Victoria decided to give it a try. She got the shell open okay, and then she flipped her hand in the general direction of her face. A peanut came sailing out, and ‘ka-splat!’ -- it hit her right in the middle of the forehead. She looked quite surprised, and then, when her siblings yelped with laughter, she wound up laughing till she was limp.
It wasn’t long before we’d made serious inroads on the peanut stash.
{Would someone please come sweep the floor?}
Teddy just gave Victoria some notebook pages covered front and back with all the stickers he acquired last year on his school papers. Yes...the teachers gave him, great big twelfth-grade kid that he was, stickers...mostly as a lark--giving him funny Garfield or Charlie Brown or Curious George stickers with goofy remarks they thought just right for Teddy. Victoria is counting them...if she can make it from twelve to thirteen, she'll have smooth sailing. But she sometimes gets a mite confused, and says, "Twelve! Threlve!--" and that ruins everything, because, of course, as anybody knows, "Forve and Frive" come next, and who knows what happens after nineirve. But if she remembers to tack a "teen" onto the end of "thir", then everything after that is hunky dory.
My computer is being its usual intriguing self. Sometimes--not every time, mind you; it doesn’t want to appear predictable--when I go on the Internet, a window pops up saying something on this order: “Illegal Operation! An exception QX has occurred at 0072:POOOPH251 in RxZ---. Document WinWord Renamed from 0072:P005Z6123 in RxZ PESN(03) + 00002NN0. It may be possible to continue normally.”
Clearly, this message is not of human origin. Apparently, there has been some kind of Intergalactic Catastrophe about which the aliens wish to notify us. Further, it is obvious that if it is only ‘possible’ to continue normally, it is quite probable that we may not be able to continue normally.
After a moment’s panic over this Coup de Théâtre, I calmed myself, since it occurred to me that we have not been continuing normally for a good long while now anyway, and it has not harmed us yet.
Let the Intergalactic Catastrophes care for themselves; ve haff clothes to vash.
Now, just one little bit of helpful advice for those of you (we are legion) who count calories: Store your chocolate on top of the refrigerator. Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves. You need only leave the chocolate atop the refrigerator for a scant five minutes, and the calories will be gone.
Enjoy!!!
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