“My computer is behaving very badly,” I complained one evening.
“Put it in time-out,” said Teddy.
I think he’s been listening to too many stories from Dorcas about the daycare, what do you think? ‘Time-out’ is against my religion, as the kids all know. If they do something wrong, I tell them so, I tell them why, and I tell them not to repeat the trick--and they don’t. Or if they do, there are consequences to pay. And that’s that.
Joseph sounds so much like Larry these days, I cannot tell if it is Larry or Joseph who has come in the door. I think he sounds more like Larry than Keith or Teddy either one have ever sounded. And Larry is pleased, because ever since that child was born, everyone has said he was like the Swiney side of the family.
Tuesday Dorcas had to drive her grey car, the Isuzu (that is, it used to be her car), to work, because she couldn’t get her Mazda to shift. That, because a while back she spilt water down the gear shifter hole, and it freezes solid overnight, and even though she started her car a good 30 minutes before time to go, it still didn’t thaw. (Or ‘unthaw’, as the older children used to say.)
Such troubles! Reckon she’ll be a bit more cautious about just exactly where she spills her water, next time?
Wednesday morning, the piano technician came to work on my piano. He has done extensive work on the church piano, and several other of my friends’ pianos. He’s one of the best, and I have now a piano that sounds better than it has sounded for a long, long time.
He told me all sorts of things I never knew--such as, a piano’s harp--or sounding board--must support 40,000 pounds of tension when it is properly tuned. Imagine that. No wonder when I break a string, they fly so high!
And yes, he knows I break strings, because the strings Larry has put in for me aren’t done quite right...and he of course immediately noticed. Larry has now been duly informed just exactly how to replace strings the proper way--screwing the pin out first, and then wrapping the string around three times, starting at the bottom.
The man finished my piano in three hours--very fast, for all the work he did. He not only tuned it, he also sanded all the hammer felts. He went over the upper register twice, using a special tool to remove elasticity, that the strings might stayed tuned longer. The piano sounds absolutely beautiful now. Ooooooo…I’m so pleased!
As I told you in last week’s letter, Caleb and I came home early from church last Sunday night. Even after I gave him Robitussin, he couldn’t seem to quit coughing. And when he can’t stop coughing, he invariably has an asthma attack. That night was no exception.
About thirty minutes after they went to bed, Joseph brought him back upstairs, and the poor child could hardly get a breath. When I looked at his throat and saw that it was nearly swollen shut, I tell you I ran, I did not walk, to get his inhaler.
What a relief when it helped quickly.
He continued having troubles with asthma Monday and Tuesday, but Wednesday morning he thought he felt well enough to return to school. His teacher sent him straight back home in half an hour, because he couldn’t quit coughing.
This week I have wondered if Uncle Howard's powerchute might be safer than I think: besides several plane crashes around the country, a plane landed in Texas or somewhere without its landing gear in working order. What a lot of friction that must work up, when a big jet goes skidding down the runway on its belly.
Imagine a Norwegian elkhound in the hold, one of those larger members of Canis familiaris, leaping to his feet inside his Gorilla Tough pet crate and remarking to a well-groomed poodle in an adjacent designer Kennel Aire carrier, “Yi yi yi! Fifi, are your toenails getting warm, too, or is it just my imagination?”
And Fifi puts her nose in the air and sniffs, “Of course not. My floor is double ply. And besides! --it’s padded. Goes to show, Kennel Aire is superior to Gorilla Tough in every wa--yeeeow ooo ow ooo hot hot hot!”
And how about that door that fell off a jetliner somewhere in the vicinity of Hawaii some time back. An airline spokesperson, explaining what had caused the incident, said a bird had hit the door. Oooooooo! How would you like to meet that bird far afield someday, unarmed? (I thought they’d become extinct?)
Dorcas took my papers to the tax man that day…now, if he will just get them done in time! Last year he was slower’n molasses in January, and we had to get an extension.
Dorcas also took the Canon printer to Connecting Point to have the jets cleaned.
By Thursday, my Amoxicillin was all gone, and I was still sick, and Hester had not remembered to take hers, which are exactly like mine, and she had gotten well so quickly she probably had not needed to take them in the first place…so I started taking hers. My throat hurt worse than ever, and my head pounded. I felt quite a lot as though I had been pulled through a wringer backwards.
Caleb slept upstairs that night, on the cushion Larry used to have in his pickup. It can be folded to make into either a chair or a bed. It’s a good ten inches thick. He fell asleep… and then he rolled off it, with a big thump.
“Ouch,” he said without opening his eyes. He scrambled back on and went on sleeping.
Plop! He fell off again.
“Ouch,” he repeated, and got back on the cushion.
I went to ask him if he would rather sleep on the couch.
“Grumble grumble grumble,” he stated foggily.
“Caleb!” I said.
“Huh!” he answered, startled.
“Would you rather sleep on the couch?”
“Grumble grumble grumble,” he repeated.
“Caleb!” I said, louder this time.
“Huh!” he responded in kind.
“Do you want to sleep on the couch?” I said, rather close to his ear.
He squirmed, and his eyes came open. “No,” he answered, although I was not sure if he really knew what he was answering ‘no’ to.
I scooted him over to the middle of the pad, hoping to ward off another tumble.
“GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!” he said.
“CALEB!” I said, not one to put up with grumbling, no matter what the cause.
He jumped. “WHAT!” he exclaimed, and then, realizing what and why and wherefore, “Oh,” in a meeker voice.
I tucked the blanket around him and went away.
WHAM! He fell off the cushion again.
I went back to the living room. “Okay, get up and sleep on the couch,” I told him, and he staggered groggily off to do as I had said. I put his pillow under his head and covered him up. And he didn’t fall off the couch, all the rest of the night.
When I was sure he was going to be all right, Larry and I went to the store. On our way back, a Mexican man flagged us down and asked for a ride. Since we were in Larry’s pickup, which has spatial limitations, especially with $150 worth of groceries sharing quarters with us, Larry told the man he would take me home--we were just two blocks from home--and be right back.
Thirty minutes stretched into forty-five…and Larry was still gone. I was the one who had urged him to go ahead and give the man a ride; Larry hadn’t really wanted to. But it was a cold night…
About the time I was convinced something dreadful had happened to him, he pulled into the drive, climbed out, gathered up several bags of groceries (the groceries had gone joy-riding, too), and came in the house.
He came around the corner, stopped, and looked at me. “Someday,” he said, “You are going to get me in trouble.”
It seemed that the man, who smelt strongly of liquor, couldn’t quite figure out just where he wished to go…so he led Larry on a jolly goose chase all over town, hither and yon. He couldn’t go home; he’d had a fight with his wife, and now her boyfriend was consoling her. And when twice they met a police car, he slithered low in his seat and grumbled, “Eecchhh! I don’t like cops.” He turned toward Larry. “Do you like cops?”
“They won’t bother you, if you don’t do anything wrong,” said Larry conversationally.
“Errrrmmm!” mumbled the man, carefully sitting up straight again.
He asked Larry to stop at an apartment in the uptown area. He got out, whispering loudly, “Turn off you lights! Turn off you lights!”
Larry obliged.
“You wait for me, I get you money!” he told Larry. “Then I go another friend’s house.”
Larry waited.
The man returned, climbed back into the pickup, and gave Larry a $20 bill. Larry took it and held it in his hand as he drove, thinking he would give it back to the man when he reached his destination, which Larry assumed would be his final stop.
It was not.
As they came to a halt in front of the house, the man waved a hand toward the dash. “Turn off lights! Turn off lights!” he instructed urgently.
Larry turned off lights.
“I be right back,” he said again, “and then we go my seester’s house.”
Larry groaned silently.
Soon the man was back, telling Larry how to get to his sister’s mobile home, which was located in a trailer court on the east side of town. By this time, Larry had determined to disappear abruptly just as soon as the man got himself inside the trailer.
But he never got himself inside the trailer; his sister refused to come to the door. He returned to the pickup and gave directions for the next stop.
Then, “You need a dreenk? Tequila? Beer?”
“No,” answered Larry, “I don’t drink.”
The man was astonished. “What?! You don’t dreenk??!!”
“No,” said Larry calmly. “That stuff isn’t good for you.”
Nonplused, the man was silent for a minute or two. Then, in wonderment, he queried, “What do you dreenk??” as if a person would doubtless suffer severe dehydration, and possibly dry up and blow away, if he didn’t imbibe in some form of alcohol.
Larry shrugged. “Oh, water, juice, coffee, pop…”
“Oh!” The man mulled that over. “Well, you want a pop?”
“No,” responded Larry, “I want to go home and go to bed.”
The man turned quickly and looked at him. “Bed?” he questioned, as if the term were too foreign for definition.
“Yes,” affirmed Larry. “Don’t you have to work tomorrow?”
“Ya, ya!” nodded the man. “Do you?”
“Yes,” Larry answered.
The man, evidently feeling that that subject had now been exhausted, changed tack.
“You want to come with me to Schuyler Saturday night?” he asked genially. “They have dance, good group there! I pay you teecket, I pay you gas!”
“No,” said Larry, shortly, quite tired of the entire charade.
“But it’s a good group!” protested the man.
“Ask your friend to go,” suggested Larry, speaking of the person whose apartment was the destination of the moment.
The man had not thought of that. He brightened. “Eez good idea!” he enthused, as Larry pulled up in front of the building. “I ask heem, you wait here,” he told Larry, climbing from the pickup. Then, “Turn off lights!” he hissed, looking over his shoulder stealthily.
Larry turned off lights.
And this time, Larry waited only until the man had disappeared into the front door before he flipped his lights back on, reversed, and departed quickly.
“And I’m not giving anybody a ride again!” he stated adamantly, after retelling the story to the whole family the next day.
“Until I see someone I think needs help,” I amended.
“Until Mama sees someone she thinks I need to help,” he sighed, and everyone laughed.
I had one more proviso to present: “And you,” I proclaimed, pointing purposefully at my husband, “owe me the $20, because it was my idea to help him.”
All eyes turned his way in gleeful anticipation.
And he, what do you suppose he said? This is what he said, and I quote: “Ha!” And that was that. So much for purposeful pointing and adamant proclamations.
I shall have to get that $20 from his wallet when he is sleeping.
HA!
Thursday, I finished Victoria’s dress and started another for Hester. It is now half done.
One day Lura Kay gave Victoria a china doll, and also a small doll and tiny accessories. Victoria especially loves the china doll; she played with it all day.
At suppertime yesterday, she placed it lovingly on the counter. She smoothed down its skirt and gave a curl one last adjustment. “That’s such a waaaay cuter doll!” she crooned, tipping her head and smiling at it.
Friday, Caleb thought he was getting sick again, because his stomach hurt so.
Larry turned around and looked at him. “Well, go get another pair of jeans on, there’s the trouble,” he told the child.
I turned and looked, too, and if that kid wasn’t poured into a pair of jeans a good three inches smaller around the middle than he is. Now, that's small. He unearthed a more fitting pair of jeans, and his health is much improved. {Are you paying attention?! That was a pun.}
Friday was Norma’s birthday; she’s 62. We got her a miniature daffodil plant, a set of small handmade ceramic flower pins, a pair of bright pink high-heeled shoes, a large candle with three wicks, a small candle, and a gold-plated pen set.
I wonder if she thinks she cannot turn another year older without the customary cake, as she thinks is the case with all her children and grandchildren? ha (I don’t much like cake.) (Neither does most of my family.) (But you really wouldn’t know it, from the way we scarf it down.) (We’re good troopers, we are.)
Here are some good little tidbits from Charles H. Spurgeon:
Trials make room for consolation. There is nothing that makes a man have a big heart like a great trial. I have found that those people who have no sympathy for their fellows--who never weep for the sorrows of others--very seldom have had any woes of their own.
Great hearts can be made only by great troubles.
The believer takes his daily trials and reads them the opposite way. Trial comes to him and says, “Your hope is dry.”
“My hope is not dry,” says he. “While I have a trial I have a ground of hope.”
“Your God has forsaken you,” says tribulation.
“My God has not forsaken me,” says he, “for he says, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation’ (John 16:33), AND I HAVE IT!”
You cannot see the stars while the sun shines. Wait till it is dark, and then you shall behold them. And many a Christian grace is quite imperceptible until the time of trial, and then it shines out with great luster. All this supposes that grace is there. But if it be lacking, trial discovers the lack. You know not what spirit you are of till you have been under tribulation.
You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort there. But the child of God runs to his Father and expects consolation only from the Lord’s hand.
OH! Yipe! You know what I just discovered atop my desk? Two letters. Last week’s letters. One to my Uncle Don, and the other to the missionary’s widow in Texas. Oh, help. Help and bother! (ala Winnie-the-Pooh)
Uncle Don won’t miss the letter; I am not sure he knows any more whether he gets a letter or not. But Mae Chizum! Mae Chizum is another matter. She is a full-blooded Irish lass, and any qualities you have ever heard of the Irish possessing---Mae Chizum has more. OOoo! She will be sending the Late Letter Patrol after me! She will have me strung up by my toenails, and I will be executed at dawn! Save me, oooohh save me!
Okay, the letters are now on the mailbox.
Oooo! Guess what *I* just got in my Inbox. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee! Winter isn’t over yet! There may still be a chance to go sledding again. WheeeeEEEEEEEeeeee!
Winter Storm Warning
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OMAHA NE
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OMAHA NE
...A WINTER STORM SYSTEM WILL AFFECT THE AREA INTO MONDAY MORNING....THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN OMAHA HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR PARTS OF EASTERN NEBRASKA AND SOUTHWEST IOWA. THE WINTER STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT INTO MONDAY MORNING. A MIX OF FREEZING RAIN ...SLEET AND SNOW SHOULD CHANGE TO ALL SNOW OVERNIGHT. THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT ICING. SNOWFALL AMOUNTS FROM 5 TO 12 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE.
Would you believe, Caleb is still sick, and Victoria got sick again? Caleb, after having troubles with asthma the first three days of last week, proceeded to get the flu the last three days of the week. And during the night last night, Victoria got the flu, too. I had to give her a bath at 3:00 a.m., and while I did that, Larry changed her bedding, for which I was grateful... He’s a helpful bloke, you know that? I kinda like him, I do I do I do.
Furthermore, he was (and is) sick himself...he has strep throat, very likely the worst case of all of us...and what’s more, the doctor gave him the smallest dose! For the rest of us, even for the little girls, he prescribed Amoxicillin (a substitute, for Lydia, who is allergic to Amoxicillin), 500 milligumps, three times a day. For Larry, only 333 megagoofs of e-mycin (is that something the pharmacist gets, email?), three times a day.
Huh?
Does that doctor know what he’s doing? Or maybe the pharmacist read the prescription before he'd had his morning coffee.
25:14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. {What is His secret? Doesn’t that word ‘secret’ always bring your curiosity to life? It certainly does mine--like an unexplored path, I just must follow it. Well... remember that the angel (God in a theophany) told Manoah and his wife, when he was promising them a son (Samson), “Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?” His Name is Secret, and His Name is Wonderful. A secret is something that is hidden, something that is a mystery.
Look at I Corinthians 2:7-9:
2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
2:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
And in Matthew 11:25, it says, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” The ‘wise and prudent’ speak of those who are so proud and haughty, because they have (or think they have) earthly wisdom or know-how; the ‘babes’ are the humble, who trust in the Lord. For their wisdom, they look to God.
But here is the wonderful thing: I Corinthians 7:10: But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
So, we are to understand that His secret encompasses all of His promises to us, both for here on this earth, and also in heaven. His secret is also the wisdom He gives us, that we might better understand His Word and feel His presence near us. And Secret is His Name!}
25:15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
25:16 Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.
25:17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.
25:18 Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. {Have you ever noticed what a torment we can go through, if we think perhaps our afflictions and troubles are caused by our own sins, and we keep wondering if God is punishing us? Trials are ever so much easier to bear, if we are assured of God’s forgiveness, and understand that, just as it says in John 16:33, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Many years ago, in one of Daddy’s sermons, he said, “If you simply cannot overcome your trials, then you most likely are suffering for your sins; because if we are walking in the light, and have repented and been forgiven, then we will be as this verse says: of good cheer, and overcoming whatever evils come our way.” And if anybody was that way, it was Daddy.}
25:19 Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.
25:20 O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.
25:21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.
25:22 Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.
26:1 Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide.
26:2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
26:3 For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. {Things may get mighty difficult, but there will always be things in which we can see the Lord’s lovingkindnesses--if in nothing else, then in the very air we breathe!}
Sunday night Robert preached from Nehemiah, about building the wall. It really was a very wonderful sermon. Oh, how thankful we are for him! His preaching is alive; we truly have Living Water.
After church that evening, Lawrence and Norma stopped by so we could give Norma the miniature daffodil, because I was quite afraid that if we waited one more day to give it to her, it would kick the bucket. Bite the dust. Curl up its toes. Croak. Whatever it is that miniature daffodils do when they expire. They couldn’t stay, because they had Barbara’s children with them; she is still recovering from surgery she had Thursday. (Barbara is Lawrence’s daughter.)
There was once a young man who used to come to our church, along with his family.
He was a rather pathetic individual...big and brawny (or so he appeared, although he wasn’t really), small of brain, large of ego, a bit of a baboon, convinced of his own importance, and willing to tell you about it, too. I tell you, this Missing Link actually once ran for mayor for the City of Columbus! (He lost.) (The Platypus won.) (The City of Columbus was collectively amused.)
Background complét. Fiñis. Voilá!
(More background details on request.)
OH! One more small detail: I should make it clear, we did feel sorry for this bloke, and we tried long and hard to help him. He responded by writing me a letter explaining in detail how much and why he hated me. (Not to worry, though; his hatred was as skin-deep as his love; nothing to get yourself all worked up over.) (Why, sometimes, he quite liked me.)
Anyway! On with the story!
One day he decided to end it all--he tried to kill himself. (Probably a direct result of people not getting themselves all worked up over him satisfactorily.)
Not to worry, though; he wouldn’t actually do such a thing; after all!--he was skeert it might hoit! So he simply pretended to. That is, he made everyone think he had swallowed a large economy bottle of aspirin or Tylenol or something on that order. (Well, that is, uh, he didn’t swallow the bottle; he swallowed the contents.) (Or pretended to.)
What nobody knew was that the pills were under the bed, in a big pile, right where he’d put them.
Anyway, his wife came home and found him out colder’n a mackerel. (Or supposedly out colder’n a mackerel.) (In all actuality, he was no colder than a big woolly bear.) She called an ambulance. Since they lived a ways out of town, it took the paramedics a while to arrive. The Doofus snoozed on. Or pretended to snooze on. They arrived, saw the box that had apparently just been ripped open, the cotton that had been in the top of the bottle--and the empty bottle.
They hauled him off to the hospital, posthaste, with Doofus as limp as a looped limey. There, the doctor attempted to thread a tube down his throat in order to pump his stomach.
And then the ‘comatose’ patient gagged. I mean, he really gagged.
The doctor stopped, raised his eyebrows, and peered over his glasses in his customary way at his nurse. “Must not be so far gone as all that,” he muttered, and then went back to his job, gagging patient or no gagging patient. (Methinks the good doctor had his own ideas about how to cure such behavior.)
As it turned out, the only thing to pump from Doofus’s stomach was his ample dinner.
And Doofus got himself so much attention, what with all the visits from the police and the Welfare Department, that even he tired of it.
Victoria got sick again at 1:30 a.m., and had to have a bath and shampoo. Larry again changed the bedding. I stayed up most of the night, washing several loads of clothes. Not only was there all the bedding, which might be needed at any moment, but Teddy was plum out of jeans.
Lura Kay was not at school today; she was not well. I am afraid everyone depends on her so much for advice and help in troubles that she is worn ragged. She is not well at the best of times, even when she seems fine. And you will not find out by asking her, either!
Our house is smelling good, better, bestest…because there is a cake in the oven. Not that I especially like cakes (as you have oft heard me avow in the past), but they do smell good. Well, it didn’t start off smelling good, because, as usual, Dorcas forgot to look inside the oven to see what her father had stored inside it this time. And, as usual, he’d stowed away quite a stack. (Yes, it’s always him; he thinks the oven is a nice hidey-place for anything and everything that is in his way Sunday evenings when he is trying to make one of his soup specialties).
This time, it was the broiler and several griddles--unwashed.
It is not good to bake unwashed broilers and griddles.
But anyway, the cake is baking now, and obliterating the burnt-rubber malodor that was wafting about the abode.
Lawrence and Norma are going to be arriving soon, and we will give Norma her long-overdue presents.
We are hurriedly plowing a path through the living room, which is the alternative to offering guests beepers as they come in the door, so they don’t get permanently lost On Premises with no hope of discovery.
And I’d better help!
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