Monday I received a package of pictures from a cousin of mine. Most of them were pictures I’d sent her mother in years gone by, but I was delighted to discover that some were old pictures of Daddy and Mama, and my brothers and sister, Loren, Lura Kay, and G.W. There were a couple of envelopes for Loren and Lura Kay, too.
Lura Kay was at my mother’s house, so I took the pictures over there. Mama was still not doing well at all. She asked several times who the pictures came from; she couldn’t remember what I answered. This worries her, because she knows she can’t remember. She said her head doesn’t feel right.
Hannah likes to come in the afternoons, and, while Aaron sleeps, she works on crocheting or needlework. I sometimes stop what I am doing for a bit and watch my dear little grandson sleeping in his little seat (it’s called a bouncer, because it moves when he wiggles). He coos when we talk to him now. Doesn’t that make you want to hug a baby, when they do that?
Lawrence and Norma came Tuesday night, bringing a Dairy Queen cake and the outfit Norma made for Lydia. It matches Hester’s, and is so cute. Now all three little girls have a new dress for the Fourth of July. I still need to get shirts for the boys.
Larry decided to take his blood pressure that night, along with everyone else’s, with his new blood pressure kit/toy. Now look at this:
167/98 P 37 10:12 p.m. 06-26-01
111/65 P 44 10:18 p.m. 06-26-01
137/77 P 52 10:21 p.m. 06-26-01
131/77 P 65 10:24 p.m. 06-26-01
That’s what his numbers were; I think I mentioned the top reading in last week’s letter. He kept taking it, because he thought there was some sort of mistake with the apparatus, especially after that first one; but all of a sudden he noticed his chest was hurting again. And then, when the numbers returned to normal in the short space of twelve minutes, he abruptly found himself so tired he simply could not stay awake.
Teddy must’ve been in a bad way Tuesday evening; he was washing his own jeans. I tell you, the clothes were all washed--every last stitch--late Saturday night. He should have had plenty, even though I didn’t wash anything Monday. (Well…don’t tell anyone, but I saw a humungous pile of dirty clothes behind his door.) (I left them there, too.) (And guess what? They were all by the washer that evening.)
Wednesday, Joseph’s glasses frames got broken at work, and he is one of those persons who really must have their glasses.
“Let me see them,” I said, and he handed them over.
“Aauugghh!” I exclaimed. “They’re so dirty; how in the world do you see out of them?!”
I showed Teddy mine, since he happened to be nearby, and it was useless to show them to Joseph when he didn’t have his glasses on: “Look how clean my glasses are, and I’ve had them on all day, and I’ve done all sorts of things that could have gotten them dirty.”
Teddy, not in a very pristine state himself, raised his eyebrows. “Were you eating?” he asked politely, and then ducked when I threw a stuffed toy at him.
The brats (and their father) make fun of me because I put so much peanut butter and honey on my sourdough muffins that it has a tendency to run down my fingers. But!!!--unlike them, I lick the goo off before I go around clutching chairs and handles and walls. So there.
Joseph had to feel his way around the rest of the day. Teddy said he must’ve made it home safely with his car only because he steered left when he bumped the right curb, and right when he bumped the left.
Teddy must’ve had smartweed for lunch that day.
Fortunately, Joseph was able to get the glasses soldered back together again the next day. I got him an appointment with the eye doctor at LensCrafters in Grand Island for next Saturday, and while I was at it, I made appointments for Caleb and Lydia, too. I have thought for some time that there is a possibility they need glasses.
I was reading the sports page in our local paper tonight when my eyes fell upon an article about a prestigious golf tournament. Now, I know nothing about golf, except that one is supposed to hit a small white ball about a big green golf course with a club of one sort or another, and then stroll leisurely after it--not the type of activity that would suit me at all. I also know that those same aforementioned clubs serve a double purpose, in that, when one misses one’s shot, they can be wrapped around one’s opponent’s neck (or one’s own, should one so prefer), flung into high branches of nearby trees, or hurled furiously into the depths of one of the ponds that are dug for that very purpose.
So you understand why I should ask Larry, “What is a birdie?” After all!--it says in I Corinthians 14:35, “And if your women will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home.”
However, I have not found the verse where it specifically instructs the husband to answer sensibly.
Larry has not found it either, apparently.
He replied, “It’s one of those things with a beak and two feet, and it goes around like this‑‑” and he stuck his arms out and flapped, whistling a little tweet-tweet ditty. That goof.
I went to the store that night especially to get the lunch items for the boys that keep disappearing (uh, that is, the lunch items were disappearing; not the boys); and it was food they’d bought, so they were a wee bit up in arms over the loss. I try to make sure I buy enough food for everyone for lunch, but sometimes my choices don’t suit the famished wolves, so they go to the store themselves.
“Stop fussing,” I told them, “Make a list, and write down everything you want. I have to go to the store anyway, and I’ll get it for you.”
My willingness was partly due to the fact that I was one of the culprits who’d eaten one of the lunch items--namely, a meat stick from a package Joseph had put into the refrigerator in such a location as to be smack-dab under my ravenous nose (do noses get ravenous?) when I opened the door.
It is late night--early morning, really--as I type, and somebody is laying a track of rubber all the way down the avenue and back, around the corner, then, and onto 17th Street. Their father must’ve paid for the tires. By the time I decided to go look, their taillights were disappearing west on 17th. Idiots. Where’s my slingshot?
Early Thursday morning, shortly after the menfolk went off to work, I was awoken abruptly by a series of crashes and bumps, jolts and bangs, from the living room. Something (or somebody) went skidding around on the floor, and then things started falling all over the place--into the piano strings, onto the floor. Something (or somebody) ran up the keyboard, then back down.
I thought, Oh, that stupid Socks; he just came in from outside, and he’s working off his excess Cheerios; he’ll compose himself shortly.
Thirty seconds later, I thought, That idiot cat! Shortly is turning into longly, and he’s going to rouse the entire household!
I jumped out of bed and went rushing into the living room to see what in the world he was doing.
There was a blackbird flying around the room.
And Socks was flying around after it.
He’d doubtless nabbed the poor thing outside, brought it in through the open kitchen window, and then accidentally released it into the house at large.
I grabbed the cat, put him out the front door (“MrrOW!” he said indignantly, switching his tail), and then I dashed off to get a towel to drape over the bird to calm him down so I could carry him outside.
Socks came in the kitchen window.
“Cat!” I exclaimed, and he decided he had best hide under the table.
I changed tactics.
“Nice kitty kitty,” I crooned, holding out my hand and gritting my teeth to get the hypocritical words out.
He came purring out from under the table.
I snatched him again (gently, I did; after all, Sockies {as Victoria sometimes calls him} didn’t know he was doing anything wrong, capturing an ol’ blackbird) and put him into the little bathroom off the kitchen while I made a deal with Black Z. Bird, having abandoned the towel plan in favor of a better one.
I first propped open the front door with a jug of clothes detergent; then I trotted down the hall and shut the door to my room, which proved to be a wise maneuver. I walked into the living room toward the bird, and he did just what I wanted him to do: he flew into the hallway.
The wrong hallway.
He flew into the dark back hall, instead of the bright front one with the open door. No wonder they call them birdbrains.
Having nowhere to go, Blackie perched himself on the decorative grapevine and flower swag above my bedroom door. I walked toward him...and then, when he made as if to fly, I backed into the living room, so as not to scare him into the kitchen, and perhaps around the corner and down the basement stairs. I could not remember if the stairs door was closed or not.
He finally did the right thing: he flew down the hall and straight out the door, not even stopping in the courtyard to snip off the nose of the maid hanging out the clothes.
Outside, on our red maple and blue spruce and the phone wire, there were at least half a dozen blackbirds who had been screaming their heads off throughout this entire ordeal. It seemed more like two dozen of ’em...
‘All right, “screeched one, “Who wants to go in and spy out the situation, find out where they’re hiding Black Bart?”
“You do it, you do it, if you want it done!” yelled the others.
“How about if we all go shooting through the window at once, like kamikazes?” shrieked another.
So you can see that it was very lucky for me that I showed Z. Black the door as quickly as I did, or I’d have had even more vases and pictures knocked over than I already did. I would have had to get out the BB gun, and then we’d be singing, Four and twenty blackbirds (tralala) baked in a pie... (lalala) And I am not at all sure I could make it taste like cherry pie.
(It just takes cherry-colored food coloring, right?)
In the meanwhile, Socks was in the little bathroom singing an extraordinarily loud concertino. The sonata grew louder--and then I opened the door.
He immediately toggled into a strident purr and came sashaying out to rub on my ankles, tail arched proudly. I petted him and assured him that he was a valiant, brave feline, and then I went back to bed.
Hannah and baby Aaron came visiting that afternoon. By the time Dorcas got home from work, Aaron was awake. She started talking to him, and he was soon smiling at her...so I scurried off to get my camera.
I pulled the camera carefully from its bag--and found the back cover flapping open (which of course ruined the film), because the little plastic catch that holds shut the back of the camera was broken.
Whatever will I do now??? Rats, rats, rats. And the Fourth of July is only three days away! Oh, help! Help and bother!!!
I’m sure I will have to get an entire new back for it. That will be expensive, because not only does it have the date or time imprinter doodad on it, but also an eye-start gizmo and a focus-lock widget.
The children played outside that hot afternoon, and I visited my mother, showing her some of my new pictures. That evening, I rode with Larry and Victoria to Ace Hardware for some two-cycle oil for the mini-bike Larry is fixing up for Caleb. (Let’s hope it doesn’t get fixed until Caleb is...oh, say, 20 or so.)
Keith and Esther showed up about the time we returned; they’d bought a new freezer, and were looking for Teddy to help Keith take it into their basement.
I went on mending and washing clothes--and then, suddenly, I realized: I’m done with all the clothes in the shelf room!!!
Well, er, that is, I’m done with them until Larry hauls in the big plastic bins of clothes that are out in the garage. What if they reek of gasoline, or something? We shall see...mañana.
In the middle of the week, we found a nest of baby bunnies on the north side of Mama’s house. There were six of them. Kitty found the bunny nest, too, and then there were four.
We kept the cats indoors (much to their dismay) and fervently hoped the remaining bunnies would grow up quickly and move to Duncan.
Victoria awoke with a fever Friday morning--and I couldn’t find my thermometer. I can hardly ever get a mercury thermometer at the drug stores, either; and the digital kind, in my experience, is not as accurate. Indeed, the two digital thermometers we have--one for the ear, one for under the tongue--showed that her temperature (and mine, too) was somewhere around 95.5°.
Help, SOS! Call the paramedics! We are dying of hypothermia!! We’re already in such dire straits, we can’t even tell that we’re cold!!!
Teddy and Amy went to check on the baby bunnies Friday night--and another one had bitten the dust. Cause of demise: indeterminable; but not attributable to Kitty, this time. The neighborhood hooligans, who had also found the nest, and who had been known to take the bunnies from their nest and hold them, were highly suspect.
By Saturday, the babies were out of the nest and hopping around after their mother--but there were only two. Life is vicious and brutal around this neck of the woods.
My sweater with the embroidered front arrived from Bedford Fair--but the skirt and top Dorcas had ordered for the Fourth of July were backordered, of course. Isn’t that always the way? She was disappointed, and wondering what in the world she would wear.
At about 11:30 p.m. Friday, I took pity on the poor girl, and cut out a dress for her. By 4:00 a.m., I had only the zipper and neck facing left to sew. I sat and looked at it... Putting in a zipper seemed to be such a monumental task... That’s a sure sign I need to quit sewing and go to bed, when I start thinking like that. So I did.
The next day I finished those two easy jobs in half an hour.
The dress turned out cute--big red and white check for the skirt, small red and white check for the front and back center pieces, and small navy and white check for the side fronts and side backs, the sash, and the sleeves. In my button box I found a couple of big red buttons with three white lines through them, so I made it look as though the pleated sash is buttoned on at the side front seams. Then I put a pleat at the hem of the puffed sleeve, and sewed a small matching button onto it. The neckline is scalloped. The dress fits Dorcas perfectly, and looks nice. She is pleased.
That evening we splurged on blizzards, banana splits, and peanut buster parfaits at Dairy Queen. A Snickers blizzard for me, thank you; and don’t be sparing with the candy bar chunks, please.
Larry, with David’s crew, has been working on a big hog barn near a little town called Lions (Lyons?), an hour and forty-five minute’s drive northeast of Columbus. Later, they will do another barn there, too. They poured walls and divider walls. It’s 435 feet long by 100 feet wide, and took 200 yards of concrete to do three-fourths of the barn--they didn’t have enough forms to ‘form up’ the entire thing; it will have to be completed next week, probably Tuesday. There are two more smaller hog barns near Clarkson on the docket. The big barns take a week of work for at least a dozen men, which includes most of the crew.
A couple of weeks back, David broke his own record for basements poured in one week: they did eight.
Recently, David had a blueprint for a big house in Omaha…it was three stories, and 8,800 square feet (the house; not the blueprint). He bid the job high, because those houses can be headaches. He doesn’t know yet if he got the work or not. Sometimes he gets a task not because his bid was the lowest, but because the contractors know him, and prefer his work.
Saturday, Hester made Million-Dollar Pound Cake. It should have been called Million Pound Pound Cake. For some reason, it didn’t rise. It felt something on the order of a brick. The older girls used to make that recipe, too, and have difficulties with it. I never know exactly what goes wrong...it has turned out scrumptious ’most every time I’ve made it--which is precisely why the girls always want to use that recipe. Guess I’ll have to hunt up another one, and see if they have any better luck with it. Anyway, the children seemed to like how it tasted--all but Victoria, that is, who took a bite and said, “This is how my claydoh tastes,” which convulsed Hester, even if it was her cake being maligned.
“So, how often do you eat ‘claydoh’?” queried Teddy, making Victoria wrinkle her small nose at him.
That afternoon, we went out to the Platte River. It was not very deep--only about a foot and a half at the deepest--but the kids all got soaking wet, from head to foot, and so did Larry. Having no camera, I used the camcorder until the battery ran down. We’d bought a new battery at Wal-Mart on our way to the river; I will save it till the Fourth of July, and hope to goodness I don’t run out of battery before I run out of things to take pictures of. Who knows? Maybe I’ll turn into a video taper instead of a picture taker! It would certainly be a lot cheaper. But...I like pictures.
There were airboats by the dozen on the river. The passengers waved gaily every time they passed, and the children waved back. Five miles upriver, there is a place that gives airboat tours; perhaps some of the boats were from there.
When we got home, we watched the video--twice. It’s good...it’s funny. And it’s hilarious in reverse, especially when the kids jump backwards lickety-split onto the log they were jumping off of... hee hee I believe the big camcorders really do take better pictures than the little ones, just like I’ve been told by people in positions to know.
Caleb accidentally swallowed river water, and didn’t feel too so very awfully good afterwards. He used his inhaler, took some Albuterol (helps open the air passageways), and went to bed. This morning he was back to normal again, thank goodness.
We had Tacizzas for supper--and Teddy and a few of the other children don’t like them anymore. (Why did they like them so well the first time we had them? They are just the same now as they were then.) Teddy ate soup instead, while the rest of the kiddos drooled over his bowl. The chow is always finer on the other side of the smörgåsbord.
At 5:00 p.m. today, my mother called Lura Kay to tell her that she couldn’t get up from her chair, because of severe pain in her lower back. She could not turn from side to side, or reach for things without extreme pain, and she could not lower her head, either. Lura Kay thought perhaps it was another broken vertebra, and called for an ambulance.
John and Lura Kay, Loren and Janice, and I all went to the hospital to be with her, and X‑rays were taken and tests run to see if it could be determined what was the matter with her.
The X-rays, it turned out, didn’t do much good at all, because Mama’s bones are so porous from osteoporosis that the doctor could not ascertain which were old breaks, and which might be new ones. However, he discovered that she had an acute kidney infection, which could very probably be the source of not only her back pain today, but also her troubles during the last week and a half--feeling somewhat ill, her head not feeling right, and not being able to remember things. It was the not remembering that seemed to bother her the most.
She is at the hospital now, and being given an IV with antibiotics in it. Perhaps tomorrow we will learn how long the doctor thinks she should stay. She was already asking--a bit teasingly--about going home tonight. Everyone always likes her, because she is so pleasant and sweet.
Please pray for her, won’t you?
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