One afternoon last week, Hannah and baby Aaron came to visit. Aaron has had a cold, and we were all rather worried about him. Victoria didn’t feel well either, and lay around on the floor beside baby Aaron’s infant seat for a while, popping up every now and then to look lovingly into his face.
Some time later, she seemed to be MIA, so I went looking for her…and there she was, all curled up, sound asleep on her bed. I helped her into a better position, head on the pillow, blanket over the top of her. She awoke just enough to tell me, “My tummy is a little bit sick.”
But about 6:30 she got up, chipper as could be, saying she felt fine and dandy. So I got her ready for church.
Larry didn’t work for David Wednesday because it rained all day. Instead, he worked on his Bronco, which has several ills and ailments.
The next evening Bobby, Hannah, and Amy came for supper. Aaron came, too; but he brought his own supper, inside a Fisher Price bottle. I fixed the fish casserole I’d planned to make last Sunday. That casserole is nothing that couldn’t be improved upon, as is the case with most recipes. It was too dry, and not flavorful enough. Next time I will broil the fish separately, so the fish flavor doesn’t insinuate itself into every kernel of rice. I’ll cook the rice on the stove, rather than in the oven, and when it is nearly done, I’ll pour in several cans of mushroom or celery soup or clam chowder. That will be much better.
After supper, we watched a video Bobby and Hannah brought. It had been put together from many old movies that Bobby’s grandfather had taken. Some were very old--50 years old and older. There were pictures of me when I was probably about a month old, and there were quite a few pictures of Daddy and Mama. We enjoyed watching it. There are two videos, but they are long, and it was getting late; so we will watch the second one another time.
Thursday as I was cleaning in the basement, I found a couple of school papers of Joseph’s, written in December of ’97. He would have been 11. They are too funny to keep, so here they are--and don’t tell him, whatever you do:
The Motorcycle Race
Once upon a time there lived three boys. Their names were Larry, Kenny (Larry’s brother), and Glen (Larry’s cousin). They were very mischievous and loved to pull pranks on one another. Today they were rather excited about tomorrow. They were going to enter in the motorcycle race. They knew the track on which they would race, and also knew the many shortcuts which they could take. (However, they didn’t know that there were people along the trail that as you went by would make a slash on your helmet. If you didn’t have all the colors on your helmet you were disqualified.)
Larry and Glen had gone to the trail the day before and figured out the very best shortcut they could take. They both thought they had the trophy in their hands.
The morning of the race, Larry, who couldn’t conseal [sic] his joy any longer, told his father about their plan.
“Son,” his father said, “If you knew what was good for you, you wouldn’t do that.” He then thoroughly explained about the race. Larry, who didn’t want his cousin to have the shame of being disqualified for taking a shortcut, hurried off to find his friend. Glen, however, was not to be found. Larry had a sorrowful heart because his cousin was going to be a loser.
“Oh well!” Larry thought, “It will be Glen’s own fault for being greedy.”
And that’s the end of that story.
Story #2:
If I Was Illiterate
There would be so many things that I could list if I was illiterate. I wouldn’t be able to read my Bible, which would be the worst thing of all. I wouldn’t be able to sell cars because I couldn’t see how much they were priced for. I wouldn’t be able to sing any songs because I wouldn’t be able to read the words. I couldn’t get anywhere because I couldn’t read the street signs. I couldn’t find my favorite candybar or pop because I couldn’t read the right name. I couldn’t do any school assignments (which would be nice). I couldn’t find the right books to get for school. If everybody was illiterate
And there it stops. A fitting conclusion, yes?
Thursday Socks caught a bird and came rushing in the front door with it. Hester hastily ushered him back out again. We were so afraid it was Mama Finch…and we didn’t see her--or the male, either--for hours and hours. We thought the babies were going to die, and we felt like we were going to a funeral all afternoon. The littles kept asking if we couldn’t go dig up some worms for them, but I told them that it would take an awful lot of hard work to keep those babies alive. Baby finches rely on their parents to supply them with insects, with a few regurgitated seeds thrown in for good measure. There are all sorts of unsavory things you should know, if you are planning to raise baby songbirds.
For instance (the following is a list of Important Bird Stuff and Things which I looked up and found on the Internet--and I did change the wording a bit, to make it more comprehensible and lucid):
a) It’s fairly simple to concoct an acceptable diet for insectivorous nestlings (and almost every songbird is fed insects as a nestling). Simply grind dry puppy chow--any of the high-protein brands will do--in a blender (you may then wish to wash the blender before making yourself a milkshake) to a very fine meal, and moisten with warm water to the consistency of yogurt.
b) Make sure the nestling is warm, or he will not eat. If you force him to do a few calisthenics, he will warm up nicely in a matter of minutes.
c) The nestling may be stimulated to gape by a whistle (one of those silver things the soccer coach wears around his neck comes to mind) or gentle jarring of its nest. When the nest falls splat onto the floor, kindly pick it back up again and stick the baby bird back into it.
d) If the bird refuses to gape after all that, pry open its bill with a small crow bar. (Unless he is a finch; then you should use a finch bar.)
e) Administer small amounts toward the right side of the baby’s throat. (Its right, not your right; its left side is its trachea, which it needs left open in order to breathe.)
f) Supplement the diet with mealworms, which you may order from Grubco, Inc.; Worms, Germany. Be sure you specify ‘The Concorde’ as the preferred shipping option, rather than the USS Hamilton IV, or the worms will have metamorphosed into something nasty by the time they arrive Stateside. And a flock of Franklin’s seagulls will arrive simultaneously, as they are fond of mealworms, too, the nastier the better.
g) If you feed a baby bird a mealworm, you must crush the worm’s head first. Otherwise the worm will have nightmares about being eaten alive by a Prosauropod of the Rhamphorhynchus variety--one of those flying reptiles with the long, leathery wings that supposedly lived 163 million years ago, about the time Paul Simon was a baby, which explains why he is such a leathery, mealwormish individual.
h) Food is most easily administered with a baby medicine syringe (i.e., a very young syringe), with the tip cut off a bit so you can squirt the worms out better.
i) It is not necessary to give water to a baby bird; they prefer to pump it themselves straight from the well.
j) Raising and especially releasing songbirds can be a several-week to several-month job, since the songbirds will think you are their parent and will keep coming back to you. That is why it is best left to an expert who is well versed in getting away from a bird, especially if it has formed the mistaken notion that it is a bird dog, on account of the puppy chow it ate in its infancy. Sometimes a bird/dog, because of its diet, will have the brains of a dog, and will therefore believe you to be a cruel animal abuser on the grounds that it personally witnessed you murdering mealworms, headfirst. Supposing this, as it does, the bird will attempt to peck your ears off, and you, having fed the thing such an invigorating diet, will not be able to duck quickly enough to save yourself.
Knowing all this, I was terribly relieved when I saw the male finch go into the tree in the same place the finch parents always go in--on the opposite side from the nest. I was thankful, in part, because the children were getting so insistent about feeding those baby birds, I was actually starting to consider possible ways of feeding them chewed-up seeds and worms. Yikes! I do get over-zealous about things, don’t I?
An hour had not passed before the children were telling me that both the male and female were sitting on the phone wire nearby, making their familiar little worried chirps at them. Whew! Mr. and Mrs. Finch & Co. are safe--for now. Whatever will we do with our cats when those babies fledge?--and they will do that, in just a few days. Oh dear, oh dear. Perhaps we can keep the cats in the house during the day…they most likely won’t catch the young birds at night, because birds find themselves safe hiding places to roost and sleep, which is why they are called ‘roosters’.
Kitty caught a mouse, and then let it go--cats do that, primarily to add spice to the chase --and it dived right into the speaker on my tape player. So there I sat on the front porch, trying my bestest to get the speaker apart. But nobody could find a screwdriver that would fit in the hole. About that time, Teddy came home, found a screwdriver that would work, and did the dirty job for me. Imagine him using that as an excuse for being late for his date with Amy: “I was extracting a mouse from Mama’s speaker.”
As usual, I am washing clothes and cleaning the basement. I have given Hannah several bags full of clothes for Aaron; and I gave Susan a few boxes of clothes for Danica.
Thursday night we ordered pizza for supper, because Caleb had a certificate for a free pizza from Papa Murphy’s, given him as a reward for reading a certain number of books. We planned to order Caleb’s little pizza--in whatever flavor he preferred--and three more large pizzas for the rest of the family.
Larry ordered the pizza--from Pizza Hut.
So Caleb still has his certificate.
That evening we watched a video about whales and dolphins. The whales--orcas and humpbacks--were in their summer feeding grounds off the shores of Alaska, and researchers had dropped microphones into the water, and we could hear their strange whistles and songs. I would like to go there. Not necessarily to ride in a boat one-fourth the size of a small whale, right down next to the cold, blue water; but I would like to see Alaska someday.
Later we took some things to the Goodwill--two big bags of clothes, and a little wooden school desk my sister-in-law, Janice, gave me long ago. It’s probably an antique made by a famous woodworker in Stockholm in 1745, worth tens of thousands of dollars. Like Drabble’s father, I’ll find out by radio or newspaper that some lucky dog bought an antique desk at the Goodwill in Columbus, Nebraska, had it appraised, and wound up $50,000 more affluent than he yoozta been.
We got a little motorized jeep, pink and white, at the Goodwill. The plug end was demolished, but Larry was sure he could fix it. We put it into the back of the Suburban to bring it home.
On the first try, it didn’t fit; and Larry told me I could run along behind the Suburban and hold the end of the little car up so it didn’t fall out.
“I have a better idea,” I said. “You stand in front of the Suburban, because I’m going to run over you.”
He laughed at me and folded down the back seat so the car would fit. And we brought it home.
After fixing the plug end and charging it all night, it still didn’t work…so tomorrow we will buy a new battery for it and see if that solves the problem. If not… well… I suppose we will give the jeep, sans new battery, back to the Goodwill, and then see if we can find a vehicle to go with the new battery.
The kids played outside all afternoon one sunny day, and are all sunburnt. Victoria wonders why having a sunburn makes the water seem hotter when she takes a bath.
“But the sun isn’t shining on me in here!” she exclaimed, gingerly putting her arm into the water.
Keith and Esther came visiting; Teddy and Amy came for a little while, too. Keith has a new bike, and Esther’s will be here soon (they had to order it). They’d been at Lake Babcock trying out the new riding trail. Perhaps some time this week we’ll load up our bikes and go try out that trail ourselves. It curves around through the trees beside the lakes, and is wide enough to pass someone coming from the other direction, even with Victoria’s cart hitched onto my bike.
Early Saturday morning, Dorcas went with Hannah and baby Aaron to see Dr. Luckey. They left at 6:15 a.m. because Hannah thought the appointment was at 7:00. The office was still closed when they got there, so they went to the hospital to see what they should do. The receptionist, not understanding their dilemma, promptly started signing the baby into the hospital as a patient. They finally got it through her head that they were only supposed to be keeping their appointment at the clinic, and where was everybody??? Well, Dr. Luckey was at the hospital right that moment, so the lady called for him. He greeted them in his cheery way, and told them that their appointment was supposed to have been at 8:00.
So they drove around David City for a bit, and then went to the clinic at 8:00. Soon Dr. Luckey came into their room, and laughingly informed them that the appointment was supposed to have been at eleven. Eleven… seven… Ah, well; that’s only four hours off. And it does rhyme.
Aaron has a viral infection. Dr. Luckey gave him some medicine that should get him over it. He still sounds congested, but perhaps by the time he’s taken the medicine for a couple more days he’ll be better.
At Wal-Mart I got six plastic bins for sweaters and such like, two long cloth-enclosed clothes racks, and two expandable shoe racks. Larry put one shoe rack together while Victoria and I put another together. She put the rubber ends on the legs, put the small pipes into the large pipes, and put the screws into the holes for me. Then Caleb and Victoria collected armloads of shoes from my closet floor and deposited them on my bed, which they thought was an utterly funny thing to do.
The shoe racks fill both the east and the west closet wall. On the box it says the racks will hold a dozen pairs each. Well, I managed to fit thirteen pairs on each rack. I put another half a dozen pairs underneath each rack, and the mounds of fluffy bedroom slippers (I have to have all colors of the rainbow, you see) behind them. On the inside of the closet door hangs another shoe rack, and it holds 28. There is one pair of black velvet shoes in their very own box, trying their best to stay unscuffed. Let’s see… that makes 67 pairs of shoes, not counting the bedroom slippers. Four pairs of everyday shoes--Lydia used to call them ‘home’ shoes (as opposed to ‘church’ shoes)--are under my nightstand. That’s 71… And I just filled a medium-sized garbage bag with the shoes I didn’t want--oh! and there are two pairs in the Suburban that need to go to the shoe cobbler. That’s 73 pairs of shoes.
Get out of the way, Imelda Marcos!!!
In the closet, I found the piece of exercise equipment a friend of mine once gave me: there are strapped pedals for the feet, and handles to pull--and a very strong spring between the two. I generously donated it to Dorcas. She absentmindedly put it on the couch. Teddy found it, and as is his wont, promptly began fiddling with it.
He stepped on part of a pedal, and then, not exactly paying attention to what he was doing, pulled--hard--on the handles. The spring strrrretched…and strrrretched…and strrrretched--and all of a sudden his foot slipped off the pedal, and the entire apparatus flew wildly upward with a loud sprrrrrrang!!, narrowly avoiding removing Teddy’s complete set of chompers.
Whew! The dangers a person can encounter, merely exercising.
Teddy, looking a trifle shell-shocked, decided it was his bedtime. I allowed as how he might possibly be safe in bed--unless he should accidentally knock his CD player off his headboard and land it on his noggin.
“My motorcycle helmet is in the garage,” his father told him helpfully.
Teddy made a face and went to bed.
Larry put together the navy fabric-enclosed clothes rack. It is now in the ‘shelf room’, and I am putting it to use. About the time I began thinking I was on the last home stretch of all the sorting and cleaning down there, I was picking up a few things in the garage when I looked up and saw them: boxes upon boxes--big boxes, lining the south wall of the garage, labeled “Toys”. Aarrgghh! Those boxes are filled with a motley assortment of toys from all reaches of the house and hauled out to the garage once upon a time when Larry was putting the new flooring down in the living room and hallway. I was busy sewing for Christmas and working on the program, and I didn’t have time to sort toys (and nobody else in the house knows how, evidently). I am here to tell you that when you have nine children and scads of generous relatives and friends, there is no end to the amount of toys and clothes you can amass. I should have kept track of how many bags I’ve hauled to the Goodwill or the Salvation Army, and how many I’ve taken to the garbage… Hey! I do know that I am on my fourth box of 30-count large garbage bags. Wow…imagine that. That shelf room must have a compression feature, just like my computer does, in order for so much stuff to be packed into that one room.
There are bags and bags of things in the attic that I was planning to try to sell at a garage sale someday. I need someone to get them down for me so that I can take them to the Goodwill, since there is really no hope of a garage sale, because when Larry sold the business, he brought home all the things he wanted to keep--and put them in the garage. It’s a three-car garage--but the Suburban is the only vehicle that will fit in it. And most of the things out there are too large for me to budge.
As we were getting ready for church tonight, Victoria was hunting up a blanket to wrap her doll in and take to church. Mind you, this is a new turn of events; she has not before thought of taking her doll in a blanket, except for a long-ago doll that had a special matching blanket.
As she lovingly wrapped the doll in the blanket, she said to me, “Do you remember when I was three, and I wouldn’t even take a blanket for my babies?”
I wore my new glasses to church for the first time today. I put them on shortly before the first song, gleefully anticipating being once again well able to read the words to the hymns.
No such luck.
Every last song was on Larry’s side of the book, and in the wavy area of the glasses prescription, just out of focus. AAaaaaaaaa! And I couldn’t take the silly things off, once I’d worn them for a while, because of course then I would then have diddlybloopers on my nose, which are not particularly becoming to noses, and after all!--me has me pride! I guess the only way I will be able to see the hymnbook is to hold my own book, instead of sharing with Larry--and then everyone behind us will think we are having a big fight.
Well, we are--over the hymnbook!
After church tonight, we were watching a video of WWII. There was footage of soldiers training with snowshoes in Alaska.
Caleb asked, “How come they have tennis rackets on their feet?”
As I type, I am listening to the siren of a firetruck a mile or so distant. Whoever is driving the truck must be feeling high-spirited this morning--it’s almost 3:00 a.m.--because he is trying out every different sound the vehicle makes:
1) the regular siren we often hear, inviting fellow pyromaniacs to fall into formation and follow the fire;
2) the whee-woo-whee-woo-whee-woo made to warn nearby motorists of the engine’s approach and impending climb onto their trunk, if they are not wise enough to take themselves (and their vehicle, too, preferably) to the shoulder;
3) the WHOOweeeWHOOweeeWHOOweeeWHOOweee sounded especially to frighten witless drivers completely out of their wits when they witlessly pull out in front of the truck; and
4) the BAAAAAWWWWWW of the horn when the firetruck goes through a red light, passes vehicles on the right, enters a fog bank, or travels through your yard, passing immediately under your bedroom window.
I just heard Socks snarling and howling…I ran out to save him again from the dreadful yeller cat…as usual, the yeller cat hurtled off on a headlong run the instant he saw me coming… And then!!--Socks, the stupid beast, loped after him! I have no idea where he is now; I prefer not to gallop madly after a couple of idiot cats through neighbors’ gardens, garbage, and garages.
I leave the front kitchen window open so that the cats (Kitty and Socks, that is; not Ol’ Yeller) may come and go as they please. I leave the blind down, in order to block out the bugs, and the cats can push it out of the way easily. Every now and then a visitor is startled when a cat pops in the window, jumps the sink, and lands with a thud on the floor. hee hee It’s partly the expression on the cats’ faces that startles them--they stare wide-eyed at the visitor, and then take a leap…and I’m sure the company thinks they are about to be attacked by a puma or a lynx. {Lynx - (links) - souped-up Nebraska wildcat.}
Oh! -- I hear the blinds wiggling -- THUD!! That was Socks, hitting the floor…and here he is now, rubbing around my ankles and purr^)%^&)*%45789132 ing.
Oops. He jumped onto the keyboard. Well, he seems to still be all in one piece. Reckon there’s a chance he’ll grow up to whup the stuffins out of that horrid Ol’ Yeller?
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