February Photos

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Sunday, March 25, 2001 - Computer Calamities, Well-Suited Boys & Rolands, & Prospects of Nice New Neighbors


           Last week one day I sent Teddy to my room to get the boxes of Kudos (something similar to granola bars, only more like candy) I had hidden there.  He returned with three boxes--one was empty, the other had one Kudo, and the third had two. 

          “Aaauuuggghhh!” I remarked.  “There were at least a couple dozen of those things!  Where did they all disappear to??!”

           I thought the kids had found them and gobbled them down…until Teddy said plaintively, “These pants sure don’t fit very good,” and I turned and looked at him--and his pockets were absolutely, positively, crammed to the gills.  (Do pants have gills?)  With Kudos.

           “No Kudos for you!!” I exclaimed, but he only laughed, knowing I wasn’t referring to the candy bar, and tossed them onto the table, where his siblings fell upon them like hungry wolves.

             My Uncle Howard must really be getting well--he and his son Robin have been flying his powerchute!  They first had to mow a swath of weeds out of their way in the field they were using to take off and land in.

             After a few mishaps with the cut on Joseph’s hand, including him absentmindedly catching a ball with that hand, causing the cut to open back up, and making us think that he should have had stitches, after all, we bought some butterfly bandages as a last resort--and that worked.  It is pretty well healed now, and should be just fine, if he doesn’t decide to use it for a hockey stick, or climb Boggeragh Mountain, or something.

              Tuesday afternoon, Hannah came visiting.  When the littles came home from school, they went with her to her house to look at the nursery-in-waiting while I went to the post office to mail a few things and collect a package waiting for me:  a photography book from National Geographic.  Boy, oh boy, just wait till you see my pictures now.  Eat your heart out Ansel Adams!
The children came back, and I took Victoria for a walk.  

                  We finally heard from our insurance company regarding the bills for Teddy’s finger, which amounted to $6935.04:  they will give us $250.00.  Kind of ’em, yes?  

                 Turns out, the agent was a crook--he is now fired, and when the people I talk to within the company find out he was my agent, they all curl their collective lips with disdain.  Wonder what exactly he did?  One thing he did was to convince Larry he had a policy that covered things it really didn’t cover.  One would generally assume that one’s medical insurance would cover medical expenses, wouldn’t one?  And I’m afraid we have no recourse, for the papers--which I had never seen until recently--clearly state everything the policy covers.  Or doesn’t cover, as the case may be.

           Moral of the story:  Don’t listen to your agent.  READ YOUR POLICY!!!

          (Letter to be resumed as soon as Kitty removes herself from in front of my monitor.)

          Larry and Joseph rushed off to Wal-Mart for another color cartridge because I thought mine was running out of ink; then when I got some picture ready to print (on glossy 4x6 photo-quality pages), I forgot to put the new cartridge in and used the old one--and it worked fine.  That’s when I discovered something:  the display window for my printer shows exactly how much ink is left in both cartridges, black or color--and there was a lot.  We hadn’t needed to spend $67 on cartridges after all!  Those things are filled with colored gold, I think.

           That night I saved all my old letters--from ’99 till now--to 3½” disks.  A few other Very Important Pieces of data to save…and I would have relief of mind, knowing I had backup copies, should my computer crash.  It happened sooner than I expected.

           In the mail that day arrived our Ranger Rick magazine, with the address label addressed, as always, To Jackson Children.  Joseph erased “Children” and added in “Babies (Caleb)”, just for entertainment purposes. 

           Caleb immediately responded by drawing the funniest face you can imagine, and labeling it “Joseph”.

            Guess what?  Penny Golden, my blind friend who is one of our schoolteachers, is going to live in the little house north of my mother’s house that the church just bought.  Oh, goody, goody coughdrops!  The Jacksons are almost as excited as the Goldens, I think!

Friday I was sewing Lydia’s dress, in grand hopes of finishing it that night.  Hannah came visiting, and used the Internet to look up things from Annie’s Attic, a craft company.  Caleb then used the PaintBox program, making Wallpaper that said, “Daddy’s Computer!  Do not touch!”--just to tease me.  At 6:00, I decided to check for mail--and that’s when my computer went berserk.

It first refused to dial up; I had to ‘reinstall’ the modem, which is nothing new; I’ve been doing that for six months.  I rebooted several times... and finally, the cantankerous thing refused to open in anything but Safe Mode, which gets downright scary.  And it stayed scary.  Safe Mode.  Ha!  What an oxymoron.  One feels anything but safe, when one’s computer will only open in Safe Mode. 

So, while I could still get to my documents, I decided that the very wisest thing I could do would be to quit antagonizing the obstinate implement, and save every last thing I could save to 3½” floppy disks. 

It never again opened normally.  I forgot all about the sewing and went to saving things, glad I could at least do that.  As I type, I am using Dorcas’ computer, and over on the other side of the room, I am saving documents and pictures by the thousands.  I’ve been at it for a good long while now.  If I lose everything on my hard drive, at least I will have most things saved.  I won’t be able to save my video clips, though, and they are almost the only ones I have of some of the children, some of which I am particularly fond of (the videos, I mean; not the kids).  (Uh, that is, I mean, yes, I am fond of the kids; but …  what I meant to say, was, uh… what was I talking about?)

So I saved documents… and I saved documents…until I just had to take time out to check for mail and to see if the Mir space station had come down where it was supposed to, or if Easter Island had been erased off the face of the earth.

Sure enough, it had descended nicely without wiping out Chili, and Fiji is still on the globe, and they were even treated to a nice fireworks display.  Did you know, by the by, that if the thing had’ve come down on land, it could have passed through six feet of reinforced concrete?  A wee bit of a wallop.  

Imagine meeting your friend in the streets the next day:  He says to you, “What’s that bump on your head?” and you respond, “Oh, this goose egg?”--feeling it proudly--“Mir gave me a souvenir!  Like it?”

That evening, my friend Penny wrote: 

          I have not spoken to you about it, but doubtless you know that we will  be near neighbors soon?  

         And do you need more disks?  I’ve got a ton I can get to you even at this hour of day if you need more.  To save to little 3.5-inch disks, though, is like saving your pantry of food in sandwich bags.  You need a back-up system.  Yes, you probably need a couple of extra pairs of sox too! 

          Love, Penny

             My answer: 
          hahahahaha  I am coming straight over posthaste to collect the socks.  Mine have entirely lost their elastic and are dangling off the end of my toes, and when I go rushing from hither to thither, they threaten to trip me up every step I take!  

         No, actually, Dorcas did a little errand for me this evening, buying me two boxes of floppy disks, so I am in fine shape for tonight.  And yes, they are just like sandwich bags, when you have a whopper to put into it!  Or if you have hunted yourself up a buffalo, and are saving the meat in them.  hahahahaha

         Yes, yes yes yes yes!  I did know you were going to be moving over here...and I was told at the time I was told (did that make sense?) that it was a secret, so I hadn’t breathed a word to a living soul.  But I was so excited about it, I was just about ready to pop!  So now I can tell!!!  Larry just asked me about it, moments before I read your email.  I had forgotten to tell him (although I don’t keep secrets from him) (not those sorts, anyway)--but it was his own fault, for falling asleep every time I looked at him.  Anyway, when he told me they were talking about it at work, then I knew the cat was out of the bag, and it was a done deal.  I’m entirely, totally, absolutely tickled half to death!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

          (I like doing all those hahahaha’s on posts to Penny, because her computer, when it reads them aloud to her, says them so funny.  But when I type Wheeeeeeee, it reads, “w-h-23 e’s”.  ha)


Penny’s reply: 
You are sure you don’t need disks right now?  You can come get them now if you need them!


I answered: 
No, I don’t need disks yet.  I will run out of awake before I run out of disks.  But thank you, thank you for offering!


Here is an article I enjoyed:

At the spring dinner of the Gridiron Club, a 116-year-old institution that gathers Washington’s media and political elite for a night of satire and civility, President Bush struck back with humor at anybody who might suggest he is dumb, lazy, inarticulate and, worst of all, a puppet president allowing Vice President Dick Cheney to make all the important decisions.
“To those people, I say…”  At that point, he paused, turned to Cheney and said, “Dick, what do I say?”
The audience roared.
The president stole the show with a self-deprecating reply to those who say he is not quite up to the job.
“Those stories about my intellectual capacity do get under my skin. You know for a while I even thought my staff believed it,” he said.  “There on my schedule first thing every morning it said, ‘Intelligence briefing.’”
Bush claimed it got so bad that he turned to Democratic powerbroker Robert Strauss for advice.  “He said, ‘Just remember, Mr. President.  You can fool some of the people all of the time.  Those are the people you need to concentrate on.’”
The president said he is smart enough to map the human genome, as a habit and an act of practicality.  “I hope to eventually clone another Dick Cheney,” Bush said.  “Then I won’t have to do anything!”
And on it went.  One after another, Bush mentioned a perceived shortcoming then confronted it with humor.  He admitted to suffering ‘foot-’n-mouth’ disease, quoting Garrison Keillor,  who said, “George Bush’s lips are where words go to die.”
Bush announced that he is so firm on foreign policy that he recently kicked four Russian diplomats out of the United States for spying and more than forty others “because they left their cell phones on.”  (One of Bush’s biggest pet peeves is the sound of cell phones ringing in news conferences and meetings.)
The president himself did not mention his former rival, but did note that third-party candidate Ralph Nader, who siphoned votes from Gore, was in the audience.
“You know all those press organizations that have been doing a recount in Florida?” Bush said to Nader.  “Well, you won!”
Even Ashcroft poked fun at Bush, saying that a 24-7 shift at the White House means “24 hours a week, seven months a year.”  Ashcroft is not the kind who would question his boss’ smarts--unless, of course, he was looking for a laugh in the name of civility and satire.  Thus, the attorney general let it slip that Bush ordered his Cabinet recently to “travel to all 54 states.”
Washington’s streets were lit with gas when 15 of the journalists of 1885 founded a club, named it for a kitchen griddle, and invited every officeholder in sight for an evening of mostly good-natured ribbing.

Saturday afternoon, we went to Omaha, leaving home a little after 2:00 p.m.  Teddy stayed home to work on his contumacious pickup.  We stopped in North Bend for coffee for us, and hot chocolate for the children.  Victoria, watching Larry fill the Styrofoam cups, said, “That hot chocolate is hotter than the coffee, because it’s steaming hot.”  And indeed it was steaming more than the coffee.

A little later, as we were driving along, she said, “My head hurts.  Do you think I have a headache?”  Silly little girl…yes, she did have a headache.

On the way, we stopped at the Goodwill in Fremont, where we found three suits for Teddy, and ties to match each suit, with an extra one just for good measure.  The suits were $8.99 each; the ties, $.99.  Hester got a pair of pretty white shoes, brand new; and Joseph found a couple pairs of pants for himself.  He came around when I was picking out ties for Teddy, and suddenly gasped in delight and snatched one from the assemblage of ties hanging thick on the racks. 

“Ooooooh,” he cried in delight, “I want this, I want this, I want this!!!  I’m going to wear it right now.”  

I turned to see exactly what sort of a bang-up tie he had discovered--and there he was, holding an extraordinarily garish tie, wide and yellow, with a diagonal brick-red stripe through it.  I tell you, it was easily one of the most tawdry, repugnant ties I had ever laid eyes on.

The littles yelped with laughter, and several patrons turned to see what was so funny.  They grinned when they spotted Joseph holding that tie up to his neck, smirking like a saphead at his siblings.  Joseph, belatedly embarrassed, stuffed it back into its hiding place and escaped to the Suburban.

As we drove along, I finally realized that the small odd noises I was hearing were coming from the nether regions of the vehicle.

“What is that?!” I queried, turning to stare into the back.

They giggled, and Lydia told me what the undercurrents were.  Hester, it seemed was ‘being a cow’ (with the accompanying noises, of course), while Lydia was ‘being a cat’, answering her sister with all the appropriate meows and purrs and snarls felines might make in conversations with a large beast of the Bovidae family. 

Just then, the unmistakable malodor of skunk wafted through the air. 

“And Caleb,” continued Joseph, “was being a skunk.”

“Hey, Joseph!” said Caleb.

“Well, Caleb did the best job!” I praised him.

“Hey, Mama!” said Caleb.

It was not ten miles before we smelt another skunk, even ranker, this go-around.

“Caleb sure has that skunk impression down pat,” said Joseph admiringly.

“Joooosephphphph!!!” objected Calebd.

In Omaha, we went to Burlington Coat Factory, where we got suits for Joseph and Caleb, along with shirts and ties, and a couple pairs of shoes for Dorcas and Hester.  I tried on a few coats; then, receiving no rave reviews, but rather, pans, I replaced them all on the rack.  Rats!  I did so need a new, warmer coat!  Maybe next year the styles will improve.

After this, we headed for the music store, because Dorcas wanted to look for a keyboard of some sort.  We were looking for Keyboard Kastle, but couldn’t seem to find it.  And the two music stores we did find either closed right when we got there (does that give you a complex, when a store owner slams and locks the door right in your face, declining to look at you as you stand gazing forlornly through the window?), or they had already closed earlier.  One had a neon sign in the window that said “Open”; but it was false advertising.  We debated whether we could shoot up the sign without damaging the large plate window.  And we regretted that we had not gone to the music store first, since they closed early, while Burlington Coat Factory didn’t close until 9:00.  

We drove to Crossroads Mall, where Larry, upon spotting a sign with no more than six names of businesses in the mall listed thereon, decided that there were no music stores inside that mall. 

“You can’t decide that!  After all,” I protested, “there are hundreds of other businesses that are in the mall, but not listed on that street sign!”

Nevertheless, he proceeded on. 

Arriving at Westroads Mall some time later, we disembarked and went in.  We walked into the huge hall, and found a directory.  Seeing nothing that gave us a clue about music stores, I went into a nearby shop and asked. 

“No, no store that sells keyboards,” I was told.  “But there is one at the Crossroads!”

Aaauuuggghhh.

By then we were starving, so we went to the enormous food court, where there must be a couple dozen fast food eateries lining the vast room wherein were arranged a boundless phalanx of tables and chairs.  And that’s when we discovered the advantage to such a setup:  Joseph headed for Burger King; Dorcas, Hester, and Lydia, went to Runza Hut, while Larry and I, along with Caleb and Victoria, went to Arby’s.   After collecting our food, we drug a couple of tables together, and sat down to eat.  There was a black grand piano in the midst, playing away--all by itself. 

“Spooooky,” murmured Larry under his breath, producing giggles from the littles.

When we were done with the main course, Hester and Lydia got ice cream cones, Dorcas got a Snickers Blizzard, Larry got a Strawberry Julius, and I got an Orange Julius.  Orange Julius!  Ah, the memories that evoked.  When I used to shop in Omaha with my friends, back when I was a teenager, we would often wander the halls of the mall, an Orange Julius in hand.

Larry and I shared ours with Caleb and Victoria.  Joseph was still sipping on a large Mt. Dew he’d gotten, and didn’t want anything else--although I noticed he was quite willing to ‘taste’ anything his siblings or parents held his way.

Soon we were on our way back to Crossroads.  We checked out the directory not far inside the door.  Seeing nothing that gave us any hope of finding a music store, we went to the Customer Service Desk, and I made inquiry.  The woman pointed down the hall. 

“Sure,” she nodded, “there’s a place that sells pianos and organs and everything, right over there.”

We trotted off.

Lo and behold--would you ever believe--imagine this:  Right before our eyes lay Keyboard Kastle.  And it was OPEN!!!  We scurried in quickly, before somebody changed their minds about us and lifted the moat bridge.

We found they didn’t exactly sell everything, but they did sell something we wanted.

After telling the man what we were looking for, and then redirecting him to something within our price range, he led us straight to a wonderful keyboard that had been marked down $200.  And, lo and behold--would you ever believe--imagine this:  It was a Roland.  A wonderful, beautiful Roland.

It’s a digital piano, just what Dorcas had been wanting, but she never dreamed she could afford a Roland.  

The man who owns Keyboard Kastle at the mall in Omaha had a songbook on his big Yamaha grand piano--and the song it was open to was Crown Him with Many Crowns.  So I played it.  I learned that the man plays piano for his church--the Evangelical Free Church in Omaha.   
The man has become a good friend of ours.  Our church has bought a couple of Rolands from him--one is the big beautiful organ we use upstairs at church; and the other is the one the school uses downstairs for school every day.  The man really likes John and Lura Kay (who wouldn’t?); they are the principal ones who chose the instruments that were purchased there.  So he was pleased when he suddenly figured out who we were.  He calls John The Music Man, because John often calls him to see what he happens to have on sale.

Fifteen minutes after arriving home, the Roland was set up, and Dorcas was playing it.  Teddy, who had stayed home, was trying to tell us something, and I kept telling Dorcas to play softer, play softer, play softer!!!

Finally, when her volume was way down, and I realized the song I was hearing had more errors in it than Dorcas usually makes, I turned around--and discovered the volume was coming from the Cassio synthesizer, which Caleb was playing.  He was doing a good enough job playing I Will Not Forget Thee with Dorcas that I couldn’t tell he was playing, too!  And of course, it was just Dorcas I was telling to play softer--so why ever should Caleb think he needed to turn his volume down?!

Long ago, I remember when Robert was born... Lura Kay and John brought him to our house, on their way home from the hospital, to show him to us.  I can see him so clearly in my memory, as Lura Kay laid him gently down on our big rocking chair, and I can just picture Daddy leaning over him and looking into his face and talking softly--well, trying to talk softly (I suppose it was soft, for Daddy)--and he said, “This boy is going to be one of the most handsome young men in our church someday. You mark my word!” He also commented on his name, “Robert”.  It means, “A great, shining light.”  And Daddy said, “God has something important in store for this baby someday.”  He loved every one of his grandchildren dearly; but I never heard him say such a thing about any other one.

             Aaarrrggghhh!  Dorcas is playing a beautiful song on the new Roland, BUT!!!!--Hester is sitting right smack between Dorcas and me, holding Victoria’s little cage that holds a goofy-looking furry yellow gorilla--and when the cage in bounced up and down, the gorilla squeaks. And Hester, that girl {!}, is squeaking it right along with the beat of the music!


“HESTER!” I remarked in my best Mrs. Foreman tones, and the squeaking stopped.

Whewww.

I have been on the Internet for a while now, updating my Encyclopedia.  I use it all the time...but it’s 1999 instead of 2000, because our 2000 Encarta, for all the bragging done on it,  has efficiently hidden the dictionary, and we cannot find it at all at all at all.  It is not listed under Tools, where it is supposed to be, or under anything else on the Menu, nor can you get to it by double-clicking on any word in the encyclopedia, as you are supposed to be able to do.  And it doesn’t show up in the Installation folder, either.

So I am quite a ways behind times--but not as far as I might be, since I am able to update 17 months, to December of ’99.

Anyway, every time I tried answering some email, I brought the updates to a standstill, so I gave up on that and simply typed in my journal--until I realized that the songs Dorcas was playing on her new Roland were simply crying for accompaniment on the piano.

Sunday evening, after a short nap, my alarm went off at 6:00…I groaned…but finally shuffled forth to see what particular church duds awaited me in my closet. 

I keep them cycling, you see: I take my next item from the back of the rack, and when I hang it back up, I put it in the front, so that people won’t see me in the same ol’ glad rags every time they look at me, and, as Victoria has said, “they will think I’m a whole different kid when next they see me.” 

            I wandered from my room to rouse the rest of the household--and found Victoria already up, complaining of a stomachache, which she has had for the last couple of days. She said she didn’t feel like going to church, and she had the peaked face to prove it…sooo…I had an excuse to keep my under-power self home, too.  I always regret missing Robert’s sermons; and Larry, being a man of few words, and not allowing me to equip him with a recorder, will doubtless leave out a good deal of what I consider important information when I ask him to relate the sermon to me.  He spends three minutes, tops, telling me about it, and acts amazed when I inform him that I know good and well there was more to an hour-long sermon than could be condensed into three minutes. 

Teddy does exactly the same thing.  In fact, he might be even better at it than his father.  And when I complain, he says, “Well, I’m good at making things concise.”

After church Sunday evening, Bobby and Hannah came to see the new Roland.  Soon Hannah was playing it, and Bobby was playing the piano. 

Victoria’s stomach still hurt, but not so much that she couldn’t forget about it and play house with Caleb in the empty Roland box. 

At one point, Bobby put on his suit jacket, and Victoria said, “Well, goodbye!”… but Bobby wasn’t leaving yet.  A few minutes later, Hannah put on her coat, and Victoria said, “Bye, Hannah!”

One would think she wanted to get rid of them!  haha  Of course, just the opposite is true.  When eventually they went out the door, they came straight back in--because they decided to warm up their car before they departed.  Brrrrr!  It was cold out there! 

Victoria, having bid them adieu for the third time as they exited, turned and stared at them, surprised, as they reentered.  “Will I have to tell you goodbye again?!” she queried, making them laugh.

Teddy is just pulling into the drive; he is off work for the day.  This is the advantage to using this computer on the west wall--I can see straight out the front window.  I know who’s coming and going!

Well, two of the three suits we got for Teddy will fit him perfectly--if he puts a pillow inside them.  The other, a western suit, was made for a cowboy with a paunchy stomach and skinny legs.  Teddy is built the other way around.

One time when a friend and I were shopping in Omaha--I was looking for a wedding gown--we went into this nice boutique...I was looking through the dresses that were in my size...and then I walked around to the other side, and accidentally started looking at gowns in about a size 44W.  (Why would they put size 44W right next to the petite sizes?)  I pulled out one that appeared particularly voluminous, and suggested to my friend that we buy it, each paying half, and then we could get married on the same day (we wound up getting married a month apart) and wear the same dress at the same time, and not have to resize it or anything.

             We got so tickled, we were all hunched over, laughing like idiots, tears streaming down our faces.  Along came the snooty sales lady (they like to come along at moments like those), mincing forth in her high heels, and peering disapprovingly down her thin, elegant Grecian nose. 

“Since you two children have nothing better to do,” she sniped, “I would ask that you leave!  The door is just over there.”

So I, barely able to talk, said, “Okay...this gown is too small for me, anyway.”

My friend laughed so hard she nearly fell flat...and then I showed the lady my engagement ring.  It was a beautiful ring, with a three-quarter carat diamond.  It had been Larry’s grandmother’s wedding ring, and when she gave it to me, I was absolutely, totally amazed and delighted.

Anyway, I said, “We’re leaving--but you’ve just lost a real, honest-to-goodness customer...I really do need a wedding gown, and I really am going to buy one today! (still laughing)  Bye, bye!”--and we sashayed out the door, still giggling, with the lady apologizing and asking us to please come back in.

Yes...we were rather rude...but she was rude first (unless you consider all that laughing rude).

As I was chatting with a friend on AIM the other night, we both received an email from Penny.

“HEY!  Look at that!” I wrote.  “My importance level is high tonight!”

             “WHAT???” said she, wondering what I was ranting about now.

“I got the original,” I explained; “You just got the copy!  Na na nanana!”

And then--“Ooops,” I continued, “I just got my just rewards--real quick-like:  I tried taking off my sweater--tilted my chair back--but this is the chair Larry and Teddy have tilted back in.  I nearly landed in Lura Kay’s playhouse, back behind the house.

             Our backyard is right beside Lura Kay's.  Our big moose of a dog used to burrow her way through the fence--looking in a decidedly UNchristian-like manner at Lura Kay’s cat.  That horse of a mutt could snap the wire fence right in two.  She never even acted like she felt a thing, even when broken shards of wire were poking her right in the back.”

One time she was shoving her way through the fence, head down low, rear end up--when I happened to spot her out my back window.  I dashed silently out the back door, crept up on her as fast as my feet could fly, and walloped her good and proper on the setter, yelling, “YOU GET BACK IN HERE, YOU DOG YOU!”

And the dog said, and I quote, “YIPE-ARRF!”

Be sure, the dog got herself straight back into the right side of the fence.

The keyboard on this computer is a bit noisier than mine is, and Teddy just told me the computer was going to blow up, because I’m typing so fast.  haha  I’m not going any faster than I go on mi---  Uh, is that what happened to it?

I should definitely returning to disking!  (Files, not rows.  As in corn.  Or beans.)  There are still many pictures and documents to save…while Lydia’s ivory skirt languishes on the vine.  Aauugghh, such problems!

             Hopefully, I will finish tonight, and then I can take the poor computer to Puter Hospital tomorrow.

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