Last Tuesday, Larry brought home chicken tacos for supper. He arrived home a bit earlier than usual, and Victoria was still taking a nap. But everyone was hungry, so we launched into the tacos with vim and vigor--and somebody got all carried away with themselves and ate part of Victoria’s before they realized what they were doing, so I asked Teddy to go buy her another--and he went off and not only bought the requested taco, but also got everybody one of those horrid stinky barbecue sandwiches from McDonalds. Not only do they stink up the house, but also the breath of anyone who indulges himself with one of the icky things. And I--! Even I couldn’t keep from taking a bite. Ugh. And I even knew what the abominable sandwiches tasted like, I did.
Teddy also got himself a McFlurry (like a shake, with candy ingredients added) and an apple pie, of which he gave me a couple of bites, after which I forgave him for bringing home those hideous McBeaglesOrWhateverTheyAre. Mmmm! At least they know how to make apple pie.
Hannah came later that night, bringing her sewing machine and a dress she is making for Victoria for her birthday. I took my word processor to the kitchen table (after doing a big load of dishes, so as to actually find the table); but it didn’t do any good, just as I had thought it wouldn’t, because I cannot type and converse at the same time, especially if the conversing is particularly enjoyable and interesting, unless I am typing from straight copy and have no need to think what I am typing. So I got nothing done at all.
Well, I did do a few loads of clothes, I guess, so that’s something.
Wednesday afternoon, it started snowing. By the time I walked to my mother’s house to stay with her that evening, there were a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and it was coming down faster by the minute.
It snowed most of the day Thursday, too. We got nine inches. It was bright and sunny Friday morning, and our friends the Kochs, who own an excavating company, were out in full regiment, plowing and scooping and hauling the snow from the avenue in front of our house, the street at the front of the school, and the parking lots.
This week I revamped a dress for Hester for Easter. It is a white satin jacquard suit I once sewed for Dorcas. I found a bit of leftover material in my fabric closet, so I added a ruffle with two rows of lace to the skirt, and five rosettes and four leaves to the top. There are ruffles and lace over the shoulders, but they were rather gimpy, meandering this way and that, so I put in a couple of shoulder pads, and Voilá!--the ruffles cascade from front to back in perfect symmetry.
Larry and I went for a drive in the snow late Thursday night. The four-wheel-drive finally works on the Suburban; it was a bad solenoid, fixed in minutes, which means it could have been fixed in minutes a couple of years ago, of course. Perhaps you remember the time we especially needed it, when we were trying to negotiate a humped-in-the-middle, sopping-wet-and-getting-wetter-every-second road(?) to Larry’s Uncle Earl and Aunt Lois’ ranch? Good grief; we skewed and yawed and slued along, first sideways one way and then sideways another, skidding and sliding all the looong way to their drive, with deep ditches yawning and clutching hungrily at us the entire time. Yikes. Hair-raising. Eight-of-nine-lives-using.
The next afternoon, Hannah came with the dress she’s sewing for Victoria, needing help with the zipper. I happened to have a zipper that just matched, but it was an invisible zipper, and I don’t have an invisible-zipper foot. I sewed it in the normal way...so it’s not invisible, after all. It looks okay, though, ... I guess. Aaron was home sleeping, while Bobby and his brother Matthew played a board game of some sort. Aaron has had an ear infection, and is on antibiotics.
Saturday afternoon I finished mending the last pair of jeans (do I say that every week?), and then we went sledding at a friend’s property northwest of town. The property is full of hills and valleys and ravines, and we traversed the property via a few two-rut tracks that rambled about here and there over rises and into glen and dale.
When we arrived, we found the twins were stuck, with their cousin--the owner of the property--engaged in pulling them out. The owner, Jon, had a heavy snowplow on the front of his pickup, so he was able to pull the twins out easily.
Another boy promptly got himself stuck, too. His pickup was two-wheel-drive, and he was trying to come uphill through deep snow, and every time he backed up to get a run at it, he wound up just that much farther down the hill. Teddy, with his four-wheel-drive Ranger, tried to pull him out, but his pickup was too lightweight. Teddy got himself out of the way, and then we backed down the hill and hooked on. We managed to pull him up the hill a ways, but we just couldn’t get him over the last hump, and the more we tried, the closer we slid to a deep gully.
I decided I wanted neither myself nor the kids to be in the Suburban when it got dumped over on its top, so we bailed out and scrambled up the opposite hill till we got ourselves a safe distance away.
Jon came to the rescue...but first, Larry had to get out of the way, and he’d gotten himself in somewhat of a pickle, sliding down so close to that arroyo. So he suddenly stepped on the gas, came barreling out of the small hollow he was in, sliding sideways all the way, and it was anybody’s guess whether he was going to arrive in the gully or back on the beaten path. He flew over a small rise--sideways --and one rear tire went clear off the ground. But he kept his foot on the accelerator, gave the wheel a mighty wrench, spun in a half circle--and there he was, then, right where he’d intended to park all along. And he wasn’t the least bit ruffled; he acted as though he’d done just what he’d planned to do all along, and what was with all the big eyes and the nitroglycerin, hmm?
Soon all our friends went home, then, and we were left with the snowy hills to ourselves. I took videos and pictures, and we’ve laughed over the video several times since, especially when Larry comes flying down the hill on a big innertube, Victoria on his lap, whooping and hollering all the way. He didn’t get stopped in time, and wound up sailing right down into the ravine, yelling, “Brakes! More brakes!” while Victoria laughed uproariously.
I allowed as how the child would’ve probably thought she was having a rip-roaring time even if she had’ve been sitting bolt still, simply on account of all the commotion her father was making.
An hour and a half later, the sun set beautifully, shimmering gold around the sun, and crimson to the south. As we returned home, driving past Lake North, we saw a big owl on a telephone post. We turned around to get a picture of it, but he flew before we got close enough. I wonder what it was? I don’t think I saw any ear tufts, and it was quite a light-colored owl, with brown flecks all over his underparts. After looking in my bird book, I think it must have been a barn owl.
When we got home, everyone was half starved half to death, so we ordered pizza. After supper, I trotted the sledding video over to show my mother...but I’m not sure it was such a good idea. She was convinced several times that one or the other of the kids--especially Teddy--was plunging to his doom as he sailed wildly down the hill on an innertube, hatless and body-armorless.
Sunday the family came for dinner. We had ham, scalloped potatoes, peas (that nobody ate), peaches, dinner rolls, peanut butter brownies with ice cream. The reason nobody ate the peas is because I forgot them on the stove until everyone was almost done with the main course. Suddenly I remembered, hopped up, and poured them into a bowl. I put in a big spoonful of butter, handed the bowl to Amy, and said, “Here you go; you can pass this around.”
So the brats all did what they have done a couple of times before: they did exactly what I said, and no more--they passed the bowl around. No one took so much as a solitary pea; they merely passed the bowl.
One Sunday they did that, and I didn’t notice until the bowl had gone clear around the table twice, with nobody taking a thing, the goofs.
Lawrence and Norma came for coffee after church that night.
Monday morning while I was combing the littles-who-aren’t-so-little-any-more’s hair, Socks went chasing Kitty lickety-split down the hall, all bug-eyed and wild. How two small cats can sound like a herd of angry elephants stampeding is beyond me. Kitty suddenly shrieked-- whether because she got hurt, or because she swatted Socks, I don’t know.
I yelled, “Hey!!” and out the pet door she skedaddled, ears peeled straight back.
A few minutes later, after the kids went to school, I was sitting at the table reading the newspaper. Tabby and Socks worked up a game, got a bit carried away, and weren’t talking very nice. Their swats at each other threatened to remove the other’s ears entirely, should they happen to make contact.
“Be nice!” I admonished them, and Tabby, as he is oft wont to do, headed pell-mell for the pet door, only to be brought up short when Kitty, sitting directly on the other side of it, hissed ferociously.
So he couldn’t run, after all. haha! It always peeves me when the cats run from me...so I am smug when they get stopped in their tracks somehow. There he sat, blinking at me, looking quite chagrined. I snickered, and he protested in his high-pitched voice, “Meee!”
And now the children are arriving home from school, and wanting to go to the library.
Goodbye!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.