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Saturday, November 13, 2010

Monday, November 12, 2001 - These Falling Days of Autumn


Last Monday when the littles came home from school, we went on an excursion to the Shepherd’s Staff bookstore to look for some children’s books to go with a few stuffed animals I want to give as gifts for Christmas.  I like bookstores.
The Shepherd’s Staff is the only bookstore left in town; all the others have gone out of business.  Shepherd’s Staff is a Christian bookstore.  Unfortunately, they only have three children’s books, four adults’ books, and five Precious Moments figurines.  Oh, and I think there might be a candle in there somewhere, too; I smelled it.
Well...perhaps I exaggerate; but there really is very little choice.  Uh, that is, I mean, very little choice in merchandise, not very little choice in exaggerating.  Of course there is no choice for me but to exaggerate; you ought to know that by now.
There were no little books to fit in the Peter Rabbit tin (it is made to look like a book), so I bought a little blue New Testament, and plan to give it to Aaron.  There were absolutely no books about little animals at all--well, other than the fairy tales about the pigeon that watched the Triumphal Entry on that first Palm Sunday and the little dog who, looking for a place to sleep one night, happened into the stable on the night of Jesus’ birth.  Ugh, if there’s one thing I do not like, it’s fairy tales about the Bible.  I love the wonderful old Bible stories, straight out of the Bible, told exactly faithful to the facts, thank you.  I like our old Bible Story Books for Children with their stories related just as the Bible tells them, although in simpler language for little ones.
Further, I don’t like the pictures people draw that are completely inaccurate, such as the cute little pictures of Noah’s ark nowadays, with Noah up on deck and the giraffes and llamas and chimpanzees poking their heads out of portholes all around the sculler.  Bah.  Haven’t those ‘artists’ ever read the story?  And how about the pictures of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, walls of water on both sides--and they are picking their way through a course of mud puddles?!  The Bible says they walked across “on dry ground”!
That evening, Lydia and I went to the grocery store to get things for Lydia’s lunch the next day, as her class was planning to go to Pawnee Park from 11:00 a.m. till 2:00 p.m., in order to take advantage of this unseasonably warm weather we are having.  And there I ran into whom but my sixth-grade teacher!  He recognized me every bit as quickly as I recognized him, I think.
“Your mother was my favorite student ever,” Mr. Ryan told Lydia.
She smiled.
“Mr. Ryan was my favorite teacher ever,” I told Lydia.
She grinned.
Mr. Ryan grinned, too.
He reminded me of the time we studied evolution in science, and I, timid though I was (Yes!  I WAS!!  Really!), refuted that theory, and told them the true story of the beginning of time--the Bible story.  Funny thing was, everyone--I really mean that, everyone--in the class agreed with me.  I’d forgotten all about that, until Mr. Ryan was reminiscing.
When the littles got home from school Tuesday, we went to The Fabric Shop for Christmas material for Hester and Lydia.  I let them pick out what they wanted (fortunately, the little girls have good taste in clothes).  Lydia chose purple and black flowered shantung brocade, and Hester selected bright blue taffeta moiré, both of which were 25% off the regular price.
It was a beautiful day--would you believe, 78°--and I, upon arising that morning, had looked at the calendar rather than the outdoor thermometer, and unwisely dressed for November instead of July.  Believe me, long-sleeved sweaters were not quite right that day.
I went home, put on more appropriate attire, and took Victoria for a bike ride.  Caleb came along on his own bike.  He gets all out of breath before long, and I have to slow down for him.  Along the curbs were piles of leaves, and I rode through them, making Victoria laugh.  Caleb, behind us, was pedaling along through them, too, giggling as he came.
There was a Jr. Fire Patrol meeting that night.  It lasted a little longer than usual because the chief gave the children a quick run-through of all the things they missed at the first meeting, when they were unable to attend on account of the tornadoes around the area.  Then, when they came out of the station, they were all brought to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk because the big doors were opening on the fire station, and an ambulance and a firetruck soon came roaring out, sirens and lights on, heading for an accident somewhere.
By the way, did I ever tell you that one of those tornadoes tripped along blithely only a mile from a big hog barn where Larry and the rest of David’s crew had been working?  Their equipment was all there, and the forms for the walls were all set up waiting to be poured.  Everyone was terribly relieved to find things unscathed the following morning.  Not more than half a mile away, fields and farm buildings had been badly damaged.
That night, after everyone went to bed--and after everyone quit using the kitchen table--I cut out Hester and Lydia’s dresses.
And I never knew what amazing phenomenon was occurring right outside, up in the night sky, until my sister called the next day to tell me that the Northern Lights had been brilliant the previous night, and were expected to be seen again Wednesday and Thursday nights.
They weren’t.  We looked.
Not from Central Nebraska, anyway, they weren’t.
I read in the newspaper that several people had had a dreadful fright upon seeing the Lights, thinking we were being attacked, or something.  Terrorists, equipped with Aurora Borealis blaster rays.  OooooOOOooOOOooo.
Wednesday afternoon, I started sewing Hester’s blue taffeta.  By nighttime, I had the top and the bottom all put together; it only took another couple hours’ work to fasten them together, put in the zipper, and sew beaded and sequined appliques at the neck and on both sleeves.  I completed it Saturday.  I am pleased with it, and Hester is even more so, I think.  One dress down, one more to go.  If all clothing articles took only one day to complete, I could make 365 things per year!   
No, 313.  I don’t sew on Sundays.
Except for emergencies, that is, such as suit coat buttons falling off, hems coming out, lace unraveling off of best-matching Sunday socks, beads falling off of beaded sweaters, feathers coming loose from hats--that sort of thing.  Those are cases of ‘the ox falling in the pit’, you see, when breaking the Sabbath is acceptable and sometimes quite necessary.
Well, uh, er, I mean, I could sew 313 duds per year--if I didn’t ever have to cook, clean, or keep kare o’ kids.
Besides, I have already established the fact that we have waaaay too many clothes.
When I wasn’t sewing this week, I was wrapping Christmas presents.  I went to the grocery store for a few things, and there I found a shelf full of cute little resin teddy bears.  I got some little girl bears all dressed up in frilly things, planting flowers or reading to baby bears or having a picnic, and some little boy sailor bears with tiny boats, pilots’ wheels, and anchors.  I also bought several lighthouses with thermometers in the center, with little sailor bears standing in a swashbuckling attitude beside the lighthouse.
“What are those?” asked Victoria, pointing at the narrow glass with the red mercury rising in it.
“Those are thermometers,” I told her.
She looked at me, surprised.  “But how do you put them in your mouth?” she queried.
Thursday Joseph had an appointment with the doctor.  He is not as anemic as he was; last month his number was 10.3; now it is 11.7; it is supposed to be 13.5.  That’s still quite low, but improving, on account of the iron tablets he’s been taking.  His stomach is better; nevertheless he’s lost another six pounds, and he’d already lost about five before we went to the doctor the first time.  His recent headaches are no doubt caused by the bad cold and influenza he caught, same as the rest of us, and because of his run-down condition, he managed to get it worse than all of us.  Also, he has hay fever, and is congested a lot; that doesn’t help.  The doctor gave him a handful of decongestants; he is to take two a day for a couple of days, and then one a day until they are gone--about two months.  By then he should be all better.  We hope.
The littles were with us, and played outside for about five minutes before they all decided it was too, too cold and windy to stay out.  Into the waiting room they came, red of nose and ear, and pink of cheek.  They read books and played with puzzles in the waiting room until Joseph was finished with his checkup.
On our way out of David City, we first stopped at a convenience store for some of their scrumptious pizza, muffins, and juice, and then we drove to Fremont, eating as we drove, hunting for a bookstore.  We found a big bookstore where they also sell videos and CDs.  Twas a charming place indeed:  there was a cozy sitting nook at one side of the store with comfortable over-stuffed chairs sitting in a half circle, and a bar standing nearby with tall thermal decanters of Irish Creme, French Vanilla, and Decaffeinated coffees, free for the taking.  I chose Irish Creme, and off we went to fetch us some books.
I was looking for those same books about a) seals, b) raccoons, c) bees, and d) Peter Rabbit (the small paperback series).  The seal, raccoon, and bee books were especially to go with some stuffed animals I wished to give as gifts, and the Peter Rabbit books were to go in a Peter Rabbit tin made to look like a book.  Two of the ladies who work there helped me look.  We looked...and looked...and looked...and then we looked again.  For an hour, we looked high and low.
I finally chose a tiny hard-back book, about an inch by an inch and a half and half an inch thick, with beautiful photos of lighthouses, and stories to go with them.  There was a little bookmark of red ribbon, with a diminutive wooden lighthouse dangling from it.  That, I thought, would go with the seal.  Another tiny book about teddy bears, I decided, could go with the stuffed raccoon, since it looked enough like a bear that that’s what I thought it was until my children informed me otherwise.  This little book had a wee fuzzy bear hanging from its blue ribbon bookmark.  I bought an insect handbook to go with the bee, but found no small soft-cover Peter Rabbit books at all.  I got a big book about a teddy bear, a board book called ‘Bunny’s Dinner’ with moving sparkly ‘food’ confetti in clear plastic caches on every page, and a Tonka truck board book shaped like a truck and sporting spinning wheels for Aaron; and I got a couple of baby animal books for Caleb.
I saw a thousand other books I wished I could get, and so did Hester and Lydia...but books, even in bookstores where they offer you free coffee, have these little things stuck to the backs of them, commonly known as ‘price tags’.  So, when we had finished drooling over things we could not get, we went home again.
That’s when I discovered that Larry, contrary to what I had believed, had not been lucidly awake the night before when I’d told him I might go to Fremont after leaving David City.  He’d called out the National Guard, the CIA, and Scotland Yard (just because I’m a wee bit Scottish, you know), and uniformed people all over the middle U.S. of A. were on the prowl for us.
So now you know why a person with knives and stun guns was able to get past security and board a plane in Kookamunga:  the guards were all on Search and Rescue Detail in the Nebraska Outback.  My apologies to the airline passengers; from now on, I shall light off a cherry bomb before I attempt to tell my husband any Great News of Consequence and Concern.
After calling all the near airforce bases and guard services (“Hallooo, Matey; I’m hoooooome!  Call off the hunt.”), I wrapped the presents I’d bought.
Saturday Nebraska played a hard-fought game against Kansas State--and WE WON!!!  31-21.  One of the K.S. players was named Joe Hall.  He weighs about 355 pounds, and his nickname is ‘Dining Hall’.  haha
Larry worked most of the day Saturday at the hog barn by Monroe.  It is done now, I think.
That afternoon Victoria, having spotted something of interest peeping out of one of my sewing drawers, asked, “Could we have some gum?”
I gave permission, and she rushed off to get it.  Soon she was back, after handing some out to her elder siblings.
“Five of the green gum was ate,” she reported.
“‘Eaten,” I corrected her.
“Yeah,” she continued, nodding vigorously, “And chewen.”
Later, she was playing with the neighbor dog, Mandy.  Mandy took a little time out from her endeavors in puncturing one of our balls to thoroughly slarp Victoria’s face and gloves.  (‘Slarp’ [slarp] vt. - a conjugation of the verbs ‘lap’ [to lick loudly with a splashing sound of the tongue] and ‘slurp’ [a noisy sucking sound].)  Noah Webster does not list this vital English word; obviously, at the time he put together his Second College Edition of the New World Dictionary of the American Language, he had never been slarped.  One knows it, when one has been slarped.
Victoria is not fond of either doggy breath or doggy slarps.  She marched indignantly in the back door and informed me, “Mandy stinked me!”
So I helped her wash her face, and we put her fuschia gloves down the clothes chute.  She was regretful, because we had especially chosen those gloves for her to wear because they matched her socks, her plaid jumper, and her colorful fleece jacket.
Saturday I returned to The Fabric Shop for appliques and medallions for neckline and sleeves, and I got a zipper, too.  I never used to buy zippers there, because they cost more than the zippers at Wal-Mart; but Wal-Mart is down to three choices in zippers now:  olive, orange, and okra, all in seven-inch sizes.  (You remember, of course, that I never exaggerate.)  Therefore, if you need a 21-inch zipper, you simply sew three seven-inch zippers into your dress.
Eh?  You don’t think that would work?  And you don’t think orange would look nice in a blue taffeta dress?  Tsk, tsk.  Aren’t you finicky.
That afternoon I went to see Mama.  She’s feeling fairly well, and she’s been eating pretty good.  She has trouble sleeping; Dorcas awoke suddenly Saturday morning at 2:30 a.m. to find Mama rolling down the hallway in her wheelchair.  Dorcas was surprised that Mama had managed to get out of bed and into the wheelchair on her own, because the rail had been up on her bed.  She was heading for her water chair in the living room, and there she was able to go to sleep, and sleep the rest of the night.
That day, Joseph informed me that Tabby was missing his front bottom teeth.  I took a look inside his mouth, and sure enough--the teeth are gone.  There is a gaping hole, now healed, where they used to be.  Did someone kick that poor little animal’s teeth out?  I’ve said ever since the cat showed up around here that he behaved as though he had been abused.  He’s very loving, but he’s very easily frightened, too.  I have also wondered if his two first ribs have been broken; they stick out funny and feel jagged in spots.
Poor little thing; I’m glad we took him in.
Sunday morning Robert preached from Joshua 15, where is the story of Caleb’s daughter asking for the field that she had earlier been promised as an inheritance.  Caleb gave her the field.  But it was in a dry, arid location, and so she also asked for a spring--that’s typical of us asking for the Living Water.  Caleb gave her more than she asked for; he gave her two springs.  In my old Bible I once wrote, “Just like Daddy”, because I don’t know a time when, if someone asked for something they really needed, he didn’t give them more than they’d asked for.
The whole family came for dinner.  We had roast, carrots, mashed potatoes and country-style gravy, applesauce, buttermilk biscuits, and cherry crumb pie ala mode.  Larry and Victoria took some to Mama for her supper later.
I stayed with Mama during the evening church service, and typed a bit on my letter while I was there.
By the way...if you find yellow smudges all over your letter, don’t be alarmed; it isn’t anthrax or smallpox or chickenpox or cowpox (there really is such a thing) or epizootic; it’s merely play dough--‘claydough’, as Victoria calls it.  You see, as I type, Victoria comes along with her ‘claydough’, asking me to make something for her.  I first formed a squirrel that Victoria thought was a bird (although Lydia managed to guess right, charming girl), and next I molded a bear that turned out looking remarkably like a bear, if I do say so myself.  In fact, Joseph actually thought it was Winnie-the-Pooh!  After that, I shaped a frog that looked so much like a frog, Victoria asked me if it could hop.  (After that, I forgave her for so badly misjudging my squirrel.)  I may make an artist of me yet!
I shall now go sculpt myself a peanut butter and honey sourdough muffin.  It’s a real art getting it just right, you know.  Nothing for the simple novice.
I’m off!



P.S.:  I received a letter from the elderly widow of the man who ran the Servicemen's New Life Center.  She'd had a birthday -- I think it was her 84th.
There was a time, long, long ago when I was very young, when Daddy, Mama, and I were visiting them at the Life Center, and it happened to be Mae's birthday.  Someone had made a big, fancy cake and covered it with a volley of candles.  The cake was in the middle of a long table, and when Mae walked into the room, all the sailor boys started singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and someone started lighting all the candles.  (Maybe her husband Gaylord?)  And I remember Mae laughing and saying, “Oh, don’t light them all; you’ll burn the place down!”
            Mama has congestive heart failure; she’s had it for several years now.  She has to take Lasix.  She rarely has any troubles with swelling in feet or ankles, but her lungs often fill with fluid, causing her to cough and have difficulty breathing.  She has leakage in a couple of heart valves, and a couple of years ago had some angina pain, but she says she hasn’t had much pain since.  She’s had problems--and quite a bit of pain--because of osteoporosis for at least fifteen years, and now her bones are ‘as transparent as a newspaper page’, as one doctor put it.
 
           One of the cats has come in with a dreadful ‘gifts’.  “Rodent invasion, fowl invasion!  Run for your lives!”  We are even now debating whether to just move out and let the cats have free rein here, while we find ourselves a tidy little apartment, ‘no pets allowed’.  (Do they make ‘tidy little apartments’ big enough for nine people who often have a dozen visitors?)  
 
              Kitty and Tabby were strays, and were starving to death right under our noses.  They needed their shots and they needed to be dewormed, and they came to us, I suppose, because they could tell we were sympathetic.  Kitty, as you may remember, came to Larry’s shop, and he started sharing his lunch with her every day.  She is still extraordinarily fond of Larry, probably for that very reason.  Teddy found out about her and started buying cat food--the good stuff from the veterinary clinic, no less, because it’s supposed to not only make the animal healthier, but it is also supposed to cause it to have less dander and therefore be less allergenic.  Is that possible, do you suppose?
 
Anyway, I didn’t want to bring the cat home, partly because of Hannah, Teddy, and Caleb’s asthma, and partly because I was afraid our Siberian Husky, Aleutia, would eat the poor thing for dinner; but one day Teddy came home and told me about a heavy-set customer treading upon poor Kitty and not knowing it, even when Kitty shrieked and howled and tried desperately to get loose.  We brought her home that very after noon.
We try to keep the cats as clean as possible, giving them frequent baths, using special products on their fur to control dander, and feeding them good food.  Soon, we plan to install pet doors in the garage-to-kitchen door and the garage-to-outside door, so that the cats won’t be going out the kitchen window.  Yes, I know that is strange; but, you see, Kitty is the only one who knows how to tell us when she wants in:  she ‘knocks’ on the door.  We finally found out what she was really doing:  she was hooking her claws into the rubber seal around the door frame, pulling it out, and then quickly letting it go, which made it smack against the door.  She does this repeatedly, so fast that it truly sounds as if she is knocking on the door.
Socks, on the other hand, hardly makes a peep when he wants in; he just sits and stares forlornly at the door, and we never know it unless we happen to open the door for some reason or another.  Same problem with Tabby:  he has such a tiny little squeak of a meow--“me!  me!” he says, way up in Octave Q--we haven’t a hope of hearing him.
We tried hard to convince Tabby that he should go home, but the trouble was, he didn’t have a home to go to, and he kept right on coming back to us.  When we took him to the vet, he told us that we were doing the right thing in taking him in, because both the Animal Pound and the Humane Society were clear full, and unable to accept any strays right now.  Animals unclaimed for only two weeks are even now being put to sleep.  Well, we think Tabby is much too nice of a cat to have that done to him; he’s already been mistreated by SomebodyOrOther; we intend to show him that not all people are like that.
Often I remember my father quoting the verse from Proverbs, “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”
So here we are with three cats we didn’t want, and of which we are most terribly fond.  Fortunately, our children who have asthma don’t have it very bad, and not very often; and scientists know that most children--even children with specific allergies to animals--do become tolerant of their own pets.  Believe me when I say that if I knew these cats of ours caused life-threatening health problems for any of my children, I would not hesitate in promptly finding new homes for them.  (The children, of course.)  (No, no!  Just kidding!)

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