Tuesday evening, I was vacuuming the rugs in the living room--that is, I started vacuuming the rugs in the living room...but I hadn’t been at it long before the stench of burning rubber filled the air.
Larry pulled out all the string, thread, and such like that was wrapped around the roller, and finished vacuuming. Hmmm...I’ll have to wrap string and thread and such like around that roller the next time I vacuum. ;-)
I rolled up the rugs and took the non-skid under-the-rug rubber mats outside, where I shook them out over the front porch railing, nearly frightening Socks out of his socks. He’d been sitting at the bottom of the steps, but skedaddled under the Suburban until he determined that I was not about to tear him apart limb from limb, after which he came purring to rub on my ankles.
Larry and Teddy went to Madison to get Teddy’s pickup. It is now parked in our garage. It’s a pretty blue. I took pictures of it with the camcorder while Larry told me all about it, sounding mighty like a used-car salesman as he did so. Gesturing at the left side of the cab, where it’s all squished in from having been rolled, Larry continued his spiel, “...and we just have to air it up a little bit right there--” he stuck his arm through the back of the cab and waved his hand at me through the side window “--set a window in the back of the cab--” he slapped the side of the box “--and she’ll be blueberry!” He shook his head and frowned a bit. “I mean, she’ll be cherry.” He frowned again, patting at the side of the pickup. “But it’s blue. It’ll be blueberry!” he decided, and grinned a great big goofy grin right into the camera.
Tuesday evening, Hester, Lydia and I rushed off to Wal-Mart to get them some new shoes. Their toes have been rubbing the ends of their shoes ever since school began. I pulled out one pair of heavy, heavy shoes after another, most of them sporting humongous platforms and soles. Hester and Lydia turned up their noses and finally settled on a pair of white and navy walking shoes for Lydia, and neat black oxfords for Hester.
“I won’t wear clodhoppers!” said Hester adamantly.
One night I finished sewing a quilt Dorcas had started for baby Aaron way back before he was born. It has four large teddy bears printed in blocks on one side, and a collage of bears on the other. She’d wanted to put a couple strips of the edge print on the sides that didn’t have the print, and wondered how to do it. I told her she could either turn under a tiny edge and make a seam (before putting it together with the batting and the backing), or she could lay the edge right on the printed quilt top and sew it on using a blanket stitch--and I would do it for her, since her machine won’t do that stitch. Well, either one of those suggestions sounded difficult to her, so she asked Norma what to do. Norma recommended fabric glue.
I, knowing Dorcas, envisioned that quilt after Dorcas took after it with the fabric glue, and I knew it wouldn’t be quite the same as when Norma uses fabric glue. I recommended against it.
Dorcas used fabric glue.
The image I’d had in mind about what might become of the blanket should fabric glue be wielded upon it was nothing to compare with what it actually became.
So, very quietly, without another word, Dorcas folded up the blanket and the ruffled binding she’d planned to put around the edges, and she put it away. Well, I found it when I was cleaning her room, and brought it up to my sewing machine. And Wednesday night I finished it.
I used a blanket stitch on the glued-on strips, sewing right over and through the fabric glue. Then I put the ruffled edging on it, and it turned out looking ever so cute, although the fabric glue will ever be with us, I’m afraid. It doesn’t really show, but it can certainly be felt. After Dorcas went to work Thursday, I spread the quilt diagonally on her bed and waited for her to find it when she came home.
She was so pleased when she found it, she got out her camera and took pictures of the blanket and the entire room, too.
Now I have sorted all the clothes in Victoria’s closet and drawers, getting out the things that were too small for her in order to make room for all the things I’d found in the big tub that had been in the garage. Goodness! Nobody needs that many clothes! But she’s tickled pink over the myriad ‘new’ things we’ve discovered, and every day she picks out a dress or jumper she’s never worn before.
In one of her drawers, we found a knee pad. Victoria began fastening it onto her leg.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
“To keep your knee from getting all skinned up,” I replied.
“Oh!” she said, looking at the thing with a pondering mien. “Do you put them on when you’re about to fall down?”
The mess of toys, dolls, and animals in the middle of the room refused to sort themselves and put themselves away while I cleaned the closet, and the shoes are still in a jumbled disarray, so...I shall go put them in their places just as soon as I finish this letter.
The tan cat came in the window again at 4:30 Friday morning. Socks alerted me to the fact by howling menacingly. I scurried down the hall and into the kitchen, hissing “Get out!” at the poor thing. He got himself out the window lickety-split, and Socks came purring after me, tail arched tightly over his back in satisfaction. He thinks he’s part Husky, I do believe. And how do the cats know which one of them I am talking to when I order one of them outside? Whatever shall we do about that nice kitty? He surely must be a stray. We put food in the garage for him. Do male cats ever get along? Oh, help! How many cats are we going to have around this joint?
My mother has a bad attitude toward him, because he jumped into her window box and, right under her horrified gaze, caught (and ate) the young cardinal she enjoyed watching every day. Good grief.
Larry, Joseph, Lydia, Caleb, Victoria, and I went to Pawnee Park to play tennis Friday night. The littles are getting better at hitting the ball back and actually landing it in the other court, although Caleb seems to think that the point of the game is merely to smack the ball with all his might and main, never mind where it happens to alight. Wearing full body protection gear begins to seem like a wise strategy, when playing too near him.
Saturday afternoon Larry and Teddy went to Madison to get parts for Teddy’s pickup. It took them quite a while, because they had to remove the parts from other vehicles. Teddy is now ready to start tearing down the pickup, and Larry thinks he can be done with it in a couple of months. We shall see.
The kids played Pom-Pom-Pole-Away with eight of the Walker cousins, which makes for a marvelous game, don’t you know. Hair-raising, rather. For mothers, that is.
One afternoon, Joseph went into Teddy’s room to see if the window was open. He reached up under the curtain--and several looong legs came over the top of the curtain rod. You’d better believe Joseph leaped backwards in one quick hurry. He came scurrying up the stairs to tell me, “There’s a tarantula in Teddy’s room!”--and he really thought it was, for it was nearly as big as his hand.
Armed with the broom and a couple different kinds of spray, we headed back down the stairs. Hannah, Aaron, and Victoria came along to offer morale fortification and advice, although, in the end, they wound up only adding to the news commentary in general, and the yelps and screeches in particular.
Joseph gave the beast (does the term ‘beast’ apply to enormous spiders? -‑because if it doesn’t, it should) a small squirt with the oven cleaner, and down he came. I slapped a bowl over him, squiggled the lid underneath, and there we were, then, with our newest pet.
Hester will use it in her bug collection. Spiders don’t count toward the insect tally, but they will give her a little extra credit, so we save them. Now the kids are catching moths and millers for that huge spider (I think, according to the encyclopedia, it’s a wolf spider, although not the hairy type). (Evidently wolf spiders have troubles with premature balding, too, same as Homo sapiens.) He didn’t care for the large grasshopper, thank you; and the big cricket was ignored, too. The half-dead flies we threw in the jar did not impress him, and he was shriveling up before our eyes. (Do we care? Yuck!) Now the children, who, despite their avowed hatred for spiders, are acting like they’re born and bred humanitarians, and are pleased that he has fattened back up. Yuck.
Kitty and Socks are ever so appreciative that I bought them some decent cat food; Hester and Lydia had earlier this week gone to the store and bought a cheaper brand than we usually get. Tonight Kitty was seen reaching a paw far under the bookcase, pulling things out, and eating them. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that she’d discovered where some Kit ’N Caboodle had been spilt, and was getting all she could out from under the bookcase. Such dire straits the poor thing was in! I took pity on her and trotted myself to the grocery store for Kit ’N Caboodle Stuffed Morsels Crunchy Bites Snazzy Shapes Yummy Flavors of Chicken Oceanfish & Turkey With Complete Nutrition Purina Cat Food. Sounds pretty good, hmmm? Maybe if FAME Cat Food would put pretty pictures on the sides of the bag, along with spiffier statements and descriptions, the cats would think it tasted better, s’pose?
The mice, after a short hiatus, have started moving back into the house. That, because of the change in weather, I presume, since we always have troubles with them this time of year, horrid things.
Esther’s birthday was the 27th; she is 24. We gave her a ‘Taste of Home Cookbook 2002’ (or ‘Taste of Homes’, as a friend of ours says, as if houses come in all sorts of flavors and you might wish to taste them). A while back I gave Dorcas the 1995 Taste of Home Cookbook. The cookbooks are from Reiman Publications; they put together all the recipes they’ve printed in their magazines throughout the year, and they’re sure enough scrumptious recipes. Reiman just published the 1995 book, on account of so many subscribers writing in and requesting a cookbook for that year. 1996 was the first year they printed the books.
Sunday was a beautiful day, so we decided to take family pictures after church. Before we left, I gave everyone a cereal fruit bar ‘so they didn’t all look so mad in the pictures’; Esther was the only one to turn it down. (You will understand later why I told you that.) Keith and Esther had to go home to check their roast first, so I told them that we would go to the park and stop at the first good picture-taking place I spotted, and they should just drive around the park till they found us.
But the rest of us wound up waiting for one of the turtles among us (we won’t mention any names) who happened to be in his ‘office’, as Teddy calls it. We waited patiently...less patiently...and still less patiently, until Larry finally went and told him that everyone was waiting for him, and he came out all surprised, not knowing we were planning to take pictures before we ate.
Well, what did he think? We wanted a picture of the littles with gravy all down their fronts? Anyway, after that long wait for Wutzizname, Keith and Esther arrived at the park long before us. We found them near the stadium, driving round and round a big oak tree. Larry drove up, got in line, and went around the tree, too, although the Suburban took a considerably wider swath than Keith’s car. We’d barely pulled away from the tree when Bobby and Hannah, not far behind us, went three times around the same tree.
In the meanwhile, Teddy, with Amy and Hester in tow, went sailing past just as if he knew where he was going, and crossed the little wooden bridge to the center of the park, a small area that we’ve always called ‘The Island’, although technically it isn’t really an island. The road makes one loop, and then comes back over the bridge.
Around went Teddy. Once. Twice. The rest of us parked and got out, toting camera bag, camcorder bag, and numerous wicker chairs, stools, and little benches. Teddy went around the third time, and finally stopped on the fourth go-around. Nice to have such obedient kids, don’t you think? After all--I’d told them to ‘go around the park’!
My family is nuts.
We put everything in order. Larry helpfully perched one chair right on the brink of the pond bank, tilting it alarmingly back over the water, and then I had to snatch at Victoria when she decided she could jolly well sit on it. Keith got out the camcorder and took pictures of us. I put my camera on a tripod and used the self-timer so that I could run and get in the picture, too.
“You can sit on that chair,” I told Hannah.
“Bobby, you can stand behind Hannah,” I said.
He marched over to Hannah where she was standing with her back to the camera and proceeded to stand directly behind her, with his back to the camera, too.
And Keith videoed on.
Larry sat himself on a very small stool, back to the camera. I shoved on his back, and he leaped to his feet, arms outstretched, as if I’d nearly flung him in the pond.
And Keith videoed on.
Aaron has cut his first tooth, and is chewing and drooling on everything he can reach. Hannah dropped a cloth she was using to wipe the baby’s mouth.
“Could you shake that out?” she asked Bobby.
He swooped it up, and then made a big production out of ‘shaking’ it out, first jigging around and snapping it violently, then spinning it round and round as if it were a lariat. Hannah finally managed to snatch it out of his hand.
And Keith videoed on.
Soon I was ready to take pictures. “Okay,” I said to Keith, “You can stop with the videoing any time now and go get in the picture.”
“I’m going,” he said, taping as he walked.
I took it from him and, before taking the ‘real’ pictures (with my Minolta, that is), I took a video.
“Wrong camera,” Larry told me helpfully, pointing at the ‘right’ one, “It’s that one over there on the tripod,” he added. And further, “It’s the one you just set up, that black thing on that three-legged thing,” as if I was a bit dense and needed a good deal of instruction to get the job accomplished. Then he announced jovially, strutting around a bit, “Today’s the day we take--” he raised his voice to a high falsetto “--pictures!”
“--and not get our dinner!” added Bobby.
“It would be Bobby who would be thinking of that,” I remarked.
A few times I didn’t push the self-timer button hard enough and snapped off a picture without warning, catching everybody making funny faces, and sans the photographer herself.
When I thought I’d gotten at least one or two good ones, we took the roll of film to Wal-Mart and then went home to eat dinner. After we ate, we returned for our pictures--and I discovered that Teddy, the brat, had made bunny ears first atop Amy’s head, next atop Keith’s. What if one of those two pictures had’ve been the only good picture in the lot??!!! I’ll tell you what: I’d have ordered the picture anyway, and sent them to everyone at Christmastime, along with a disclaimer. But as it turned out, the best picture was not one of those two. It’s not perfect, and a group of that size (fifteen people, counting Aaron, who most emphatically prefers to be counted; he said so himself) is rather difficult to get properly posed, everyone looking at the camera, smiling, not blinking, and so forth. And I very definitely need a light-diffusing umbrella; even though I used my flash, some people’s faces are too dark. And Aaron’s is too light.
Ah, well; the picture is pretty good, in spite of my limitations, and I’m pleased with it. In two of the pictures I took by accident without the self-timer, Esther, looking into the sun, is scowling ferociously.
“See?!” I cried when we were all looking at them later, “I told you, you needed a cereal bar, so as not be so angry because you were not yet getting your dinner!”
She laughed, of course.
For dinner, we had a roast Keith gave us Saturday night; Esther cooked one, too. We had carrots, potatoes, bacon, onions, onion chips, lemon pepper, and other spices with them. We also had fruit salad (peaches, pears, apricots, fresh raspberries, bananas, and pineapple with raspberry yogurt) and zucchini muffins Hester made Saturday afternoon. Oh, and dill pickles, and bread and butter pickles.
Oooops. As I was sitting here typing, not exactly paying attention to what I was doing, I put the lid to a two-liter Dr. Pepper bottle on my Absorbine, which has a foam applicator, and therefore got Absorbine all over the inside of the Dr. Pepper lid. What do you suppose the next person to get a drink of pop would think, should I not wash out the lid? Hot, hot, hot, wooooEEEEE!!!
AAAcccckkkk! I have now gotten my just desserts for imagining ill on my fellow man: I knocked the pop bottle over onto my keyboard. I managed to snatch it before much spilt, thank goodness, and everything is still in perfect working order, as you see. But when I jerked the bottle back up so suddenly, it fizzed and foamed and frothed, and pop and fizzle came sizzling out all over the side slide-out on my desk and onto the oriental rug underneath. I leaped up and ran for towels. Oh, help! Help and bother.
Larry, sound asleep in the recliner, slept through the turbulence without a wiggle.
But...shortly thereafter, when I reached into a small bag of green Star Brites mints and started untwisting the plastic around a piece of candy, he turned his head toward me and, eyes still closed, opened his mouth as if to say something, although nothing came out.
Shall I lob in the candy, I wondered, And see what happens?
One time when Lydia was about a year and a half, just at the age where she particularly enjoyed such toys as Fisher Price’s Fit-the-Shapes-Into-the-Holes Ball, she was playing in the living room while her father slept, sprawled out on the carpet nearby. She sat down beside him and looked at his face contemplatively. His mouth was open in a perfect O, and he breathed steadily in and out in a soft snore. Lydia stared at his face. She turned her head and looked at her little Shape-Finder Bench. She glanced quickly back at Larry, and then her gaze returned to the Shape-Finder.
Then, quick as a wink, she snatched up a small plastic cone-shaped piece, whirled around, and dropped it ker-plop right into Larry’s mouth. It was a perfect fit.
“GAAAAAAAAAAAACCCKKKKK!!!!!” said Larry, abruptly sitting bolt upright and spewing Fisher Price shapes like a professional tobacky spitter. “Pa-TOOOOOOOey!!!!” he added, just for good measure.
Lydia gazed at him impassively. Then, as her father got his wits about him once again, she asked sympathetically in her sweet, low-pitched voice, “You choke, Daddy?”
Moral of the story: Never lie anywhere near ground level and impersonate a Fisher Price Shape-Sorter while sleeping, if there are toddlers anywhere on the premises. Not without wearing a face guard, that is.
And they all lived happily ever after.
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.