Last Monday afternoon, Hannah came and took Victoria with her to the store. Victoria is always tickled pink to go with Hannah; she used to go with her quite a bit before Hannah was married, and really missed her big sister afterwards. But now it is to Hannah’s advantage to have Victoria along, because she does such a marvelous job keeping Aaron entertained while Hannah buys groceries.
I, too, thought it was much easier to go shopping with several tots in tow when I had a small baby, because they were so good at amusing the little one. But you should have seen the disbelieving looks on people’s faces if I ever voiced such an opinion out loud. Of course, they were usually having the devil’s own time keeping their two- or three-year-old corralled, and getting right close to pulling their hair plumb out by the roots. Poor helpless things; they haven’t the faintest notion that taking a well-behaved two-year-old to the store could be the most fun, and the funniest, activity they might do all week. Two-year-olds can say the most hilarious things.
Once upon a time, I was shopping in Wal-Mart with four small children. Teddy, who was about six months old, was in the seat in the cart. Dorcas, age one-and-a-half, was sitting in the back of the cart. Hannah, not quite three, was walking on my right, holding the side of the cart, and Keith, almost four, was on the left, doing the same. I liked to go down new and different aisles on my way to whatever department I was heading for, in order that the children could see the variety of things on the shelves. We walked through the aisle where were dozens of beautiful china dishes on display. Four little heads turned from side to side, staring in wonder at all the pretty things.
“Ooooo,” said Hannah, sweeping her free arm in an encompassing arc from one side to the other, “‘Nuff dishes for ebbrybubby!!!”
“Lots’n’lots,” concurred Dorcas, nodding her dark head vigorously. “Pitty!” (‘pretty’).
“Oooo,” said Teddy, grinning down into Hannah’s face as he imitated her.
Keith laughed. “Isn’t our baby smart?” he asked, and I agreed, yes, he certainly was.
I wonder if the aunts to whom I send paper versions of my letter have been exasperated over the dreadful copies I’ve been sending them, and having troubles reading them? Well, don’t blame me; blame UnSmart Foods, where I’ve been making the copies. You see, although I knew the copy machine needed someone with a stethoscope to come check its vitals, I went ahead and used it because--the price was right. The copies were free.
Yes, the nice lady who works there at night didn’t charge me a thing, because I made the copies all by myself and didn’t require her assistance, and also because we are probably the store’s best customers.
Well, last Monday night I went to UnSmart to make some more of those nigh-to-illegible copies. They were nastier than ever, and no matter how I adjusted ink flow, tone, or tint, they refused to improve. In fact, the more I tried, the worse they got. They were not at all clear enough to read, so I gave up.
I got some groceries and a handful of dimes, so I could get copies at the post office. But...I discovered copies at the post office are 25¢ each.
NO!!! I wouldn’t do it! The United States Postal Service takes enough of my money; I refuse to give them more.
The next day found me at Wal-Mart, trying to get their copier to work. It was the sort that must have a dime inserted before each copy, which of course slows things down considerably. But...it wouldn’t even accept my dime!
The lady at the service desk finally got the thing to swallow my coin. Its trouble was that it was too full of money. If I had’ve just smacked the coin return button with as much vim and vigor as she did, I would have had wampum tumbling out into my hand, chinka-chinga-chink.
A light rain was falling, and Victoria laughed the entire way into the store and back out again, silly little girl.
“My face is all ker-splatted!” she giggled.
We went back home again, and then trotted across the street to visit Mama. One of the girls who stays with Mama was there, and while we visited, the girl who would stay overnight with her arrived. The two girls are cousins. They went together into the bedroom they use, and were soon laughing like anything over something, which made Mama laugh, too. She likes those girls, but she is accustomed to being alone, and having someone there all the time makes her feel as though she has company constantly. Because of that, I think, she sometimes wasn’t taking the afternoon nap she usually took, and was getting ever so tired. But perhaps she is getting used to it now.
My nephew Kelvin and his little girl Jamie, who is the same age as Victoria, were at Mama’s house when Victoria and I arrived. Victoria and Jamie were pleased to see each other; playing together all day every day would not be quite long enough to suit them, I think.
Mama told me that she’d been talking to Lura Kay on the phone when they came, and she told Lura Kay, “Kelvin and Jamie are here!”
Upon hearing that, Jamie marched over to Mama and said seriously, “No, it’s Daddy and Jamie!”
My notion that I might get Dorcas’ room done Tuesday was waaaaay too optimistic. It was Friday before I finished cleaning and sorting in there. She must’ve thought the area behind her bed was a landfill. In fact, maybe it is a landfill. Maybe U&I Sanitation, upon filling their truck, rather than spending all that time and money hauling the stuff to the city dump, just rumbles into our back yard, backs up to Dorcas’ window, and shucks everything right down in there, ka-flooomp.
I found a book from the school library back there, a book that’s been lost for years. The bed was piled with more things than you would ever imagine. Where in the world did the girl sleep?! Larry helped me pull the mattress out of the frame (it used to be a waterbed), and I got the jetsam and flotsam out and vacuumed it. The one item I especially hoped to find in that room did not show up: Hannah’s sterling silver charm bracelet.
Lydia went to a classmate’s house Tuesday night to discuss this and that about Jr. Fire Patrol. She is all excited about it. They chose ‘officers’ and ‘captains’ and concocted general plans for the float they will have in the parade. In our library we have quite a few trophies we have won for Best of Show, and the children are all hoping to add one more to the collection.
Larry and Teddy are still cleaning the garage. Teddy is willingly helping, because he’s going to need a place to park the wrecked pickup he just bought from Madison. It’s a 1999 Ranger, extended cab with those backwards-opening suicide doors (what are they called??--I know they don’t call them suicide doors), and it has been rolled. Tom, the man he works for, will help him fix it. So there goes all the money he’s saved for a house. Poor boy! But he’s been needing a pickup; the one he has is ailing, and gets nasty gas mileage (only ten miles per gallon around town), and threatens to eat up all his money anyway.
Ah, well; if nothing else, Teddy is at least learning patience, and that’s almost as important as a house, don’t you think?
Dorcas’ piano teacher wants her students to begin preparing for their Christmas recital. Dorcas is all in a dither, trying to decide what to play. The other students, it seems, have already picked Dorcas’ favorites. I suggested Up On The Housetop, but Dorcas didn’t seem to be impressed.
Guess what, guess what? I am having two more poems published, and one is being read aloud onto cassette and CD. The poems are ‘He Loves Thee So’ and ‘The Lord Everlasting’. As always, The International Library of Poetry pays me nothing. However, they would like me to pay them for a variety of items: the books in which the poems will be printed, the cassette or CD, a framed copy of my poems, and a membership in The Poets’ Society. The latter is only $75.00, and would give me a lifetime membership. And the perks? Why, uh, er, well, just being a member of the elite, prestigious International Library of Poetry, I guess! And having the honor of further opportunities to buy books, cassettes, CDs, and framed copies of poems, I suppose.
There were several beautiful days this week, and I took advantage of them by taking Victoria for a ride in her carriage. My bike isn’t shifting right; I need to take it to the Schwinn shop for an adjustment.
Wednesday afternoon I cut Hester’s hair shorter than it’s been since she was about three--just below her ears. Then I curled it, and it looked altogether cute, if I do say so myself. Hester is pleased.
Hannah came with baby Aaron, bringing a short video she’d taken of him. Aaron notices when he himself is on the screen, and stares at it with great interest. If he laughs on screen, he laughs in real life, too, silly baby.
After church Wednesday evening, everyone was half starved half to death, so I made spaghetti and tomato soup. Mmmmm... We all dived in tooth and nail.
Or spoon and fork.
And then I informed kiddos large and small that they couldn’t go to bed until they did the dishes, and that included the pans and cookie sheets that should have been done several decades ago. They think ‘doing the dishes’ entails putting things into the dishwasher and starting it, and that’s all. The counters stay dirty, and anything that doesn’t fit into the dishwasher doesn’t get washed. But one mother can only do a certain number of things in one lifetime, and no more.
“I couldn’t keep up with all the messes you kids make, even if I never went to bed!” I once informed my urchins.
So there stood Dorcas at the sink, washing a pan, when through the window directly in front of her came Socks--with a mouse.
“Yarp!” yelped Dorcas, leaping backwards.
The cat jumped to the floor and let his mouse loose, the better to play with it. Lydia, barefoot, rushed to help corral the fleeing varmint--and it ran right across her foot. She ran in midair and howled. Teddy came to the rescue and threw the mouse outside.
Later, after everyone had gone to bed, back in the window came Socks, mouse in tow, or rather I should say, mouse in mouth, rather the worse for wear. That is, the mouse was rather the worse for wear; Socks himself was in perfectly swell condition. He brought the critter downstairs and presented it to me. I flushed it down the loo.
Socks looked all over for his plaything, and then contented himself with sitting and staring at me reproachfully. I am here to tell you that you have never really felt qualmish if you have not had a motionless cat fix a long, indignant gaze upon you, and keep it there, for moments on end.
As soon as the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, the girls informed me that we were out of dishwash detergent. (I do not know of a time in history when any of the Jackson offspring whose job it was to put detergent into the dishwasher ever noticed ahead of time that the supply of dishwash detergent was getting low.) So, after everyone went to bed, I went to Hy-Vee and got some. UnSmart Foods now closes at midnight. That, I think, because I was their only customer after midnight. You would have thought that would have kept them going, now wouldn’t you? Fortunately, we are almost an equal distance from any one of the three major grocery stores in this town, two of which still stay open all night.
I came home...started the dishwasher...climbed into bed...and read the Reader’s Digest. Yes, the whole thing. No, I never was known for moderation.
Thursday evening I asked Teddy to bring in a couple of the big bins from the garage for me to sort through. He brought in eight. Eight!!! They barely fit in the shelf room. Now where, I wondered, was I supposed to sort all that stuff? Better yet, where in the world was I supposed to put it after I finished sorting it??? Sometimes I feel like there’s no end to this cleaning and sorting. Aaarrrggghhh!!!
Friday afternoon Caleb and I went to visit Mama, and I clipped her fingernails for her. Later, we went to Pawnee Park to play tennis. Joseph loaned me his racket, which is better quality than my own. It has more spring to it, and so doesn’t hurt my wrist as much, even though it’s heavier. While I used his racket, he videotaped us playing. It’s so funny later, watching the little kids playing. Victoria still plays games with herself around and in between us, and we all lob her ball gently back to her and warn her of incoming missiles. Her ball is easily recognizable, because it is neon yellow and bright fuchsia--which is precisely why she claimed it in the first place. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home, because after all that exertion, our stomachs were rubbing our backbones.
Then, while everyone munched on pepperjack cheese, sliced turkey, Doritos with hot cheese salsa dip, and little cheesecakes, we watched a film, Seven Alone, a true story about pioneer children who lost their parents on the way to Oregon in 1842. Quite a story; have you ever read it?
When that was through, I went downstairs and wearily took the lid off the first big bin and started sorting clothes. Just what I needed: an inundation of more clothes. Good grief! But...I thought, ‘I’ll be glad enough to find more clothes for Hester and Lydia.’ In spite of the glut of clothing in this house, they don’t have enough school clothes in their size. One of the bins was labeled, Jr. Size 4--and Hester wears twos and fours. Another was labeled, Girls’ Sizes 6 and 7--and that’s just what Victoria needs.
I got the first tub emptied out quicker than I’d expected, so I started on another. That one yielded pay dirt: a huge pile of clothes for Victoria. There were several things for church and a whole lot of nice everyday clothes. Acquiring a newfound burst of enthusiasm and energy, I continued through those bins until I had emptied, sorted, repacked, hung, or washed five bins full of clothes. There were only three to go! At 5:00 a.m., I went to bed.
Saturday I suddenly awoke--and it was late in the morning. Rats! I’d intended to get up early and go to Norfolk! That’s the trouble with those all-night cleaning jags; they have a habit of using up a good part of the next morning. The Northeast Community College was having a Health Fair, and many health tests were free. The bone density test personnel asked for a donation of only $2.00, and I wanted one. But they closed early in the afternoon, and I needed to wash my hair and curl it...the children needed to eat...and it would take at least 45 minutes to drive to Norfolk. We got there fifteen minutes before they closed...walked to the bone density scanning booth...discovered several large old ladies in line (one of them plopped down her sign-in paper right under my nose, and I accidentally stared in amazement at what she had written for ‘Weight’... and then I was told they were accepting no more people, because there were too many there already. So we went away disappointed.
Botheration! Statistics show that small people have a higher risk for osteoporosis; therefore they should have let me in first, don’t you think?
(Just kidding, just kidding; I understand all about ‘first come, first served’.)
I stopped at Ta-Ha-Zouka Park and let the children (Hester, Lydia, Caleb, and Victoria) play while I took pictures and videos.
Home again, I finished sorting the things in the last three tubs. One huge bin was crammed clear full of shirts, every size from Men’s Size 15 right down to Boys’ Size 4. Who threw all those shirts in there, I wonder?? And when? It was probably somebody’s room-cleaning methodology, what do you bet?
While I worked in the basement, Larry worked in the garage. About the time I thought I was nearing the bottom of the stack of clothes that needed to be washed, Larry had the audacity to throw a large comforter and two big sleeping bags down the clothes chute. Furthermore, they are all in need of patching, and guess what happens when you wash comforters and sleeping bags that are in need of patching? Aaaauuuggghhh.
Meanwhile, Lydia, Caleb, and Victoria were all standing around the sink in the downstairs bathroom, laughing uproariously. I went to see what was so funny (mothers do that). The hilarity, it seemed, was directed at an unwitting doll who was doing the most fantastic high dives off the faucet you ever did see, and landing with colossal tsunamis and riptides in the full sink.
Just as I rounded the corner, Caleb made a strange, guttural noise sounding something like “Orrrrowow,” and flapped both arms to no avail, rather like a bird who has landed on a frosty porch railing with warm, wet feet.
“Whatever is the matter?!” I exclaimed.
“Oh,” he said, surprisingly nonchalant for such a recent outburst, however muffled it might have been, “Lydia just stepped on my foot and I had phlegm in my throat.” hee hee
A young woman who worked at the daycare with Dorcas was steadily getting more ill-tempered...with the kids...with her coworkers... Dorcas said that for the last couple of months, she spent most of the day shouting and yelling at the children, who, for the most part, ignored her and did as they pleased. The girl had not behaved like that when Dorcas first started working there.
Well, now we know why: Friday, police arrived at the daycare, arrested the girl, and took her away. Upon her later return, she informed another girl that it was all because she hadn’t paid a parking ticket.
“Baloney,” I told Dorcas when she relayed the story to me. “She’s in trouble for more than that.”
By Saturday, scuttlebutt had it that she had been caught with drug paraphernalia, marijuana, and an unidentified white substance. That explained a lot of things, possibly even the loss of money from several purses, including Dorcas’, and the cash register. That young woman had been the chief suspect.
That day, the same day Keith and Esther returned from their little vacation, we got a postcard from them. The picture on the card shows four sets of eyeballs rolled every which way, and the rest of the card is grey. Caption: Mount Rushmore In The Fog. Tippy was delighted to see them. (Keith and Esther, that is; not the eyeballs.) She kept climbing Keith’s pantleg, purring loudly.
Late that night, Larry and I went to the grocery store, and, along with some necessary items, we got too many snacks. Sooo...we ate glazed donuts, Hershey’s milk duds, and chocolate milk. Just what the doctor ordered. I felt like a mattress tied in the middle.
I hadn’t had milk duds for years and years...and I remembered why, just as soon as a couple of duds got thoroughly stuck to my teeth and the roof of my mouth and refused to remove themselves.
Sunday morning when I was getting my clothes out of the closet, Socks came with me, purring with all his might and main. He kept looking up at the high shelves, and I knew he was wanting up there--and suddenly he leaped for it, landing on a blouse, digging in his claws, and commencing to climb it. He snagged it a bit, the dumbhead.
“Socks!” I yelped, snatching him off it.
He went on purring vigorously.
Dorcas stayed with Mama Sunday afternoon until church that evening, when Lura Kay went there to stay with her. Lura Kay is worried about Mama, because she thinks Mama may have lost some weight this last week. She’d gotten up to 74 pounds, and might be back at 70; but it’s hard to tell, because she has trouble standing on the scale, and the slightest bit of wiggling keeps it from balancing.
Caleb was looking at some pictures of big garbage trucks. “Mama,” he asked, “Are there two steering wheels in those trucks so that two people can drive them at the same time, and then when one turns one way and the other one turns another way, they can tear the truck in two, and have one more truck than they started out with?”
In all my sorting of clothes, I found a few things to give my niece Susan’s little boy and girl: for Matthew, who is a little younger than Victoria, sweaters and shirts; for Danica, several of our favorite little dresses. Perhaps you remember, Danica was only a little over four pounds when she was born, and she had quite a lot of health problems soon thereafter. She seems to be fine now, and is a beautiful, bright child. One of the dresses we gave her is bright red with a white pinafore printed with pictures of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy--material Lura Kay bought many years ago, planning to make a dress for Susan. I made it for Hester, then Lydia wore it, and finally Victoria. Another dress has a yellow skirt with pictures from Mother Goose nursery rhymes on it--again, material that was originally intended for Susan.
Danica had a book from the school library, and wanted me to read it to her. I opened it and pointed out a baby, dog, and cat--and Danica, grinning up at me, sounded quite as if she said, “Oooo, neat!”
She rushed to get another book to show me, and then Susan told her I was going, and to tell me good-bye.
“‘Bye!!!” she exclaimed cheerfully, waving both arms. Then, book in hand, she ran toward me pell-mell, not wanting me to go. She’s so cute.
Sunday night, for a change, we watched one of our own home videos. We watched the entire video I took from Chadron State Park to Ponca State Park to Maskenthine Lake to Lake North to Stromsberg City Park to the old planes at the airport. There is a lot of good footage on that tape. I should have timed it; I wanted to know how long it was. On the tape jacket it says:
Recording Time: EP 6 hours, LP 4 hours, SP 2 hours.
Hmmm. I wonder what all that means? EP--Elegant Pictures? LP--Limicolous (muddy) Pictures? SP--Stupid Pictures? Does the camcorder automatically shorten recording time according to the degree of disagreeableness it detects?
Keith and Esther, Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron came after church, and Keith and Esther told us about their vacation to the Black Hills. The first day, their bike carrier came partially loose from their car and dropped to the pavement; miraculously, their new bikes were barely scratched; the carrier protected them. Their ‘new’ (it was a rebuilder) car was scraped and dented a bit, though. Fortunately, nothing too bad.
Everyone left...the children went to bed...I started typing...and then I heard something of note on our scanner.
“Larry!” I exclaimed. “Someone is trying to break into a vehicle at Precision Auto-Body!” (That’s where Teddy works.)
Mercy me, didn’t that get Larry out of his recliner in one quick hurry. He hastily skedaddled out the door, telling me that someone had stolen one of Tom’s just-finished vehicles Friday night--and rolled it. Larry had been intending to go to the store for some milk half an hour earlier, but his chair had taken a hard grip on him, and he wasn’t able to escape it till now.
As it turned out, the police were able to catch the escaping vehicle, and the person who reported it was able to identify the persons in the car as the ones who had been breaking into one of Tom’s cars. Some were ticketed on curfew violations; some were to be further questioned later. I hope they get in enough trouble to deter them from stealing cars and other items; it’s hard enough to make a living nowadays without someone demolishing the cars a person is trying to sell!
And now...I’m off to the bank and the post office.
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