Again last Monday, Lydia was the only one who went to school. Joseph had a bad cold and a stomachache; Hester had a headache, cold, and stomachache; Caleb had a bad cold, asthma, headache, and stomachache. Victoria, too, had a cold, stomachache, and headache. Good grief! How long does this go on??!
Dorcas has been staying with Mama nearly every day this last week. Mama is sometimes a little better, sometimes not so very good, always frail and just all tired out.
Teddy’s pickup bit the dust last Sunday night; it has a habit of doing that when Amy is along. Her brother Charles towed him to Tom’s shop, where he works, and then Amy’s father brought them back to our house, where they took Dorcas’ car for the remainder of their date. The Brotherly Love Car, as Larry calls it, in service once again.
Monday afternoon Joseph was hungry for chicken noodle soup, so I went to the grocery store for one can of soup--and bought $111 dollars worth of soup. Well, it was mostly soup, that is...I also got crackers, fruit--both canned and fresh, and yogurt. So Joseph not only had a choice of all sorts of soup, but the rest of the family had soup for supper, too.
One day Caleb put his glasses on one of the little wooden benches... and, of course, it wasn’t long before Victoria came along and sat on them. She brought them to me, eyes wide, a lens in one hand, the rest of the glasses in the other.
“Mama!” she said, looking entirely horror-struck. “Look. I sat on these.”
I looked.
They were quite bent up, but they weren’t broken, and I figured they could be straightened up nicely--but I certainly wasn’t going to try it.
Dorcas came home from Mama’s and needed to go to the bank, but Teddy had her car. So I took her. We saw Larry at the corner near the bank, but even though we AROOOOgahed him good and proper, he didn’t even glance our direction. We returned home, finding Larry already here, and prepared to go to Wal-Mart to have Caleb’s glasses fixed. He didn’t feel well enough to go, so the man had to guess at their adjustment, but he got it pretty good. At least they were all in one piece again. Victoria was every bit as relieved as Caleb was, I do believe.
Hannah came visiting with Aaron; she needed a couple of buttons for the cute fuzzy jacket she crocheted for him. She also made a big thick matching blanket, crocheting with two skeins at once, so that one side has more white, the other more aqua. It’s soft and warm, very pretty.
Sure enough, I had some buttons that would work. I have four tins full of buttons; there ought to be buttons to match any clothing item in the world! There aren’t, but there ought to be.
Keith and Esther popped in; they’d been to a seminar at the World Inn, where they learned more about some vitamin product Esther is planning to sell, sure to cure all your ills, and possibly a few infirmities you didn’t know you had.
I went to the post office after everyone left. As I walked into the building, I saw a police car and heard several more chasing someone down 14th Street, a block away. Sounded like they were competing in the Indy 500, it sho’ ’nuff did! Police chases happen seldom enough in this town that, when they do, it makes everyone sit up and take note. Upon leaving the post office, I discovered about eight police cars penning in a car on 12th Street. A group of people were on the sidewalk (the erstwhile passengers? the village gawkers?), and one man was in the middle of the street with officers all around him. He was probably attempting to walk a straight line. I couldn’t tell exactly what was happening, and by the time I got home, all the pertinent facts and juicy information had already been announced on the scanner, so I didn’t learn anything from it, either.
When I came in, I found Larry up with Victoria; she’d gotten sick again. Twice more during the night she got sick, poor thing.
In the meanwhile, I worked on a bit of mending. I turned on the lamp by my sewing machine.
“Ka-BOOOM!!!” said the lamp, quite rudely, I thought.
And with a terrible flash of brightness, it started on fire.
Turn it off, thought my surprised brain, which had been all muddled and cluttered with worried thoughts of Victoria, and not expecting exploding lamps at all. I twisted the switch one more time.
But it’s a three-way lamp (‘three-cycle’, according to Joseph in his younger days), so turning the switch didn’t turn it off, but merely switched it to the next higher wattage.
“Ker-BLOOOEY!!!” remarked the lamp, throwing bolts of lightning at my hapless head.
A flame burned steadily around the socket and even inside the bulb. I abruptly shifted from Worried-Mother Mode into Firefighter Mode (a status with which I have had previous experience), rushed around to the other side of the sewing cabinet, reached behind it, and pulled the plug out of the wall.
The flame went out.
But my room smelt like I was burning electrical appliances in it all the next day. I moved the new lamp out into the hallway, and put the old one back in its place, carefully balancing one section atop another, so that it didn’t keel right over into my sewing machine, which it is oft wont to do.
Thereafter, every time I walked past that lamp in the hallway, I halted in my tracks and gasped, “Ohmygoodnessthere’safireinVictoria’sroo--Oh. It’s the lamp.”
When Larry came home from work, I showed him the lamp, telling him we needed to take it back to Wal-Mart and get a new one. But he, not wanting to take the entire lamp apart, took apart only the socket, then went to AceIsThePlace Hardware and bought a new socket insert. The pieces, old and new, were soon residing on my ironing board, the lamp, minus its socket, still residing in the hall, and Larry was residing in his recliner, sound asleep.
I decided to wrap Christmas presents.
I got out all the Christmas gifts I’d collected and spread them on my bed, along with wrapping paper, Scotch tape, scissors, and cards. Before I could get started, the dryer dinged, and I trotted off to wash more clothes.
I brought a load upstairs, some of which was Victoria’s bedding. She watched as I put blankets into her closet and tossed her old favorites onto her bed. She stroked her hand lovingly over the shabbiest but best-loved blanket, warm and fragrant from the dryer.
“When I’m twenty,” she told me, gazing far beyond me, “I’m going to throw both of my blankets away.” Then she hastily focused on my face and informed me, “I’m not twenty yet, you know.” She held one against her face and sniffed at it appreciatively. “I might even wait till I’m twenty-one.”
I tucked a couple of sheets into the linen closet--and a small pile fell out onto my feet. So the present-wrapping was further interrupted while I jerked the entire works out onto the floor, refolded everything, and put them back neatly onto the shelves.
Along came Hester while I was in the middle of this pursuit. She stepped gingerly over a pile of towels, tried to step over an even taller heap of sheets--and lost her balance. She spun around, nearly fell, ran into the wall, hit the hope chest, twirled about, bumped Victoria’s little ironing board, knocked off the little iron, grabbed the corner of the wall, ran backwards several paces, and caught her balance at the end of the hall. She swayed, made a face, and flapped her eyebrows at me in a droll manner.
"You learning ballet?" I queried politely, having barely escaped the thundering hooves with my life.“What’s ballet?” asked Caleb, himself having been in similar peril.
“It’s a fancy kind of dancing,” I explained.
He raised his eyebrows. “It looked like she was learning tripping,” he opined.
Wednesday was picture day, and all the kids managed to go to school, but Caleb came back home again right after he had his picture taken. I wonder...can they paint rosy cheeks on wan kids?
It was Mama’s 84th birthday Wednesday. We gave her three matching ceramic pieces with yummy-scented candles inside each. A little pie plate holds ‘cherry pie’, a tall lidded pot holds ‘apple pie’, and a small jar holds ‘hugs and cookies’. We also gave her a fat round ivory candle with freesia flowers pressed into it. It smells scrumptious; she likes things to make her house smell good. I got a couple of African violets for the children to give her; one has blossoms of purple with white edges, the other is white with purple edges. Also we gave her four little canisters with snap-down lids, which should come in handy for storing all the leftovers she wants to save--and you can be sure, she has plenty of leftovers.
I picked out the prettiest card I could find, and then took it all to her, helping her unwrap the gifts, and then putting them where she wanted them. Every flat surface in her house, I think, was covered with big, beautiful bouquets, some sporting balloons, some in clever little pumpkins. A great abundance of cards was lined up on the end table nearby, and Mama was ever so pleased that so many people had remembered her birthday. By the end of the day, however, she was very tired, for she had not been able to sleep the previous night, and the stream of visitors kept her from napping.
Thursday evening Keith and Esther brought his cello over, and we traded Larry’s bow (as in, ‘bow and arrows’, not ‘bow and stringed instrument’) for it. I will give the cello to Hannah for Christmas. We definitely got the better end of the bargain, but then we were the ones who’d bought the cello in the first place, as a Christmas present for Keith. He doesn’t play it very often any more, and thought the bow would be of more use to him. I can hardly wait till Hannah sees it; she’s wanted one for a long time.
Lawrence and Norma came visiting Friday night, bringing Larry presents for his birthday, which was Saturday--a couple pairs of jeans and the devotional book “Morning and Evening” by Charles Spurgeon. They also brought carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. That’s one of the few kinds of cake I like. Larry brought me waaay too big of a piece--and I, watching a video of Baby Aaron that Hannah had stuck into our video player, absentmindedly ate the whole thing. Ugh.
Then, when Larry suddenly noticed that my saucer was empty, he said in an amazed mien, “I was going to share that with you!”
Too bad, so sad.
Bobby and Hannah gave Larry food for his lunch; maybe that will take his mind off his lost half-piece of carrot cake. I gave him a resin picture frame with a clock, 3-D wolves, and a tiny glitter-snow globe with a wolf pup inside it. Into the frame I put one of the pictures I took at Two Rivers, with all the colorful trees reflected in the water.
Saturday, Teddy finally got his pickup running again. Let us hope it stays that way until he can get the ‘new’ pickup finished, and find a buyer for this one.
Nebraska played poor ol’ Kansas yesterday, and won 51-7. It was hardly a contest. Their coach got fired the very next day because of his bad record, poor man. Next week we play Kansas State (I used to really scratch my head over that ‘Kansas’ versus ‘Kansas State’ business; what could possibly be the difference between ‘Kansas’ and ‘Kansas State’, eh?), and it will be a bit tougher, as they have a better team.
That afternoon, I washed one load of clothes, and then I was out of detergent, even though I just bought a new jug. Where is it?? Teddy seems to have been the culprit, although no one can say exactly how. Something about dirty towels he took to a laundromat. But how on earth would a person use up one entire jug of detergent on a few dirty towels?? Just how many dirty towels were there, anyway??!
So, out of detergent, I was stymied: Although there are always plenty of things I could do, I like to keep priorities straight and do everything in the Proper Order. ‘Proper Orders’ are those tasks I deem necessary, done in Consecutive Sequence, which is determined by Whatever Needs To Be Finished First. If it so happens that there are several things whose deadlines fall at the same time, then Proper Order means I Get To Do First Whatever I Like To Do Best.
For the next two months, I have three Very Important Things To Do: 1) Sew Hester and Lydia’s Christmas dresses, 2) Wrap Christmas presents, and 3) Clean kitchen cupboards and drawers. #3 falls way down in the Importance Classification, on account of the fact that drawers shut (or at least they should), and cupboard doors close (or at least they ought to) (although ours have that notorious malady labeled ‘Cubbicreep’, characterized by the following: when items are stuffed into one side of the cupboard and the door is shut, items from the other side of the cupboard tend to creep out the adjoining door, whereupon gravity employs her lethal force and the objects leap out and conk the hapless stuffer on the head). But most of the time drawers and doors are closed and the haphazard disarray in and behind them is hidden to the Public At Large, which is why sewing and wrapping outrank cleaning.
However--!! I was stymied. That, because 1) I have no fabric with which to make the Christmas dresses, and I might have to go out of town to get it, and 2) I ran out of presents to wrap, and must go shopping for more. I couldn’t even finish washing clothes (I never put that on my Proper Order list, because that’s one of those Things That Go Without Speaking).
As you might know, if you have lived on Planet Earth for any length of time, both 1) and 2), and the clothes detergent, too, will require $$$. Therefore, I deemed it prudent to await Larry’s next paycheck.
Now, having been Thwarted and Foiled in regards to my Proper Order catalogue, I did not care to admit defeat and jump to #3 on the roster, huh-uh, nosiree. I picked a whole new thing to do, just because I wanted to. So there.
First, I cleaned a bit in my room (and no, I’ll have you know it’s not as messy as the kids’ rooms were; just disorganized from wrapping presents, sewing, and sorting clothes in there). Then I gathered together every last reprint I could find in the house and put them into the little albums Wal-Mart gives me every time I have a roll of film developed. I wound up with nine full albums, each of which holds about 36 pictures. And there I was, then, with nine little presents for Caleb and Victoria to give nine of their little cousins. If the cousins like them as well as Caleb and Victoria do, they should be pleased as punch with them.
I wrapped up the albums and went to see how many of Dorcas’ fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip/toffee cookies I could have. Mmmm, good. We needed an air chisel to get them off the cookie sheets, though. If you are baking with toffee pieces, take my advice: DO use cooking spray on the baking tin, please.
We got a video about Pearl Harbor in the mail, just in time for the kids to give it to Larry for his birthday. He’s fallen asleep over it twice already since he opened it. Ah, well...there’s always tomorrow.
Anthrax is being found here, there, and everywhere. Kansas City isn’t so very far away, you know. Bombing in Afghanistan is being continued, despite their holy month of Ramadan. Of course it should; they don’t give a care for what we consider holy, do they?! They’ll probably spend the month planning more terrorism anyway. Murderers don’t need to celebrate holiness. Bah. Their ‘religion’ only makes the Lord angry. But then, so does the United States’ lack thereof. Anyway, at least some of us love the Lord, and want to do things for His honor and glory.
Do you remember the story of how the Lord promised Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah that He would not destroy the cities if there were even ten righteous people found therein?--but ten were not found. Let us hope that, for the sake of those in this country who still fear the Lord, He will be merciful.
[That was Sermonette #3463, and, as always, I threw it in free of charge.]
You know what we need in this house? We need two more rooms, BIG rooms: a library, and a play room. Might as well quadruple the size of the kitchen while we’re at it, add another laundry room, and another bathroom. Since now we’re dreaming, let’s increase the size of every bedroom by at least three times. There. That’s not quite big enough, but at least it will help.
* * *
And now it is Sunday night, and--would you ever believe it--we all managed to go to church today, both services?!! Several of us sound like we have tuberculosis or scrofula or something; but we made it to church. Let us hope that a) we are either no longer contagious, or, if we are, that b) we did not get close enough to anybody to spout germs, microorganisms, or microbes on them, or, if we did, that c) they are already on antibiotics and will therefore be able to ward off any dread disease we might have flung about.
This afternoon Larry, Caleb, Victoria, and I went for a ride west of town to Wilkinson Wildlife Refuge. There was nary a duck nor a goose to be seen, probably on account of the warmer-than-usual weather not only here, but also further north. When cold weather really does hit--and a colder-than-normal winter has been predicted--the waterfowl may not even stop here, but pass through, flying far overhead.
We did see one object of interest flying in the sky, however. We’d happened upon a minimum-maintenance road that swooped down over the hills between two high plateaus into a wide valley dotted with fields in varying colors of green, gold, and rust, and with huge round bales of hay scattered from one end to the other. Larry stopped the Suburban so that I could take some photos and videos of the picturesque scene, and then he picked up his binoculars to scan the valley. He is always on the lookout for white-tailed deer, which are plentiful around these parts. He turned off the motor--and we became aware of a vague, high-pitched buzzing noise, almost like a bumblebee, but more like a small engine.
He swept his binoculars across the fields and focused on a patch of bright green prairie grass far below us. Near a small grove of oaks were parked a couple of vehicles, and a bright yellow wind sock had been erected on a pole.
Larry started the Suburban, and we drove down the succession of steep, rolling hills till we reached the bottom, Caleb and Victoria laughing all the way down, sometimes because the sharp rises and dips tickled their stomachs, and sometimes just from anticipation of the next one. We parked some distance from the vehicles, and looked skyward.
And there it was: A bright red and yellow model airplane, turning and twisting on the breeze, rolling, flying upside down, ascending and descending at impossibly sharp angles, and making Caleb decide he wanted a model airplane for Christmas.
“Is it real?!” asked Victoria breathlessly, eyes fixed on the little plane.
“It’s remote-controlled,” explained Larry, “Like Caleb’s race car.”
She watched silently for several minutes, and then “It’s not real,” she told Caleb; “There’s nobody in it.”
The whole family, and Amy too, came over after church tonight, and Keith and Esther brought tacos and burritos for everyone. We all sat in the living room eating and watching a family video I’d taken a year and a half ago. Everyone laughed over a picture of Victoria sticking her tongue out at the camera--and it was the brightest blue you can ever imagine, because, according to her, she was “eating that really yummy candy”, namely, blue ‘Laughy Taffy’.
Yuck.
And now it is bedtime or later, and I think I shall take myself there right this very minute or sooner.
Goodnight!
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