One day last week, Victoria learned to tie her shoe. When she realized what she’d done, she laughed so hard she couldn’t get the next one tied to save her life. As soon as she quit laughing, the tying process went on swimmingly.
Mama was a little better some days this week, possibly on account of her new medicine, which she has now taken for a week and two days. She can talk easier, and seems more herself. For the last few days of last week and the first few days of this one, she hardly smiled; but now she is smiling as always. I think she just wasn’t getting enough oxygen, and all her efforts were concentrating on breathing.
Dorcas has been cleaning out some of the kitchen cupboards. Victoria picked up an odd little box of Band-Aids Dorcas had set on the table.
“What are these?” she queried.
“Those are butterfly bandages,” replied Lydia.
Victoria’s eyebrows shot right up to the top of her head. “Butterfly bandages?” she repeated. “Are they for when butterflies hurt themselves?” She frowned, knowing that wasn’t quite right. “Or are they for butterfly bites?”
Dorcas stayed with Mama some afternoons this week. She goes to school in the mornings, attends chapel, then helps Helen, Lydia’s teacher, all morning.
Esther is going to ‘nanny’ four children, including ten-year-old twins, so she won’t be helping Mama as much. But it all worked out well, because Dorcas will be able to take her place.
I spent a good deal of the week mending; there were lots of coats, jackets, jeans, etc., with rips and tears and holes to fix.
“Destructive people!” I grumbled, struggling to shove a thick, heavy jacket under my presser foot.
“Destructive!” Larry gasped, clutching at his chest in an aghast manner. “No, no! Hard-working!” he corrected me.
“Oh, yeah, hard-working,” I nodded, sucking on my finger after bending my fingernail back in my efforts. “Used the wrong word.”
Thursday was such a pretty day, I wished I could be outside taking pictures here and there and everywhere...but there were too many sick kids in the house. Teddy must have viral pleurisy again; his chest hurts every time he takes a breath. He took enough aspirin to give himself an ulcer for sure, and it still hurts.
That night I finished washing all the coats and jackets. Whew! That was a big job. Now the closet and wardrobes smell fresh and fragrant, and everybody’s things are in order, with the boys’ coats on the left, girls’ on the right “because we’re always right,” Lydia told Joseph, causing him to stand on her shoelace so that it came untied and jerked her to a sudden stop when she walked off, and the smallest children’s things are in the middle. Trouble is, everything is still all squished in something awful, and there is no hope that the littles will ever get their coats and jackets hung up in an orderly fashion. Do you know any reason under the sun why a child should need four coats and six jackets? (“To match our socks?” suggested Hester.) Good grief. But I won’t get rid of them (meaning the coats, not the kids); they are in perfectly good shape, and who knows when one might get demolished.
Monday, Dorcas had an interview with a place called ‘Hamilton Enterprises’. It is a telemarketing organization, and I was not very gung-ho about her having such a job. But everyone treated her nicely, and she thought it would probably be fine... A few days later, she got a letter from them; they informed her that they did not have ‘a project suitable for her at this time’. Just as well; I really don’t think that was quite the job for her. About the first time somebody got mad at her for interrupting their lunch, and sent language she’s never heard before right over the phone line and into her unfortunate ear, she’d be totally mortified.
She also applied at a daycare called ‘Kids’ Corner’; she really likes the place. A lady she used to work with, Shelby, is employed there. Shelby, who’s about 20, was pleased to see her. Shelby was in a car accident several years ago, and she has a bad tremor. Her hands shake badly, and the reason she got fired from ‘All About Kids’ was because she was often unwell. Dorcas felt sorry for her. At ‘Kids’ Corner’, the children are not permitted to watch TV or videos, and they pray before meals. That’s quite a contrast from ‘All About Kids’, where the children are often ordered to watch some lousy video, no excuses allowed, and no one is supposed to mention anything about God, or sing religious songs, or read religious books. Dorcas hopes she will be able to work there. In the meantime, she is glad she has time to help Mama.
There was no school Friday because of a funeral in Minnesota three of our teachers planned to attend.
Perhaps I told you, when the little tan cat, whom Dorcas has named Tabby, first started showing up around our house, we asked around the neighborhood to find out to whom he belonged. Common consensus was that he was a stray. A couple of children who live nearby told us that they had fed him a bit of their dog’s food now and then, but they didn’t want him, because their dog chased him. He was getting thinner and thinner right before our eyes, and he refused to go away, even though we tried to shoo him away numerous times. He still came back. We didn’t adopt him; on the contrary; he adopted us. And he was such a nice little thing...
We finally decided we couldn’t bear to see him suffering any longer. He had eye infections, he was starving, he was all dirty, he had worms, and because he had not been neutered, he kept fighting with Socks. So, in order to save him and protect our own cats, Dorcas took him to the vet, had him neutered, got antibiotics for his eyes, had his shots administered to him, including rabies, and got deworming medicine. It cost her $214.00.
Now, would you believe, those same neighbor children who said they didn’t want him, and who told us he was a stray, are going around telling people that we stole their cat?
Mind you, we have never kept the cat pent up; he comes and goes at will. Shortly after I’d heard about those children broadcasting our dastardly ‘catnapping’ deed, Tabby came in the window and sashayed over to rub against my ankles.
“Stupid feline,” I told him, stroking his soft fur, “Don’t you have enough brains to stay away from us villains?”
He purred.
I think those people are going to have Dorcas to contend with, should they decide that cat is theirs. And what I would like to know is, how are they going to convince the cat??!
One evening at the grocery store, Caleb was looking at the expiration dates on the milk jugs.
“‘November 7th’,” he read. “That means it would last--” he calculated quickly, using watch and fingers “--a week and a half.” He raised his eyebrows. “A week and a half?” He shook his head. “Guess they don’t know us, do they!” He laughed. “Why, we’ll have it gone before suppertime tomorrow!”
That night we watched one of the videos we’d borrowed from the library, and Dorcas burnt popcorn for the occasion. For just a few minutes, the house smelt pleasantly of popcorn. Shortly thereafter, it smelled unpleasantly of popcorn.
There is a difference.
Nevertheless, the first few handfuls out of the popcorn maker were okay. Dorcas melted some butter, poured it on, and we all scrounged around for the unburnt pieces. The next morning, I found Caleb, who had not yet eaten his breakfast, eating cold, butter-soggy popcorn. By then, all that was left was the burnt stuff.
“Ick!” I exclaimed, “What a fine and dandy breakfast! That popcorn has to be dumped.”
“Okay,” said Caleb agreeably, and, before I knew it, he’d tipped the bowl and was pouring it onto the floor.
“Hey!” I yelped, and he giggled that mischievous giggle of his.
And yes, he swept the floor.
Saturday, there was one BIG football game: between Oklahoma and Nebraska. And... WE WON!!! Final score, 20-10. Quite a game, when two best-of-the-best teams meet. At one point, the Oklahoma coach had a personal foul called on him, because he got angry and had an A-one first-rate tantrum, yelling and stomping around, and throwing things on the sidelines.
Yes, I said the coach.
Hoping a little fresh air would do the littles good, several of us went for a ride after Larry came home from work. We put Victoria’s blankets and pillow into the third seat so she could lay there while we drove, but she never laid down at all until we were five minutes from home. Then, when we pulled into the driveway, she popped up all bright-eyed and said, “I slept all the way home!”
We drove around Duncan and Monroe, taking pictures; then we went by the Loup Canal where Larry and Joseph practiced shooting Larry’s musket loader and Joseph’s BB gun. Before we left, they let Caleb and Victoria shoot the BB gun out the Suburban window at the target, which they placed close to the vehicle. Victoria now thinks she is on a par with Annie Oakley, having hit the box (although not necessarily any of the rings) every time she shot.
That night, Larry and I were reading the same article in the newspaper. We leaned over the table, absorbed in the news item. We leaned closer...closer... closer...and our glasses clinked together.
Larry stood up hastily, holding the bow of his glasses as one would hold the stem of a goblet, little finger extended (and that looks funny on a man with a little finger the size of my wrist). “Cheers!” he cried.
Once again, Victoria got sick in the middle of the night, and we had to give her a bath and change her bedding. “And my pillow was just washed and yummy!” she mourned, hardly able to talk because of her throat being so sore.
“Don’t worry,” I told her, patting her shoulder, “I’ll wash it yummy again.”
She especially likes the scent of Downy Mountain Breeze.
I called the family to tell them we would not be having dinner for them at our house Sunday afternoon, because of everyone being sick.
Saturday night I hemmed a forest green raw linen skirt for Dorcas. It had been floor length; she got it at a second-hand store. The jacket has a long peplum, a bow in the back, and somebody had cut off whatever kind of sleeves it used to have, making them short and much too wide, and then sewn on a wide band of white lace. The lace was re-embroidered Venice, but it did not have both edges finished off, and the raw edge against the sleeves looked terrible. So I took the lace off and used the fabric from the skirt to make cuffs, after putting a pleat in each sleeve. She’d planned to save it for Christmas, but after sewing pearls on white re-embroidered appliques and then sewing the appliques to the jacket neckline, she wanted to wear it to church today.
“I’m all done with the mending and altering!” I exulted, carefully hanging the green suit on a hanger.
“No, you’re not,” Larry disagreed. “This morning I tore my jacket in several places.”
Aauugghh.
And I’ll bet several people had the audacity to soil their clothes, too, and the empty hampers will no longer be empty.
At noon we gave Teddy a list and sent him to the grocery store; he came back sans peanut butter, honey, coffee, and milk. He’d neglected to use the list. We sent him back to the store; he came back minus the milk, although he did manage to get himself a bottle of chocolate milk. And he did remember to get three bags of candy for himself. And he did think of getting four boxes of those yummy little cheesecakes. (Seeing that, we forgave him for getting the candy. MMmmmm.) He even got blueberry- and strawberry-flavored syrup for us, which is a rare treat.
This afternoon we drove out to the pumpkin patch west of Duncan. We’d seen it yesterday, but the sun was too far down, and the pumpkins were in darkness. Today the sun was exactly right, shining on the big orange globes. The sky was blue, with intriguing clouds drifting here and there, and the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows from trees and silos and barns. It was a beautiful day. I just wish we had more trees that turned red in the autumn, as they do in Vermont and many of the other eastern states. I took videos of about seven deer on Shady Lake Road. It’s so pretty out there near the Platte River. I’d like to pack lunches and go for an all-day hike...but I suppose we’d have to rent pack mules for the jaunt, to haul all the food and the camera gear, and maybe one or two of the littles after their legs are worn to a frizzle-frazzle.
And now, everyone is watching a documentary about an injured red-tailed hawk that a boy found in the Sierra Nevadas and nursed back to health, and I think I shall watch it with them.
P.S.: Ah-ha!! The video tells us it was the Sierra Nevadas--but the final scene was most definitely shot in Glacier National Park of Montana, right near The Garden Wall.
So much for authenticity in filming.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.