Sunday, July 28, 2002 - How to Feed Your Iron & Oil Your Garage Floor (among other things)

Sweet corn is starting to get ripe around our neck of the woods--that is, what sweet corn has survived the drought.  A few fields of it were so badly dried up or infested with worms, they were simply plowed under.  Last Monday, a friend of ours brought us some corn.  There were lots of worms, and the huskers (not to be cornfused with the Huskers, which is an entirely different breed) were all a-shudder.  But we husked it, subtracted the woims, woished it, and coiked it--and, wonder of wonders, it was scroimptious.

I think my major endeavors this week have entailed washing clothes, patching jeans, and mending a few other things.  And I took a dusty rose taffeta dress to the cleaners.  It’s one of two that Hannah and Dorcas had for Robert and Margaret’s wedding; Hester and Lydia have almost waited too long to wear them.  The smaller one has stains on it--and I didn’t know it, and after all this time, who knows if they will ever come out.  Bother.

Lydia decided to wear one last Sunday night.  She brought it upstairs and asked if I could iron it.

“Yes, I have time,” I replied, “Turn the iron on for me.”

She did so.  When it had been on long enough to be warm, I went to iron it...

Now, the girls have used my iron before, and I have often told them what to set it on.  My iron goes from number 1 to number 7, and 7 is too hot for almost any material.  I usually recommend 5--4 for thinner, finer fabrics such as the taffeta of the dress in question.

I made the enormous error of not checking the iron--and she had it set on 7, as high as it would go.

I ironed one sleeve...all was well.  But the iron was still getting hotter.

I set it down on the other sleeve--and the iron growled hungrily, roared, and gobbled a huge hole in it.

AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!

What happened???  I looked at the dial:  #7.  Aaauuuggghhh.

I suppose, if the stains don’t come out of the other dress, I could use one of its sleeves to fix the dress with the hole.  If the stains come out, however, I will not destroy the smaller dress to repair the larger.  Perhaps I can use part of its own sash to patch it.  Or maybe I could sew on a whoppyjaw applique, to cover the whoppyjaw hole...

Joseph got his first paycheck from the Ready-Mix company Tuesday.  We headed straight off for Wal-Mart, where he purchased some steel-toed boots and a pair of soft leather gloves.

Caleb got his very crooked glasses straightened, so at least he doesn’t look whoppyjaw and cockeyed anymore.

Teddy got his pickup running--this is his old pickup; he’s been overhauling it--and there was a leak around the filter, and oil ran out all over the garage floor.

“Somebody get me the cat litter!” howled Teddy, and Somebody did.  Almost sort of fast, Somebody did, with the top of the bag ripping only once (although it did  cause him to drop the entire bag and spill a bit on the kitchen floor).  Such troubles.

At 1:30 a.m., our scanner was suddenly all a-static with a police chase.  A small pickup, it seemed, was heading east on one of the major thoroughfares at speeds in excess of 90 mph.  The officer chasing him was giving a running dialogue of their location marks, and it really was incredible how fast they went from the Holiday gas station in the middle west part of town all the way out to Behlen Manufacturing on the far east.  Wish I could get from one end of town to the other that fast!  Lucky thing there was no one else on the road right then.

When they left the city limits, the dispatcher called Colfax County, the county to our east, to request assistance--but about that time, the pickup did a U-turn and came flying back into town just as fast as he’d left.  An officer waiting by Holiday Inn threw out some spike strips, and the pickup wound up with a punctured tire.  The idiot went right on driving for a ways, black smoke rolling, nearly losing control of his pickup several times.

At last he came to a stop in the KFC parking lot, where the police collected him with haste and hauled him straight off to the Platte County jail.  The driver was 21 years old, and has had numerous arrests for drug offenses.  Anyway, that was more than the usual Tuesday Night Excitement for our little burg.  (Is a town of 21,000 a ‘burg’?)

At noon Wednesday, Joseph told me that the crew he was working with was planning to go to Platte Center, and he needed overboots.  He didn’t want to ruin the new boots he’d just purchased.  So we rushed over to Tractor’s Supply to get some.  Of course, he couldn’t refrain from buying chocolate/peanut clusters, too...  He did share them, but that wasn’t really what I wanted for dinner.  I took a little nibble and gave it back to him.

Dorcas came home at ten till six, wondering if I could put a zipper in her dress and finish the cuffs so she could wear it to church.  Aarrgghh, help!  What does she think I am, a magician?  It was time to get ready for church right that minute, and it would take at least 45 minutes to finish that dress.

“Sorry; I can’t possibly.  I’ll do it tomorrow,” I promised her.

So then the poor girl was all in a dither, because she doesn’t have anything to wear except winter things.

Or so she said.

Do you remember little Mary Clarice, the child with such a bad case of scoliosis?  Throughout her short life she has had various surgeries, some to put metal rods in her back or, later, to extend the rod.  In April, she had her tonsils removed.  While in the recovery room, she had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and stopped breathing.  Fortunately, her father was with her.  The doctors and nurses soon got her breathing again, but it was quite a scare.  So surgery is always a worry.

She had surgery again last week.  The doctors and nurses there in Minnesota--they go to a Shriners’ Hospital--have become terribly fond of that little girl; she is so cheery and bright.  During surgery, one of her loose teeth fell out, of all things.  So... the doctors put a dollar or two with it, and laid it where she would find it when she woke up.  Of course she did find it, and of course she was delighted.

Robert’s sermons, as I may have told you, have recently been a series from the book of Acts.  Today he preached from Chapter 8, where it tells of the great persecution suffered by the church.  Because of their troubles, the early Christians were scattered all over the inhabited world.  But, contrary to what their persecutors imagined would happen, the gospel was not thwarted.  Instead, the dispersed Christians preached the Good News everywhere they went, spreading the story of Jesus more than anyone thought possible.  So their persecutors’ plans came to naught.

Thursday, I finished Dorcas’ dress--and discovered not only the usual strange tucks and puckers and rumples and quollyfobbles, but also suddenly realized that while the left back had been cut with the grain, the right back had been cut perpendicular to the grain, and the moiré of the fabric showed it up nicely--one this way: ====; one that way: |||||||.

Now how did she do that???!  One normally cuts out both pieces at the same time, so they should logically be running the same direction!

I looked the dress over more thoroughly, and found that the grain ran up and down on the back of the skirt, sideways on the front.

Aarrggghhh!  That girl!

I took the dress back to her, reluctantly calling her attention to the warp and woof of matters.

Poor Dorcas.  She says sewing gives her a headache, and when she’s done, she wonders why in the world she ever decided she could sew anything in the first place.

I assured her that she was doing fine, and that she has made no blunder that I haven’t topped in my own years of sewing.  She is somewhat unbelieving, however, since she cannot recall me ever having such problems.

Ah, but I did.  How about the time I sewed the sleeve neatly into the neckhole?  Or the time, while trimming a seam, I made a long cattycorner slit right through the skirt?  And what about when I fastened a circle skirt onto a bodice--upside down?  It was gathered very nicely all around the waist (it shouldn’t have been gathered at all)--but it had only a 25” circumference at the knees.  Try walking in that.  One-legged jodhpurs.

Practice makes perfect!  It’s an old saying, but it’s true.

That afternoon, we went to the Goodwill in Fremont.

I just had to get that heavy clock cut from a tree trunk, with a beautiful mountain scene painted on it, all covered with thick varnish.  I’ve stood in gift stores in Colorado… Montana… Wyoming... and drooled longingly over clocks like that.  But they were $75 ...$100...$150...  I thought perhaps I would give it to Teddy and Amy for their wedding--that is, if I can bear to part with it myself.

I bought the roller blades for Lydia that we had actually gone to get, and I got a teddy bear dressed in ruffles and lace and pearls sitting in a little rattan chair with a high rounded back.  The chair was all covered in ruffles and lace, too.  I found five volumes of Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories--and they were brand new.  One was still wrapped in plastic.  The set usually costs over a hundred dollars--but I paid a dollar each.  They are written by Arthur Maxwell, who also wrote our favorite big blue Bible Story set of ten books, the set I got when I was very small.

We found a push-toy for Aaron, rather like a toy lawn mower.  Winnie-the-Pooh and his pot of honey turn round and round as the toy is pushed.  I just had to get it.

Before going home, we drove south of Fremont Lakes State Park through a pretty wooded area.  The trees were tall, stretching over the lane and coming together at the tops, forming a sort of cathedral effect.  We turned off on a gravel road that twisted off to one side--and all of a sudden there we were at the Platte River--but what a different Platte River than the one we are used to!  There is some water in it, for the Loup has flowed into it.  But the striking thing about the river there is that there are high cliff walls along its sides.  The sun was low in the sky, and shining its golden-coral light on the jagged bluffs, which in turn reflected in the water.  Overhead, the sky was bright blue.  Birds called and sang in the trees.

By the time we got home, it was 8:00 p.m.  Hannah and Aaron came visiting, and while I fixed supper as quickly as I could, Aaron tried out his new push toy.  Judging by his delighted smile when he saw it, and again as he watched Winnie-the-Pooh doing his revolutions, I think he liked it.

About that time, Keith called to see if Caleb could come ‘help’ him with some of his landscaping.  So, after supper, I took Caleb out to Keith and Esther’s.  The littles and Hannah and Aaron came along, and I took the teddy bear in the chair.  It was supposed to be a birthday present for Esther, but her birthday isn’t till September, and I was afraid if I kept it at our house, it would suffer the fate of the last little rattan chair I bought:  SQUISH, when somebody put their foot squarely into the middle of it.

They have a new calico kitten; it’s so cute and playful.  Tippy is utterly disgusted and disdainful.

While we traveled that day, we listened to a book on tape, ‘Snow Treasure’.  It’s the story of how the children of Norway saved their country’s gold during WWII--thirteen tons of it, then worth $130,000,000.  (I hope you aren’t a gold bouillon investor; in case I got that amount quite wrong.)

Friday, Dorcas went with Hannah to David City, where Hannah got an ultrasound.  She now has pictures of the baby, imagine that.  They then went on to Lincoln to go shopping.

When Teddy was leaving at 12:30 to return to work that day, he spotted a dead bat on our driveway.  He came back in to ask me what to do about it, for there have been an unusual number of rabies cases around the state, and particularly in Columbus.  Rabies have been found in bats, dogs, cats, skunks, possums, and certain other animals--heffalumps, I believe.

I sent Teddy out to collect it with a plastic bag.

“And don’t touch it!” I instructed him.

The Animal Control Center being closed that day, our veterinarian told us to call the Police Department, and soon an officer came to pick it up.

The lady at the vet said there is no cure for rabies; if people come in contact with something that has it, they die, same as animals.  Nothing else for it, too bad, so sad.

Huh?  Is that true?  Why don’t we hear of people dying from it, then?  (“Because rabies is so rare,” she said.)  (It is not; fat lot she knows.)  Why do people undergo a rigorous regiment of rabies shots when they’ve been bitten by a rabid animal, then?  Sounds nuts to me.  The lady, I mean.

I promptly got out my encyclopedia and read about it.  Yes, it’s true there is no cure; but if someone gets bitten by a rabid animal, he has a period of grace in which he can get shots to prevent him from developing symptoms of the disease.

I think I knew that.

It rained a little bit that morning, but not enough to do much good.  I think it forgot how to rain around here.

That evening, I fixed Bear Creek rice soup for supper, and baked blueberry muffins to go with it.

After that, Larry and I went for a bike ride.  We wheeled our bikes down the sidewalk beside our house...  Some boys were playing football in the street.  As I watched, a boy I’d never seen before reached out and tried to grab Caleb around the head.

Caleb cried “OW!” and then was catching his glasses and putting them back on, while at the same instant I yelled, “HEY!!!  YOU BE CAREFUL WITH HIM!!!”

Caleb hadn’t yet gotten his glasses resituated before I was at that brat’s elbow telling him in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t play here if he was going to be rough and hurt one of the children.

“Just one more time of anything like that,” I informed  him, “and you’ll be handing that football right back to Tatum and leaving.”

Anrikay came to find out what was happening.

“Take a look at Anrikay,” I said to that bully, who was about the same size.  “He has never, ever been mean to Caleb.”

Anrikay looked pleased and smug, both at the same time.  Then, with instructions to the older children to watch out for Caleb, and knowing that in addition to his elder siblings, Caleb would most assuredly have Anrikay to champion his cause, Larry and I pedaled off.

We didn’t stay away too long, because Larry wanted to work on putting his fuel tank on his pickup.  He didn’t get it done, because everything didn’t hook up the way it was supposed to.  (It never does, you know.)  He would have to get more parts for it the next day.

Larry’s cousin Gordon came at 8:00, and we led him out to Gehrings’ Plant, where Larry’s Uncle Clyde’s horse trailer was parked.  Gordon is taking it to South Dakota to his folks’ ranch to get his horse, a two-year-old, and bring it back here.  Larry helped him hitch up, and we all returned to our respective homes, Gordon a couple of blueberry muffins richer.

Upon arriving home again, we found out from the neighbor children that the new kid had been riding his bike through Mama’s lawn, and had run over the lawn sprinkler that was purchased only the night before.  It is hopelessly broken now.  Anrikay and Yanna came rushing to tell me that, after Larry and I rode off, the ‘Bad Hat’ (shades of ‘Madeleine’) called me a bad name.

I laughed.  “Well, I don’t like him much, either,” I said, “so I guess we’re even.”  Anrikay laughed, too.  “Tell you what we’ll do,” I continued.  “We’ll have Katrina” (one of the twins who was standing there on our porch) “bite him on the ankle, while Victoria bites him on the other ankle.  Then, while Caleb bites him on the knee, Anrikay can tie his ears behind his head.  Yanna can perch a mouse atop his head, and then all our cats will climb him at once with all their claws out.”

Anrikay put in the motions while I was spinning the yarn, and the children laughed uproariously.

“Anyway,” I said, “We will not let him play here again.”  They all nodded soberly.

After that, Lydia went with me to the grocery store to get some Snickers ice cream bars, since the boys were weeping and gnashing their teeth because they didn’t get any of the Dairy Queen ice cream Larry brought us the night before.

We went for a ride this afternoon north of Monroe; Larry was looking for the locations where Walkers will be putting in some basements.  We never did find the sites, but did have an enjoyable ride--an enjoyable ride, that is, until we traversed a minimum maintenance road.  There were steep hills, and a center pivot was getting water all over the road, and it had turned into a grand mud lolly.  Actually, it was worse than mud; it was clay.  And as you know, if you remember anything at all about our visit to Larry’s Uncle Earl and Aunt Lois in New Mexico, I am not fond of driving on wet clay.  (Or being a passenger while somebody else is driving on wet clay.)  I’d rather go to the dentist, I would.

And I don’t like to go to the dentist.

Well, fortunately, this time the four-wheel-drive was in good working order (it was not, during that trip to New Mexico, simply for lack of a small resistor) (computer chip?)  (rheostat?)  (divertor?).  Larry put it in four-low, and up the hill we went.

Sort of.

We slipped and skidded and spun and slithered.

The speedometer said we were going ten miles per hour, but speedometers don’t know when tires are merely running in place.  I think we were probably going about half a mile an hour.

And then suddenly we hit the other side of the morass, the tires gripped the ground, and we went shooting abruptly over the hill and down the other side, making Caleb and Victoria gasp and then shriek with laughter.  Of course, Caleb wanted to go back and see what it was like if we went through the bog from the uphill side, sliding down instead of up; but I firmly vetoed the plan and we continued on our way.

I am staying with Mama tonight.  It looked like it was going to come a downpour any minute when I walked over here; but just before the sun set, the clouds in the west went away, and the sun shone brightly on the trees to our east.  It’s so pretty, the leaves sparkling bright green and golden in the sun, with a dark sky behind them.

Oh!  I must tell you what one of the neighbor kids said.

“Why does your mother dye her hair grayish?” he asked Lydia.

“She doesn’t,” replied Lydia.

“But she’s too young to have gray hair!” he protested.

Lydia shrugged.  “She’s forty-one.”

“Forty-one?!”  He stared.  “She sure doesn’t act that old!”

There!  Is that a compliment, or what?!