Remember that thin water jug that Dorcas gave me, one of those contrivances that sits in the refrigerator against one side, from which you can fill your glass? Well, one of the littles filled the jug, and then Victoria went to get herself a drink...but the lid has always been a bit gimpy, and it had finally gotten its threads completely stripped out, and when Victoria turned the knob, that last little bit of pressure was the end of it.
The entire lid popped off, and Victoria got her glass filled really, really fast, along with the pockets on the front of her dress, her shoes and the floor all around her. She gasped and then did the only thing she could think of.
“HELP!!!” she screeched, and people flew from all corners of the house to offer assistance.
The floor got itself mopped sooner than it had expected, and Victoria’s dress got itself blow-dried, much to its surprise, while the little person inside the dress giggled and laughed through the entire operation.
For supper Tuesday evening, we had the fish we caught at Calamus Reservoir the night before, baked in butter with green peppers. Mmmmmm. They were all drum but one, which was a walleye. Teddy, who likes fish the least of all of us, was of course the one who wound up with a couple of tiny bones, as usual.
I also fixed a green bean casserole--but the can of Cream of Mushroom soup I’d gotten was spoiled, because some doofus poked a hole in the lid and then put it back into the cupboard. Instead, I used some packets of country gravy with sausage bits. It was spicy, but boy, oh boy, was it good.
On his way home from work that evening, Larry ran out of gas in his Jeep just two blocks from home. So, after he ate supper, we took some gas back to the poor thing and gave it a drink, after which it was willing to hie itself to the gas station for more of the same.
Before coming home, we went to Pawnee Park to see the three bronze soldiers that were unveiled Sunday afternoon. German planes and B-1 bombers had flown over, along with fighter jets from Offut Airforce Base. We saw the German plane and another old one Sunday afternoon when we were at the cemetery, which is just across the highway from the airport.
Then, while others headed for the showers and bathtub, Victoria and I went to Hy-Vee for a few groceries, including exactly 32 individual Old Home pies. Yep, they were on sale: 2/89¢.
But I was so agog over those pies, I forgot the most important thing: coffee. Waaaaah!
That night, we wondered if something was wrong with Socks. His back? His hind legs? And just a couple of days earlier, I had wondered if he was losing weight and if he was feeling all right.
By the next afternoon, we knew there was indeed something wrong with him. He laid down funny, couldn’t sit well, and had a difficult time leaning over to eat.
Caleb ran out to the garage for the pet carrier, and then we scurried off to Pet Care Specialists. The lady vet found puncture wounds at the base of his tail, and he had a temperature, too. His tail was swollen and didn’t seem to have feeling in it. She wondered if he could have been hit by a car, and perhaps his tail was broken; but my first thought was that the horrid orange cat had taken him down and paddled his pants good and proper in return for the quiff Socks raked off his behinder the other day without so much as a by your leave.
We left him there overnight, and the vet gave him two injections of antibiotics. In the morning, they took an X-ray to find out if the tail was broken, in which case it might have had to be amputated.
We were sure enough hoping that wouldn’t happen, because Socks without that funny tail of his just wouldn’t be Socks, that’s all! He imagines himself Siberian Husky, I think, the way he curls his tail up tight over his back when we talk to him and pet him.
Thursday morning, the vet called with good news. Socks’ tail isn’t broken; it is only infected. Teddy brought him home at noon, and the poor little scared thing was so tired (probably from staying awake all night listening to dogs bark) that he slept all afternoon. Twice a day for two weeks now, we have to give him a little antibiotic pill.
The way you do this is to stand on the cat’s tail, and then when he opens his mouth to yeowl, you throw the pill down his throat.
AAArrrggghhh!!! Poor thing! I don’t like to give cats medicine.
I have Larry or Teddy hold him, and then I quickly pry his mouth open and push the pill into his tonsils, whereupon the poor kitty gulps, and down goes the pill.
Once this is over, we cuddle Socks up, pet him, and tell him what a wonderful kitty he is; then we fill his food bowl with his favorite food, give him a bowl of fresh water, and pet him again for good measure.
Socks purrs and lets us know that he doesn’t hold it against us.
That afternoon, Esther called and asked if Caleb and Victoria could come out to Christine’s and play with the children. She was going there at 1:00 p.m. and could pick them up. So off they went, happy as larks. They played on the big play station in the back yard, they drove the go-cart, they climbed trees, and they ate ice cream. And, of course, when it was time to go, the Walker cousins wanted them to stay longer, and Caleb and Victoria were not nearly ready to go, either.
“Better to leave sooner, while everyone still wishes you could stay longer,” I told them as we drove away, “than to depart later, leaving everyone wishing you would have left sooner!”
Before going home, we went to pay the bill at Pet Care: $114. Good grief. That’s $10 more than Teddy paid to have his broken tooth fixed.
I altered skirts--making size 12s into size 4s and 2s for Hester and Lydia; and then Hester and Lydia helped me pull weeds just before dark. It had been entirely too hot to do it earlier--97°, and humid.
When it got dark, I came in to wash clothes, while the kids played Fugitive (a sort of complicated Hide-and-Go-Seek, near as I can tell) with the Walker cousins who live down the block and several neighbor children. They had loads of fun, for it was one of the few times I’ve let them play outside after the sun goes down. But I figure there’s safety in numbers--and there were fifteen children playing out there. No neighbors could complain about the commotion, either, because their kids were outside, too!
Dorcas called about 10:00 p.m. to tell me she thought Mama was getting a cold, and she wondered what to do about it. After asking a few questions, I recommended Sudafed and a call to the doctor in the morning if she wasn’t better.
By morning, Mama had no signs of a cold at all. Perhaps she had been sneezing, nose running, because of the flowers on the table? Hmmm.
Larry was working on the brakes on his Jeep, and I went out to ask him if he could dig up that fool mulberry tree in my flower garden.
He obliged--using Teddy’s new shovel.
He poked the shovel into the ground...stepped on it...wedged it down into the ground...pushed down on the handle...pried...
“CRACK!!!” said the shovel.
“OOOOooooOOOOFFFF!!” said Larry, doing a few gyrations to stay upright, while I dodged wildly to avoid wayward elbows, flying shovel handles, and more wayward elbows.
So much for Teddy’s new shovel. Tomorrow Menards will see a bit of business.
Aaron has been sick with a bad cold, and Hannah has been unable to see Dr. Luckey, only his assistant, somebody named Chuck. Chuck doesn’t think there is anything to worry about. Hannah went on worrying, nonetheless. She was there both Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday night was finally able to talk to Dr. Luckey on the phone. He thinks Aaron may have symptoms of asthma. Ohhhh, no, no...we didn’t want any more of our little ones to have that!
Hester and Lydia slept in the pop-up camper a few nights last week, and I suppose I should let Caleb and Victoria join them this week. It’s a grand novelty, you know.
Friday, Caleb’s glasses arrived at the Optometric Center, so we scurried off to get them. Last week, Caleb was telling Teddy about his visit to the eye doctor.
“See my eyes?” he asked. “They’re dilected!” He frowned, realizing that wasn’t quite right... “Dissected, I mean!” he corrected himself triumphantly.
I suppose he got mixed up after listening to Hester talking about the frog she dissected in science class.
That evening, even though it was getting dark, we went for a bike ride. Larry unhooked Victoria’s cart from my bike, hitched it to his, and we rode off.
But we hadn’t gone far when Caleb started having troubles breathing, so we came back home. He took a puff, but was still having problems, so I gave him a treatment with his nebulizer. That got him completely over it. Thank goodness we have it!
Then, while the children watched the film ‘Heidi’, Larry and I went to Super Saver for bagels and ice cream.
Dorcas got some Books on Tape from the library, and Mama is really enjoying ‘The Five Little Peppers’. We should have gotten some for her a long time ago! I didn’t even think of it.
Saturday I mended a few more things, including another pair of jeans that showed up in the dryer with a hole in the knee, as jeans are oft wont to do around these parts. Next, I finished a shirt for Teddy that Hannah had started before she got married. Hannah came late that afternoon, and saw what I was sewing.
“Ugh!” she exclaimed, peering at it, “Is he going to wear that?!” she asked. “My top-stitching looks like a drunken sailor sewed it!”
I had to take a short hiatus from the shirt in order to sew Raggedy Andy’s hat on better. When he was done and had gone back to his young mistress, she took him around to the other side of my bed where he had a conversation with Raggedy Ann.
“There you are, how does that feel?” inquired Raggedy Ann sympathetically.
Raggedy Andy jumped up and down a couple of times, purportedly to show her that his hat now stayed put through such calisthenics. “Oh, fine,” he replied. “But when it was getting sewed on, it was a little poky!” He hopped on one foot. “But I didn’t bleed, so I guess it was all right, even if I did get jabbed with a needle several times, and right in the head, too.”
“Oh, you poor thing!” Raggedy Ann exclaimed in quite a high-pitched tone of voice, but sounding like Victoria, in spite of herself.
“Now, now, don’t you worry about it,” said her mate in a much lower voice, although still Victoria-like. “I’m not bleeding a bit!” he assured her.
“Well, that’s good,” sighed Raggedy Ann in relief, “’Cuz I don’t know how to get ketchup out of clothes. Especially hats,” she added, shaking her head vigorously.
For supper, I made some sort of icky casserole-from-a-box--beans and cornbread, or something on that order. When it was done, we packed it into the Suburban along with fruit and yogurt, and then went to Pawnee Park to eat, hoping the surroundings would improve the flavor of the food.
Later, while Larry and the children played baseball, then basketball, and then volleyball, Victoria and I walked down the dike. All sorts of birds--some I couldn’t identify--were singing their hearts out.
Then, hot and thirsty, we went to a nearby convenience store for slushies of all flavors.
Whew! It really was hot that day. We’ve been watering the flowers at the bottom of the porch in front of the bricks with all our might and main, but they still droop and wilt in such heat.
At 10:00 that night, my blind friend Penny called, a bit worried because her back doorbell kept ringing, and when she’d go to the door, nobody was there. Teddy ran down the street to see about it, and Larry and I followed shortly, meeting Lura Kay and John H. walking down the sidewalk, taking their usual nightly stroll.
Nobody was at Penny’s house, and while we were there, the doorbell rang several more times, so we assumed it was either the batteries wearing out, or something interfering with the frequency of the doorbell.
We came back home, telling Penny to let us know if any more bogeymen came through.
There are bugs all over the place, including enormous June bugs. As I type, I can hear them hitting the windows. They are so big, and they are hitting windows with such regularity, it sounds like somebody is knocking. Yuck, horrible things.
I just finished washing clothes. And that’s not because there are no more dirty clothes, because by now there are probably enough for another load...that’s because I’m all out of detergent. One excuse is as good as another, eh?
Joseph was digging around in the refrigerator for something edible, and came up with a bag of tacos that’s been in there a coon’s age.
“Anybody want some tacos?” he asked, holding the bag up.
“Ewwww, no!” exclaimed Caleb, shaking his head. “Those are from the olden days!”
This afternoon, we drove out to the cemetery to retrieve our flowers. It’s always so windy out there, I can’t imagine how the flowers stayed put.
I am staying with Mama tonight. I took her some Nissin soup, and, as I type, she is eating it like a trooper. She even ate the honey wheat crackers I gave her.
* * *
Here I am home again; my letter got interrupted when I suddenly noticed that Mama’s tubing for her oxygen was kinked in two places. I tell you, that got me moving! Mama, who was feeling okay, didn’t think I needed to worry about it tonight; but I did what I learned to do many years ago, when I was very small: I ignored all her fussing and worried about kinks anyway. I called the hospital, who told me to call the after-hours number for the pharmacist, who brought more tubing in a few short minutes. Unfortunately, he only brought a length of 20-foot tubing and another length of 25-foot tubing; and Mama needs 50-foot, so as to go from one end of her house to the other.
I had just hooked up the 25-foot tubing, and was standing there debating what ought to be done, when the phone rang. It was the lady who comes and brings new oxygen bottles and new tubing, and makes sure the machine is running properly; the pharmacist had called her. She offered to come and look at everything to see if it was okay, and I gladly accepted.
She solved our problem with a coupler, hooking the two hoses together. That will be good enough for tonight, and she promised to come in the morning with a new 50-foot hose.
As usual, everyone is willing and happy to put themselves out for Mama; everyone she meets loves her, it seems. She is so friendly and sweet and cheery, in spite of the physical troubles she has.
My barometer has been overflowing almost every day for the last week. There are usually thunderstorms each night, and one has been forecast for tonight, although the stars are still shining brightly in a clear sky.
And now, here’s something you might wish to know: It’s illegal to hunt camels in Arizona.
Thought I’d tell you, just so you didn’t get hauled in by the game warden.
Stay tuned for further important, pertinent, practicable, apropos pieces of intelligence.
P.S.: By the way: Humans and elephants are the only animals who can stand on their heads.
There now. Aren’t you glad you stayed tuned?
...
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O o o . . . You know, I shouldn’t imagine that would feel very good, to have an elephant standing on my head.
I think I’ll stand on his head.
Toodle-ooo!
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