Last Monday afternoon, Hannah and Aaron came visiting.
Hannah worked on a little beige straw hat that I had ordered from her hat magazine, putting netting around the front of it and a big ruffly pouf at the back, with a large oval cabochon in the middle. I’m agonna be utterly too-too, I am I am!
I spent part of the day digging piles of dandelions, and Caleb and Victoria gathered them up for me and put them into bags. Larry is going to work very early these days, and not getting home till rather late. After eating supper--turkey stew with stuffing--we went to Pawnee Park. There were all kinds of birds in the trees; I especially like the chickadees.
Tuesday, I planted a big jug full of impatiens seed in the shade garden on the north of the house. Uh, er, well, that is, I mean, I planted the seed, not the jug.
That evening, we went off to Agricultural Park for Lydia’s last Jr. Fire Patrol meeting, a much-anticipated assemblage, because this was the night the children were going to ride on the fire trucks and spray with the big hoses. Running late, we snatched our ham and cheese pockets out of the oven four minutes early, wrapped them in paper towels so as not to burn our fingers, jumped into the Suburban, and went tearing off.
But when we got to the Park, the big parking lot was strangely empty. A man and woman sitting in a van beckoned to us, and the man told us that the meeting had been postponed until the next day on account of the weather. The next day!! Wednesday. Bah, humbug. Lydia would miss her ride on the firetruck, and perhaps she won’t win anything for all those fire hazard tickets she turned in--and she tried with all her might and main to make first place.
We went to the library instead. When we got home, Larry was there, eating his lonely ham and cheese pocket and wondering what had become of everyone, for I had forgotten to leave him a note. I kept him company while he finished eating by crunching on an apple, and then I went to Wal-Mart to get some little bushes to plant at the front of the house where Larry once jerked the hapless evergreen out by the roots, expecting to put in an egress window that didn’t pan out. Larry stayed home and cleaned out the gutters. Hopefully, now water will run down the drain spout (is that what they are called?) instead of overflowing the gutters, always at strategic spots where it will wreak the most havoc--i.e., on my head as I come out the door, all over the hoods of our vehicles parked on the driveway, and ker-splat into my newly-seeded flower gardens.
I got an Emerald ’n Gold Euonymus (round, yellow margined, deep green leaves whose margin turns pink to red in winter), a Moonshadow Euonymus (glossy dark green foliage with a luminous, golden yellow center) [Euonymuses (Euonymi?) (Euonymeese?) (Euonymooses?) are evergreens], and a Caroline Gable Azalea (dark blotched, vibrant, spring-flowering red flowers with glossy green foliage).
What I’d really like to do is to remove all the volunteer trees along our back fenceline, and plant flowering bushes there instead, on the outside of the fence. Then, on the inside, I’d like a flower garden with all sorts of flowers, tall at the back, shorter in front, with such a variety of flowers that would bloom from spring through fall.
Trouble is, I can’t do it myself. There was a time when Keith and Larry offered to take all those trees out; but I said no, because the birds liked them so well. But that was before the Age of Cats. A decade from now, when the cats are either too old to catch birds, or have already gone to the Happy Mousing Ground, I will bring my bird feeders back out and enjoy the birds feeding at my windows once again.
Either that, or more stray cats will show up on my doorstep, looking too dejected for words, and I will be unable to do anything other than take them in and nurse them back to health.
Anyway, I think the plants I got are small enough that I should be able to dig a deep enough hole to plant them, myself.
The rose bushes at the northwest corner of the house look pathetic. And why did somebody cut down my variegated bush??! It was the prettiest one left, after Larry pulled out the barberry and the evergreen! Another barberry grew up from the roots--right next to the foundation, of course. The straggly rose bushes left at the front of the house look disheveled and untidy. What shall I do with them?!
Tabby and another short-haired yellow cat were having a loud disagreement out front one night, one on either side of the light pole. Kitty was twice her usual size just under the porch, and Socks was in hiding on the other side of the neighbor’s house, waiting the opportunity--
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--to come peeling out, head down and tail out so that a perfectly straight line could be drawn from head to back to tail, striding lickety-split, so fast his feet were a blur. He positively looked like a jaguar, he did.
He came directly behind the thin yellow cat, who was entirely occupied with Tabby’s nasty rhetoric, which was high-pitched enough to shatter the crystal in my cupboard, and then Socks suddenly stretched out one looong front leg and whacked that poor ol’ yeller cat right on the rump, raking off a quiff of yeller hair in the process.
“Yeeeeiiiiiieeeeeoooorrr!” screeched Ol’ Yeller the Cat. He sprang a double back flip, shrieking as he went, and galloped pell-mell for safer territory, clearing the neighbor’s high fence with only a small scrabbling scramble at the top. Socks loped easily along behind him, and Tabby trotted behind Socks, ears pricked forward in interest, tail plumed upwards in proud mastery, as if he was the one who had occasioned the retreat.
Joseph primed the water blaster for me, and it is even now sitting ready and waiting in the front hallway, in case the yellow cat decides to do something nastier than scream at our nice little innocent kitties, who of course never ever cause any trouble anywhere.
(Or do they?)
Have you heard about the pipe bombs that have been planted in rural mailboxes around this area? One was near the little town of Monroe, about ten miles west of Columbus. Then there was a fake left in a mailbox in Albion, about 30 miles northwest, that some dumb 18-year-old stuck in a box for a ‘joke’. He’s in more trouble than he expected, now.
Larry, Victoria, and I went to the grocery store after church. Any time anyone is going anywhere, Victoria always wants to go, too. When we came home, we could hear Hannah playing the piano as soon as we climbed out of the Suburban. She stayed and crocheted for a while, and I wrote out Christmas cards. Yep, that’s what I said, Christmas cards. I need to start sorting the pictures I’ve taken, and see which of my friends’ children I need more pictures of, for that is often their Christmas present from me--pictures of their children.
Thursday evening, we were in the middle of getting things out of Hester and Lydia’s room so that Larry could lay the new tile (nope, he hasn’t yet had a chance to do that) when Hester informed me that her biome was due the next day--and she hadn’t started on it yet. I was still yelling AAArrrggghhh when Lydia informed me that she needed her 11-page report on Alaska proofread that night so that she could do the final copy the next day at school. AAAAAAaaaaaauuuuugggggghhhhh!!
Well, as fast as we could, we filled two big garbage bags with Important Stuff and Things That Need To Be Sorted, three bags with Garbage That Needs To Be Hauled Out, and two or three bins with a Conglomeration of Flotsam and Jetsam. The room was still a colossal mess, but at least there was one corner where Larry could start. But Larry reclined in his recliner immediately after arriving home and scarfing down his supper, so I reckon it wouldn’t have done any good even if the room had’ve been spic-and-span. He’d worked 13 or 14 hours that day, and it’s no office job, let me tell you. Truthfully, it’s the kind of job that wears out men half his age; it’s a good thing he’s big and strong!
I intended to plant those three little bushes outside, but it has been cold and windy nearly every day, even when the sun shone brightly. Joseph, Caleb, and Victoria watered my flowers for me Thursday, the only day it didn’t rain.
Lydia was writing away on her Alaska report. “What’s a ‘nome’?” she queried, still scribbling on her paper.
Hester, knowing full well all about ‘Nome’, replied, “Oh, it’s one of those little green men who runs around under bridges and four-leafed clovers, sort of like a leprechaun.”
Lydia’s head popped up and she stared momentarily at her sister before rolling her eyes. “No,” she said with a tint of disgust, “not a ‘gnome’ with a ‘g’! A ‘nome’ with an ‘n’!”
Hester laughed. “It’s a town,” she informed Lydia, just as Lydia spotted the word on a map in one of her books and said, “Oh! It’s a town!”
I helped Hester make her biome of a tropical rain forest. We used a boot box, putting pictures in it cut from Ranger Rick magazines. Dorcas got leaves at Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart, real rose leaves and silk ferns and plastic ivy, which I hot-glued onto the box, inside and out. We stuck a silk hibiscus into it, and glued a few flower pictures here and there. The entire back wall of the box was taken up of a picture of an orangutan swinging through the vines of a dark forest, its baby clinging to its back, and other scenery and wildlife typical of a rain forest adorned the other walls and even the back of the box. A couple of pictures we glued to cardboard, and then we made little cardboard stands for the backs of them. Then, after Hester finished writing her report, I typed it for her. Somewhere in the middle of all that, we had supper--on the same table we were using for the biome project. Everyone found themselves a small, unused square of table, refrained from placing their elbows on it, and ate as fast as they could before I snatched up their plate and heaved it into the sink.
Once done with that, I proofread Lydia’s report. She has a knack of writing interestingly, then ending entirely too abruptly, leaving one wondering whether Soapy Smith survived his duel or expired in the crossfire.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, I triumphantly put the last load of clothes into the dryer. Thirty minutes later, everyone finished with their showers and threw their dirty clothes down the clothes chute.
When Dorcas came home that evening, she gave me a big bouquet of roses and carnations and lilacs that she had put together herself, and she took one to Norma, too. The bouquets were for Mother’s Day. Dorcas never can wait till the day really arrives.
The next day, the kids came home from school with things they’d made me for Mother’s Day, and they immediately proved that they were of the very same ilk as Dorcas, by insisting that I open them now. Lydia gave me a foam and wooden plaque with Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy on it. She’d glued all the pieces together herself. On the big heart in the middle are the words, “Love never gets raggedy.” Caleb gave me a Hershey’s Kiss and a glitter globe he’d made from a baby food jar in which he’d put dark blue water, glitter, seaweed, and little foam fishes.
When Dorcas came home from Mama’s, she gave me a big corsage she’d made with big spider mums, roses, baby’s breath, etc. Then she took all the kids to Wal-Mart to get Mother’s Day gifts: from Victoria, a little resin town with Victorian houses on two sides of a square, and little note papers in the middle, printed with matching Victorian scenes and held down by a resin bouquet on a spring, and in the corner is a hole in which resides a ballpoint pen covered with matching pictures. From Lydia, a Hershey’s bar with almonds; from Hester, a fat purple mechanical e-Grip pencil and a package of Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates (which Caleb accidentally called Ferocious Roaches); from Joseph, a big bag of Reese’s Pieces, and from both Dorcas and Joseph, a four-slice toaster, something we were in dire need of. Dorcas gave me a resin structure of an elegant house on a hill, from which flows a waterfall (real water) (the wet kind), and a little light shines in the upper story of the house, and also in the ornate lamppost outside. There is an ornate pagoda at the bottom of the hill, around which is a little stream with ducks on it, and there is a small rowboat at the water’s edge. It can also be set so that music plays, and is sensor-activated. Teddy gave me a long-handled clipper (look out, you unruly mulberry tree, you!).
Friday night, we went to Buffalo Park. Larry, Joseph, Hester, and Lydia played basketball. It wasn’t very long before some friends of ours came to play, too. Hester, Lydia and Caleb went off to play catch with their soccer ball, sometimes playing on the park’s new toy set with Victoria. There is a swing set up for a wheelchair, and another plastic swing, sort of like a large baby swing, with full support for a handicapped child or small adult. The kids had to try all these out, but decided they liked the sling seats much better, as they couldn’t very well pump those big swings.
Caleb once kicked the soccer ball the wrong way and it went into the court where were playing the boys. Along came Charles, one of Amy’s twin brothers, dribbling the basketball. Soccer ball and Charles had a collision, with Charles yelling and jumping high as if to escape, but then knocking the soccer ball back to Caleb with his knees. Caleb laughed so hard he couldn’t even catch it.
Teddy came by with Amy and Anthony, the other twin, and stopped for a while. Anthony flung himself headlong into the basketball game. Teddy rushed at Lydia, who was swinging, and gave her an underdog (pushing her swing and then running underneath it), making her screech with laughter. He spent some time pushing the littles on the swings then, before playing a bit of basketball with them, and Amy joined the game, too.
Saturday afternoon, Hannah came with a dress she’d sewn that she wanted to wear to church the next day. She needed the zipper put in, sleeves and skirt hemmed, and seams overlocked. Her machine--a nearly new one--will not nicely do anything where the needle has to zigzag. I finished it just as she came back later. Not knowing Dorcas had made me a corsage, she had bought me one--a red rose with two small white carnations and a cluster of baby’s breath. I thought maybe I’d wear that one to church, since it was smaller, more my size...
She also gave me a little black sailor hat on which she had affixed a gold and black sparkly applique on it. I like hats!--especially little black sailor hats with gold and black sparkly appliques on them.
Last week or the week before, Charles wound up at the hospital because of pains he was having in his chest. They found that his blood pressure was terribly high. You’ll recall, perhaps, that he is the one who has taken David’s place for Walker Construction. He is only 25, and I think he is stepping into a rather difficult, high-pressure job.
There was a tornado around Beatrice Saturday afternoon, and golfball-sized hail around that area. And we were wanting to head in that direction, to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Fremont! Fortunately, the storm seemed to be heading farther away.
Larry got home at a quarter till four that day, quite a bit later than usual. And he wasn’t home to stay; he was on his way to a friend’s house to work on his vehicle. He assured us that he would be back in no more than an hour.
He got back in an hour and fifteen minutes. We finally left at about a quarter after five, only because I got behind him and pushed. I think he was not really gung-ho about seeing Thomas the Tank Engine, but I’d promised.
By the time we got to Fremont, they were just putting Thomas back into the old train station, the back part of the museum.
As we got out of the Suburban, one of the girls kicked out one of the newly-washed dogbone pillows, and it landed in a mud puddle. Lydia made a small dismayed noise and stood looking at it, apparently immobile. I transferred camera to other hand and snatched it up.
“Instead of standing there unmoving like that,” Larry informed Lydia, “You should have stomped on it to keep the water and mud from soaking into it.”
Lydia rolled her eyes.
The museum itself was still open, so we went in, walked through to the back, and there was Thomas. A young boy who was working there invited Lydia, Caleb, and Victoria to climb up inside the engine and to blow the whistle, which was loud enough to crack eardrums a city block away. We then looked around the small museum. What that place needs, mind you, is a whole lot more stuff. But it was put together entirely from donations, and they don’t charge anything for admittance. I bought ten postcards of all types of old trains, and they cost enough that I figured that was a good enough donation for us.
On to Fremont State Lakes we went then, south to the area where are the big campgrounds. We’ve never been back there before, and it’s huge. Lakes, one after another, dot the countryside, which is covered with trees. There were ducks and geese and swans...egrets, bluebirds, red-winged blackbirds, robins...and swallows flying low over the water, snatching bugs. The campgrounds had many campers, and there were lots of campfires burning.
Home again, I gave Victoria a bath and curled the girls’ hair while Larry cut Joseph and Caleb’s hair.
Tabby is lying on the loveseat beside me, curled around and twisted in the middle like a wrung dishrag so that his upper half is upside down. His front legs and paws are extended straight up over his head and his mouth is partway open, like he could issue forth a loud snore any minute.
Very late Saturday night, a car went down 42nd Avenue at a terrific rate of speed; then, burning an enormous quantity of rubber in front of Mama’s house, it went spinning into the parking lot, throwing gravel everywhere. By the time I got the door open and looked out, I couldn’t even see the church right across the street, or Mama’s house next to it, because a huge cloud of rubber smoke was billowing down the street. The wind blew that big cloud away in just a few seconds, but our house stank of burning rubber for at least an hour. Meanwhile, the car went tearing through the parking lot and then the alley behind Mama’s house, skidding and sliding, engine roaring.
The local tire companies should be immensely pleased with such idiots.
Sunday morning before Sunday School, I went to get my corsage from the refrigerator. I’d decided that I really should wear the one Dorcas made, in order not to make her feel bad. And besides, it was the prettiest.
I took it out of the refrigerator, pulled it from the plastic--and discovered it weighed a ton. I mean, it weighed a ton.
Well, maybe only ten pounds. Or five. Or two. And when I held it up against my shoulder, it really did look entirely too, too big. I decided to float it in a red crystal dish and have it for a centerpiece on the table, and wear the smaller corsage.
Larry, in the meanwhile, was having troubles and trials getting the chicken started. He’d put it--all ten pounds of it--into the freezer Friday night, which was a mistake. He set the oven on 375° and put the chicken into it, inside my biggest and best pot, since the roaster was in use elsewhere. (Actually, it was in the refrigerator with an elderly casserole in it.)
The handle on the lid melted. It looked quite a bit like a piece of molten lava.
The entire house smelt of burning plastic for a time, the scent wafting around to the far reaches of the deepest closets to join up with the faint vestiges of burnt rubber left from last night. Larry took the lid out of the oven, covered the chicken with tin foil, turned the temperature down to 350°, and tried again.
During the song service this morning, Joshua, the little boy who escaped injury when his crib was demolished by that drunk driver, stood beside his grandmother, Sarah, holding one corner of the hymnbook while she held the other side. We were several pews ahead of them, but I could hear him singing his heart out, and getting quite a few of the words right, too.
After church, we took Mama her present--a pink miniature rosebush in a pink printed china teacup with a matching saucer. Loren and Janice were there, and so were Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron, and Keith and Esther. Loren was giving Aaron a few bites of his mashed potatoes.
Upon returning home, I discovered that, unbeknownst to me, Larry had turned the oven down to 275° between Sunday School and church--and the chicken was still quite frozen. I turned it up to 400° and set about making the rest of the food: stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli, blueberry biscuits, and peaches. Hester sliced strawberries for the shortcake.
And the chicken still wasn’t done. So off went Larry to KFC for two big buckets of chicken. He said every restaurant he went past--we call that street Fast Food Lane--was chock-full of people.
Luckily, everything was still warm when we finally sat down to eat. I got the biscuits out of the oven, and put the chicken back in. Maybe it’ll be done by suppertime--tomorrow.
After dinner was over and we were ready for dessert, we found that Larry had only gotten two angelfood cakes, and the more I tried to cut them neatly, the more they shrunk. You should have seen Larry’s dismayed face when he saw the small piece on his saucer.
“Well,” he said resignedly, “I guess it’s a good thing I got two; I almost got only one!”
He had gone to the store for me for the Sunday dinner things...and you can be sure, if there is a question about whether to get two or three things of any particular item, he will choose two. Any time we go to the store together, if I should pick up five cans of soup and, reaching for a sixth, say, “Do you think I should get another one?” (meaning seven), be sure he will answer, “Oh, no, five will be plenty,” but I know five isn’t enough.
Funny, isn’t it, since he’s the one who will be wailing if there isn’t enough food? haha But...it’s his money flying altogether too fast into the cash register, after all.
Keith and Esther gave me a musical resin statuette with a glitter globe; it plays Home, Sweet Home. They also gave me a floral stationery set with little notebooks, address books, a pencil box with floral pencils inside, and a little floral picture frame. I declare, everyone is too, too generous!
I stayed with Mama tonight during church. When I came home, Lawrence and Norma were there. We gave Norma a plant, perhaps a Caladium, in a tall ceramic pitcher printed in pink. She has become allergic to most flowers and some plants, so we have to be careful what we give her. She cannot wear a live-flower corsage, so Hannah made her a lovely one of silk.
“Let’s listen to a tape,” said Hester a few minutes ago, sticking a cassette in her player.
“Oh, goody, it’s the Curry Bros.,” said Caleb happily, then looked around in surprise when everyone burst out laughing.
‘Curry Bros.’ is the name of a motorcycle shop here in town.
“Oh, I mean the Thren Brothers,” he corrected himself sheepishly.
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