A week or two ago, Teddy added to his vehicle collection by purchasing a little red Festiva from someone he works with--for somewhere around $250. And guess who’s driving it now?
Larry is, that’s who. He’s borrowing it until either his pickup or the Mazda 626 come home from the car hospital. The most agreeable attribute of a Festiva, near as I can tell, is that it gets good gas mileage.
Its name, ‘Festiva’, brings to mind some sort of a merry celebration. Do you know how car names come about? Let us follow the process for this one, ‘Festiva’:
Members of the marketing and sales staff at Ford select the name for their new product. They conduct surveys to determine what share of the market the new model can anticipate. They troubleshoot potential problems. Initial production targets are set according to available market research results.
Once the board approves the model and name, the first working prototype emerges from experimental workshops. Board members try out the working prototype, then experts take it through extensive tests, including wind tunnel, dust tunnel, factory track, water-proofing bays, desert heat, Arctic cold, and crash tests.[1]
I think when the good folk of Ford picked a name, they chose ‘Festiva’ because of their general feeling of joy over conducting their test-drives, arriving at their destinations, and finding themselves still intact and not having been crushed by a semi en route. {Remember, I am accustomed to driving a Subdivision.}
I drove the car the first night we borrowed it, when we took Teddy and Amy home. It’s a four-speed stick shift; I like that part. It flunks the water-and-dust-proofing tests because one window refuses to go all the way up; I don’t like that part. Furthermore, the windows rattle alarmingly when the doors are shut, making one wonder just how long it will be before there are no windows in the frames at all, but, rather, shards of glass filling the interiors of the doors.
Teddy and Amy invited us in to see their Christmas tree, one that belonged to Amy’s parents before they purchased a new one. Amy decorated it with silver metallic ribbon and bows, pink rose garland, and little ribbon-embroidered pillows. The lights are small white-frosted globes. It’s so pretty! Makes ours look like something the cats drug in.
The geese are belatedly flying with purpose the last few weeks; the sky is absolutely covered with them, as far as the eye can see. We hear their wild honking all hours of the day and night. (“It’s because so many of them are bad drivers,” Caleb explained to Victoria.) (“‘Flyers’,” amended Victoria.)
The children have been spending part of their school day practicing for the Christmas Program, and when they come home, they fill the house with Christmas music--Hester and Lydia on the piano and the Roland, Caleb and Victoria with their singing. Caleb and Victoria both are able to pick out songs on the piano now.
After Larry came home Tuesday evening, we went first to Menards for plumbing paraphernalia, including several big fat, loooong pipes that threatened to create all sorts of havoc when Larry was first trying to balance them in a small cart, then carrying them to the front of the store.
If a person lops them nonchalantly over his shoulder and marches away with them, he bashes into unwary shoppers in front of him when he rounds corners, while neatly clearing off entire shelves behind him. On the other hand, if a person tramps along holding them vertically, he arrives at the front desk accompanied by scores of light fixtures that he has snagged from the ceiling.
Larry also bought a narrow-nosed (is that what you call it?) shovel, in order to dig a hole under the footings for the sewer pipe. Then out to our basement we went.
I tell you, it was cold. Furthermore, the ground was frozen, and Larry really had his work cut out for him. Well, actually, he didn’t. He had to cut it out himself, and it was no easy job.
The friendly neighbor dog came wagging to greet us, smelly as ever.
After going home, while the kids took showers, I went to Wal-Mart to get three things: Christmas stationery, a carom board, and another magnet set. I found none of the above. I did find the shelf where the stationery used to be, however; but it was all gone. Humbug! Maybe I’ll have to get the board and magnets at a toy store somewhere.
My computer keeps telling me I am out of black ink, but I’ve printed ever and ever so many pages now! So I’m beginning to think those refills really are jolly good things; they just confuse the ink-supply meter a tad.
The temple piece on Caleb’s glasses broke Wednesday morning; Hester taped it back on with masking tape. At noon he came home and happily announced, “Hester is a really good masking-taper; nobody even noticed I had tape on my glasses!”
After school, we went to the Wal-Mart eyeglass center, where a man put a new piece on Caleb’s glasses at no charge. It doesn’t quite match, but it’ll do. We’ll get new ones soon.
That night at church Robert read a bit from a religious publication about Mother Theresa’s diary, in which she describes how she was tormented all her life with great feelings of depression, wondering whether or not God was real, and such like. The pope has things on a ‘fast track’ to make her a ‘saint’--and the powers that be in the church are saying that they need to rewrite Mother Theresa’s diary, so that nobody finds out about all her doubts and disbelieve, etc. Trouble is, everyone has already found out. I read a similar article a year or more ago. It usually takes 50 years after a person dies before The Whoevers can make a saint of somebody… But in the Bible, people who love the Lord are called saints before they ever die! I like God’s way, don’t you?
We had stuffed peppers for supper Thursday night. Well, actually, our peppers should be called ‘full and overflowing’ peppers. First, I put a few leaves of lettuce on the plates…then the cooked peppers…then I fill them with well-seasoned hamburger (speaking of spices rather than age), topped with a dollop of sour cream; then spicy rice followed by a heaping spoonful of shredded taco cheeses; next, tomatoes; after that, a generous helping of chunky picante sauce, all of which is covered with a sprinkling of bacon chips. By that time, the green pepper is completely buried and cannot be seen at all. Sometimes I put sliced jalepeño peppers on the lettuce around the pepper in a pinwheel design, interspersed with half-slices of tomatoes; but that’s usually garnish only for company, as I generally wind up eating everyone’s left-behind jalapeños. The children don’t care to turn into fire-breathing dragons, thank you kindly.
Larry called; he was at The Lot drilling a hole through the foundation for the sewer pipe, and wondered if Hester and Lydia could come haul branches into a pile and logs into another pile. I was just putting peppers into the oven, so Dorcas took the girls. They went right past the Rte. 81 corner and had to turn around and come back, although if either Dorcas or Hester had’ve been listening to Lydia, they would not have missed the road.
Dorcas dropped the girls off and headed back to Columbus. At the Rte. 81 corner, she turned west instead of east and headed for Monroe. Soon realizing the city lights were behind her, she reversed her route and finally got straightened out.
When she walked into the house a little later, Victoria greeted her with, “Hi, Dorcas. Did you go the wrong way?”
Dorcas looked amazed. “How did you know?!?”
Victoria burst out laughing. “Well, I didn’t. But I just thought you would.”
At 6:30 p.m. Friday evening, the young people (that’s everyone from age thirteen up to whenever they decide they’re not young anymore), with Bobby’s aunt and uncle to direct the show, decorated the church for Christmas. Lydia watched out the window a bit forlornly; Hester got to go, and she didn’t. Caleb and Victoria watched with fascination when some young men used Walker’s big forklift to put lights on the cross over the front door. It has a telescoping boom and a bucket that reaches out 30-35 feet.In the meanwhile, I spent 45 minutes ironing the pleats into Lydia’s red/green plaid skirt, after which I started sewing her blouse. It is almost done now.
Hester stayed with Mama Saturday from 9:30 till 5:00 while Dorcas and Lydia went shopping in Norfolk at the Goodwill and Hobby Lobby. Wouldn’t you know, they brought home--clothes. As if we need more clothes. Well, Dorcas did bring home one thing we needed: chocolate-covered raisins. I did need those.
It was three degrees below zero early Thursday morning…but Friday and Saturday, it was in the 50s and 60s. Suddenly realizing that the weather was fine and dandy Saturday afternoon, I hastily gathered together all the baby food jars Hannah had given me, and Caleb, Victoria, and I went outside to collect seeds from my flowers for planting at our new place--big daisies, small daisies, gaillardia, purple coneflowers, hollyhocks.
Collecting seeds from purple coneflowers is like picking thistles. I wound up with two jars full and ten fingers full of seeds. The butterfly bush has withered and is practically impossible to recognize, and I think all the seeds have fallen from it in any case. I didn’t find the chrysanthemums, and couldn’t see any seeds on the trumpet vines. The asters, because they bloom so late in the fall, aren’t dry enough yet. The poppies are starting to come up again, and so are the columbine. They must think it’s springtime.
I got fourteen jars full of seeds, although one, I’m afraid, probably has seeds of those huge ugly dandelion-type things with the horrid pokey leaves that like to grow in fields--and in my flower garden. Shall I plant it in the neighbor’s yard first, just in case?
There are lots of flowers, bulbs, and rhizomes I want to dig up and transplant, too--crocus, glories-of-the-snow, purple windflower, iris, tulip, daffodil, hyacinth. I might have done a few, but right now isn’t the best time to be planting flowers out there at The Lot, what with men charging frenetically about on skid loaders, bobcats, backhoes, and various other big pieces of equipment.
The phone rang. It was Larry, out at The Lot, wanting to know if we would like to come. He had just finished putting the dirt back around the basement (except for the walkout side), and was smoothing dirt on the hillside. No, there really wasn’t anything for us to do, exactly, but…did we want to come?
Hmmmm. He must be lonesome?
So, after labeling and filling a few more jars, and eating a sourdough muffin with loads of peanut butter and honey, out we went. The black dog came rushing to greet us, tail a‑wag. He is a nice dog; but I do get tired of his constant presence, since he gets a little carried away with himself, and I feel like I need to be watching him with the children--particularly Victoria, who isn’t very big--every second. Mostly, though, the trouble is just that we all need a bath any time we are anywhere near him.
After taking quite a bit of video footage, making sure to get close-ups of Larry jouncing along in the bobcat, we went home and fixed lasagna for supper--the frozen kind, especially for lazy (or really, really busy) cooks.
Keith and Teddy popped in before singing practice, and Keith showed me a big cherry wood plaque he and Esther had won for selling $16,000 worth of nutritional products for ReLiv, International.
As most of the family were coming for Sunday dinner, I started baking a turkey Dorcas gave us some time after midnight Saturday night, setting the oven on 220°. Larry put potatoes into the oven early Sunday morning; they were so big, some up to two pounds each, they would take awhile to cook. The turkey was still frozen in the middle, and I reset the oven to 350°.
At dinner time, we put the fare on the table: a turkey that was severely overcooked, but which was good anyway; lumpy over-cooked mashed potatoes that were good in spite of themselves, mostly on account of lots of butter and milk and salt; gravy made almost entirely out of grease (since that’s all there was), to which I added milk and water and several different kinds of spices so that it was good in spite of itself, green bean casserole that got left in the oven too long after the second batch of French-fried onions were put in but that was good anyway; home-baked frozen bread from the Schwan man that stuck to the breadloaf pan but that was good in spite of the troubles; lite and creamy yogurt whose expiration date was that very day but that tasted fine regardless; and three different kinds of ice cream because there wasn’t enough of any one kind, but by giving everyone a small scoop of each, there was plenty to go around, and maybe it was even better that way.
Aaron liked the beans best of all. Bobby was feeding him, and in between each bite of whatever-it-happened-to-be, a small voice could be heard requesting, “Binzsh?” which is how Aaron says ‘beans’. If the beans were not quickly forthcoming, he added to his petition: “Binzsh, pliss?” meaning, of course, “Beans, please?”
I stayed with Mama that evening. She is frailer than ever, and more forgetful, too. But she is delighted as always when Victoria pops in the door after church, and she still teases just as she always has. Victoria was playing with a doll, one that is stuffed and jointed and weighted like a real baby, with vinyl head, hands, and feet. She’d removed its sleeper and was holding it upright on her lap, and its legs are a bit bowed…
Mama, laughing, said to me very quietly when Victoria walked out of the room, cuddling her dolly, “When too young of a mother has babies, it makes them bowlegged.”
We haven’t heard from Joseph, although we did find out after the fact that he’d been staying in a motel nearby, and a few friends have reported seeing him once or twice. At $50 a night, he’s probably run through his meager amount of money by now. He didn’t graduate. Guess he figures he’ll just drop out. He won’t be able to get a very good job, doing that. He seems to be doing his best to prove the verse true that says, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." That's Matthew 24:12. In Romans, Paul speaks of those who are 'without natural affection'. What a sad state to be in. We are not perfect; we make many mistakes; but we love our children with all our hearts.And now, I have cuffs, collar, and buttonholes to finish on Lydia’s lacy white blouse.
[1]“Automobile Industry,” Microcruise®
Jalopy® Encyclopedals 99. © 1993-1998
Microcar Puddlejumper. All vehicles re-
served.
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