A couple of weeks ago, Esther’s father learned that he had cancer. Fortunately, it was caught in its early stages. A week ago Friday, he had surgery, and the doctors were satisfied that they had successfully removed the cancer. By Sunday morning, he was doing well enough that everyone thought he would be able to come home either that day or the next.
But later that morning, everything started going wrong, and the pattern continued the rest of the day. First, he got a bad case of hiccups. The medicine they gave him for the hiccups set off myriad problems: his heartbeat escalated, his blood pressure soared, and he got sick to his stomach. Then a nurse forgot to give him his extremely necessary insulin, and his blood sugar went higher’n a kite.
So you see, being in the hospital can be downright dangerous.
He is home now, and we are hopeful that he will recover without further complications.
Monday, Larry brought the garage into the back yard and moved a pile of dirt that the people who put in the septic tank had dug up. He tucked the dirt up in a cubbyhole in the trees and leveled it; that was where he would have a slab of concrete poured for the garage.
That night, I went to Hy-Vee. Planning to only get butter, I wound up buying a whole cartload of groceries and didn’t get home for an hour. But!--I sho’ ’nuff wound up with lots of yummy stuff! That, because I was hungry. When I am hungry, I buy lots of good things, and everyone loves me forever.
Larry and I went back out to the house at 12:30 a.m. so he could shut off lights and put a few things away. He’d planned to go back earlier and work on the steps, but he was too tired. We wandered around through the house making plans, dreaming and wishing about the many things we’d like to do… Well, we’ll do it, but it may take a while longer than we’d like. But we’ll do it.
Tuesday afternoon, Tabby, our soft tawny-cream cat, came in with his mane black. And I do mean black. Around his neck and down his fluffy bib, he was black. The gooey whatever-it-was didn’t go clear down to the skin, but was on separate tufts of fur, sort of like he’d given himself a spike hairdo. The stuff had dried, and was hard and icky. What on earth had happened to him?
Nothing else for it; he had to have a bath, cold weather or not.
I put warm water into the tub, retrieved the cat, and took him into the bathroom. When I started lowering him toward the water, his legs got stiff, started stretching out … and he managed to catch a hunk of my sweater in his claws. But that was all; I carefully extracted the claws, put him gently into the water, talking to him the while, put water over him, then shampoo.
Tabby sat very still, and now and then cried mournfully, “MeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeee!” I continued to talk to him softly, and he in turn bumped his head against my chin from time to time. All in all, he was sweet as sweet could be. He was staying so still that I thought I could spread the towel out beside me when I was done rinsing the shampoo off him--but quicker’n a wink, he shot out of the tub like someone had hit his ejector button, landing halfway across the bathroom. I quickly wrapped the towel around him, picked him up, and patted and rubbed him till he was dry enough to stop shivering, poor thing.
He set about grooming himself, a chore that kept him busy until the children came home from school.
The Schwan man came. He gave us a box of Philly steak pockets free with our order.
“MeeeeEEEEEEeeeee!” said Tabby, standing expectantly at the door.
“No, you can’t go out,” I informed him, “You’ll catch pneumonia.”
When the kids went out to help the Schwan man bring in the groceries, I put Tabby downstairs. Soon they were back, taking everything downstairs to the freezer, leaving the basement door open as they went.
“We didn’t get the broccoli you ordered!” cried Caleb, racing pell-mell back up the stairs.
He loves broccoli.
I peered out the window. “He’s still out there,” I said; “Run and tell him!”
Caleb ran.
It turned out, not only the broccoli, but all the other vegetables, too, had been left on the back bumper of the truck. The Schwan man thought the kids had gotten everything, and the kids each thought one of their siblings had picked them up.
And then Tabby escaped while the door was still swinging behind Caleb. Tabby is a pro at knowing how to time his exit so that the oscillating door catches him neither in the midriff nor the tail.
The Schwan man abandoned his truck and came to help Caleb capture Tabby. But it wasn’t difficult, because Tabby doesn’t run from us. He trusts us not to hurt him, and he never gets held against his wishes; so when Caleb went for him, he sat still and waited while Caleb reached down and picked him up. He cuddled up in Caleb’s arms and purred.
The Schwan man then pretended to throw snowballs at Caleb, missing him by a country mile. Caleb giggled that contagious little giggle of his.
“Do kids ever snowball you when you are working?” Caleb asked inquisitively.
The Schwan man lowered his eyebrows. “If they do, they never live to tell about it,” he growled.
Caleb giggled again.
He brought Tabby back into the house, and Tabby acted glad enough to be inside. I expect he discovered that 30° can feel mighty cold fast, what with one’s cloak, bonnet, and galoshes so damp.
That afternoon, I packed up the dishes in Victoria’s little kitchen set, which is situated under the stairs, where it’s been since Hannah and Dorcas were little enough to enjoy playing with it. I then took the whole set--refrigerator, sink, cupboard, and stove--out to the Suburban, along with our old oak high chair, and Hester and I took it to the Goodwill. Perhaps I’ll buy a brand new kitchen set for Victoria for her birthday…and perhaps not. I’d like to find a nice used one that didn’t cost too much. I hate to get rid of things she still likes so well and plays with so often, but it truly was a most dreadful eyesore, and it really did take up ever so much space. I had no idea where in the world I would put it at the new house. Where will I put the Li’l Tykes house? What about the wooden rocking horse that needs its tail and eyes sewn back on? What about her new plastic doll stroller? car seat? bassinet? There aren’t a whole lot of convenient places for large items like that, even though there is more room at the new house than at this one.
Hester has been finding all sorts of things in catalogues that she would like to put into her new room. She wants to decorate it with horses. Her tastes run very similar to mine; we like country style, and nothing gaudy. Lydia wants horses, too, but I don’t particularly want two rooms with horses… Besides, we already have the lavender, purple, and cream quilt and curtains I made, and brand new lavender, purple, and cream rugs to match. They are thick and fluffy, soft as can be, printed with lilacs in the center.
On our scanner, I heard the dispatcher at the Ready-Mix company call my brother-in-law, John H., who is one of their drivers, and tell him that Larry needed 7 ½ yards of cement. So I knew that Larry had gotten everything ready for the garage slab to be poured.John told him it was too bad he hadn’t called sooner, because they’d been hauling cement to Walker Construction, and one of the men had make a serious miscalculation, and ordered 17 yards too much. It would have been about 25 yards too many, but they figured it out before they loaded the last truck. Anyway, Larry could have had the excess free, if only he’d called a little sooner. Too bad. John helped him skreet it (rake it out and smooth it), and Jim C., the neighbor man who sold us the lot, came and helped for a little bit, too.
At about 6:00, we took Larry his supper--spaghetti soup Dorcas had made, blueberry pie, Mozzarella cheese, Colby cheese, peach yogurt, grape juice, and a thermos of coffee. We looked around the house again--and this time, we could really look, because the electrician finally got the electricity wired up, and there were lights from top to bottom!
The furnace was purring like a happy kitten, and warm air was pouring out of the vents all through the house. I tell you, that will be one welcome change. The furnace and air conditioner we have here at this house is lousy. L - O - U - S - Y lousy.
The stairs, which are knotty pine, are turning into a charming flight of steps, the way Larry has made them come down and turn. There is no landing; there wasn’t enough room, and the landing would have been too close to the ceiling. So, instead, halfway down there are several angled steps, and from there to the floor, one side is open and there will be a curved railing of knotty pine. Wheeeeee! I’ve always liked open staircases. I’ve always liked curved open staircases!
Railings and spindles and newel posts are on sale at Menards right this minute…we need to get the rest of the stuff we need for those stairs. I want to put spindles up above the railing upstairs; my hair stands on end every time I think of one of the kids leaning too far over it--they do that regularly, which makes me yell like a fishwife--and tumbling down into the middle floor. Good grief, they’d break their neck.
Hester and Lydia cleaned up a pile of plaster and foam SomethingOrOther while Larry ate his supper, and I wandered about wondering where to put this and where to put that and when and how and why. With all the lights on, we can see every last crack in the plaster in full gleaming detail. There’s a lot of work still to be done. We wanted to be out of this house by the end of January…but we didn’t make it. So now we are shooting for February 28th…but I don’t know if we can even do that. Anyway, the longer it takes Larry to do walls, ceilings, floor, stairs, and cracks, the longer I have to pack. And the way it’s going, I think I will need about ten more months to pack.
It was muddy around the house, and after slogging up to the door, we looked like small, ungainly Clydesdales, there was so much muck and mire about the hooves. Lydia’s white tennis shoes, which were on the elderly side already, turned decidedly unwhite.
“I’ll wash them tonight,” I offered, but Lydia replied, “No, that will make the tear in the toe worse,” and she held it up for me to see.
I took another look at those poor ol’ clodhoppers, and that did it: we headed for Wal-Mart. Lydia got some shoes exactly like Hester’s--dressy ankle-high cuffed brown leather boots. Very nice--and they were only $8.50. Lydia’s boots are half a size bigger than Hester’s. Isn’t that funny? She’s so little and slim; Hester is quite a bit bigger now; but Lydia wears the bigger shoes.
Larry came home at 11:00, so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open.
Wednesday, I did a partial job of cleaning out the fish tank, merely exchanging half the water, and thought, There. That will hold them for another week.
That done, I set about sorting through the sweaters in the shelf room--some eight or nine bins, the 40-gallon size--and then carried several out to the trailer, along with a few boxes, too.
Larry has been putting up Sheetrock and repairing cracks in plaster walls and ceilings. He has some sort of ‘carpenter’s paint’ that is made to be put on heavily and textured so that it looks like plaster, in order that it will match the original plaster. We will wind up repainting the entire house. Of course, the basement will be Sheetrocked and then we can use regular paint on it. It will be done in off-white or very light cream, and then I will put some sort of trim in each room.
I watched a video about stenciling and block-painting. There are so many pretty things a person can do…and paint is so much cheaper than wallpaper. I tried it once a long time ago in one of the children’s rooms, and turned out a gigantic drippy mess from the top of the wall to the carpet…but that was before I knew how. Now I do. Don't I?
The lady on the video (have you ever noticed, it’s always ladies on these videos, showing how to paint, build decks, brick sidewalks, refinish floors, or install bathtubs? That’s in order to prove that any dumb bunny, muscles or no muscles, can do it) anyway, she showed how to paint a wall to look like brick--and when she was done, it indeed did look like brick. I’m going to do that on our walkout wall and retaining wall…maybe all the way around the house, I am I am I am. She showed how to paint a wall or floor or countertop to look like it was genuine marble--and it really did look like marble, sooo pretty. She was certainly adept at it. I could do it too, I could I could I could!!!
Maybe.
Thursday was more of the same, hauling out multitudes of boxes. I got all the knickknacks in Caleb’s room packed, then started on Dorcas’ room. It’s such a pigpen, I can’t walk two steps into the room before I would be obliged to tread upon things if I wished to proceed further. They’ve piled so many things behind the door, and then shoved so hard on the door in order to get in, they’ve split the door frame. I ranted and raved like the aforementioned fishwife, and refused to do anything further in there until somebody cleans it up.
Larry worked for Walker Construction that day. He got home from Omaha at 5:30, after which he went out to the house. He’s sanding the walls where he put the ‘carpenter’s paint’, using a sander that hooks into his vacuum, which is filled with water. The dust is then presumably trapped in the water, and there is no mess, no dust, floating around in the air. Nevertheless, we shall keep Caleb away from that house until Larry is well done with that.
We had chicken egg rolls for supper that night. Yuck; I don’t like them. I put a large tablespoon of chunky picanté sauce on each bite and managed to down one, only one. There were two left on my plate, so I gave Hester one, Larry the other. We’d baked them in the oven--the same oven in which blue hake had been baked a couple of days earlier--on a cookie sheet without one siderail. (What are those things called?) So of course fish fat (what is that stuff called?) dripped off the cookie sheet and down into the oven, so that when we used the oven it made the house reek horribly of fish--and it didn’t seem to be fresh fish, either.
Larry came home (“Something seems kinda fishy awound hee-uh!” he proclaimed in a high-pitched, Elmer-Fudd sort of voice), ate, and went back out to the house. We would like to have gone, too, but it was dreadfully muddy out there, even worse than before--and it was raining. January 30th, and it was raining! We went to the library, instead.
First order of business Friday: clean out the fish tank. Nope, the partial cleaning just didn’t do the trick. Quite suddenly Thursday evening, the tank was opaque yellow, murky and foul. No halfway job this time; it had to be completely cleaned, top to bottom.
When that was through, I carried out a bunch of boxes and bins, even my wedding dress. (No; it does not still fit me. I yoosta coulda given Scarlett O’Hara a run for her money waist-size-wise; but not no more no how no way.) As roomy as that trailer is, it was getting mighty full. When I opened the big doors at the back, I found four stacked boxes tipped over. Fortunately, they were mostly jeans; nothing broke. I stepped out of the trailer, backed up, and looked at it.
The back tires were looking positively squishy, and it seemed to me that it was jacked up overly high in the front. And with all those heavy boxes stacked farther and farther to the rear…
I marched into the house and called Larry. “The trailer is jacked up too high in the front,” I announced. “Will it eventually tip back on its haunches, pop a wheelie, and empty itself if I keep loading it?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied, “but I’ll come in a little while and lower it a bit.”
When he did, he also stood on the back bumper and bounced up and down, the better to see if the springs were still in proper working order. They weren’t. They are totally squashed down tight. He gave me this news on the phone later.
“Well, what will that do?” I demanded, wondering if a ride in a log wagon with no longitudinal play in it would reduce my china and crystal to nothing more than shards of colorful glass.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied nonchalantly, “but you might check to see if the tires are rubbing on the frame.”
Sigh. “Why didn’t you check?”
“Well…I was in a hurry,” he excused himself.
Larry has never understood that fine ladies do not like to shinny about on their stomachs on the ground under trailers and vehicles.
It was time to quit loading trailers for the moment.
Instead, I concentrated on getting the clothes washed, including a dry-clean-only dress that will now take up residence in the used clothes dropbox, as it more nearly resembles a Kleenex than the taffeta Easter dress it once was. Rats. It was a pretty one.
Larry was using Jim C.’s four-wheel-drive tractor to move the garage into position over the new cement. His pickup wasn’t doing him a lick of good; it was so muddy out there, all the pickup could do was slide and slither around all over the place. So Jim came and offered him the use of his tractor.
Soon Richard A. came to help with the garage, too; and both dogs came along. Then they got jealous of each other or peeved at each other or something, probably imitating Jim and Richard themselves. The older white dog growled at the younger black one, the friendly one who slobbers all over us, who acted scared and turned to walk off. So the white dog turned around, too, done with his growling--and that was when the friendly black dog whirled around attacked him.
It was a furious fight, with the black dog clearly holding the upper hand. The old man tried to get them apart, pushing on them with his shovel; but it wasn’t working. Larry, fearing that the dogs would turn on the old man, leaped off the tractor, shouting at the top of his voice at the dogs, which brought the fight to an abrupt stop. Both the dogs, and poor Mr. A., too, jumped clean out of their respective hides. The black dog took off for home at a lope.
“Now you see that that dog can be mean,” said Mr. Adkisson, shaking his head.
That worries me. I’ve been a bit worried about that dog from the first time we saw him. I have never liked his slight aggression toward Victoria, and I wasn’t pleased at all when he once jumped at Caleb when Caleb tripped and fell. It seemed like he was playing…but I didn’t like it.
Thursday, Jim had told Larry that he’d informed Richard that the black dog had been up in his yard, eating his cat’s food. He told Mr. A. that he’d better keep that dog tied up, because the next time he saw that dog on his property, he was going to shoot him.
So that’s how you win friends and influence people, eh? No wonder Mr. A. is hostile towards him.
Friday, Richard told Larry what Jim had said, and added, “It wasn’t the black dog; he won’t eat cat food even if you offer it to him. I know which dogs it was; it was the neighbor’s dogs who live south of us; I’ve seen them.”
They are young black labs, and Larry has seen them around our house and on Jim’s property, too. Mr. A. is probably right. Oh, dear; what will we do with all the roaming dogs???!!!
Ooooooooo…I just thought of something: what happens when our cats eat Jim’s cat’s food?
Wanting to paint my big pattern file white, I got some spray paint from Wal-Mart especially for metal, some that will stop rust and keep it at bay for up to two years, guaranteed. Hester helped me tilt the pattern file slightly while Lydia slid newspapers under the edges. That thing is heavy, let me tell you.
“Don’t get your fingers under the edge of the cabinet,” I told Lydia, “because Hester and I are liable to drop it any moment.”
(We didn’t; Lydia’s fingers are still intact.)
And then I painted it, spreading white paint dust liberally over the entire shelf room floor. I stepped in it, got my skirt hem in it, and inadvertently painted my fingernails, both under and over.
However, the pattern file looks ever and ever so much better. Now our two filing cabinets, one gray and one tan, need to be painted to match, and I’ll stencil flowers and birds or something on the drawers.
Lawrence and Norma went out to see the house while Larry was out there. Wonder how they drove into the lane? Larry was having troubles, even with his pickup. And how did they get out?
Norma wandered around looking at things and remarking on this and that… She told Larry he needed to knock the kitchen wall out so that he could use the landing at the top of the stairs to enlarge the kitchen and add more cupboards, and he should take up part of the washroom while he was at it. The stairs, she told him, could be put where the washroom pantry is. No mention of the fact that he is nearly done with the stairs right now, and they are splendid the way he’s done it. He’s skilled at things like that. Lawrence, wandering along behind Norma, kept looking at Larry, raising his eyebrows, and making funny faces.
“Okay, fine,” replied Larry agreeably, “but will you come out and hold the house up after I remove the wall? It’s a supporting wall.”
Norma looked momentarily nonplussed, then burst out laughing, and so did everyone else.
“This old grandma’s ideas aren’t always as good as they seem at first,” she later told Dorcas, still laughing over it.
Meanwhile, we at home ordered pizza. Lydia, Caleb, and Victoria got free personal pan pizzas with their BookIt certificates. For the rest of us, a large Canadian bacon, upgraded for only a dollar to one with cheese on top of the cheese-stuffed crust, baked till it’s golden brown. Mmmmm…yummy.
I started getting material out of the fabric closet. There were six empty bins in which to put it; that would probably be enough… I stacked the fabric into the bins with each piece standing on end, so that when the lids are removed, the folded edges can be seen. Hester helped by holding the material so it wouldn’t tip over while I retrieved stacks from the closet.
The closet wasn’t even half empty when all six bins were crammed tight full. So Caleb and I went to Wal-Mart for eight more, which was precisely the right number. There are now 14 bins chock-full of fabric.
I also got some more stencils--hummingbirds, grape vines, fruit, flowers, birdhouses, etc. Some will be for borders around the tops of walls. After watching several videos telling me exactly how to do it, I should be a pro at it, eh? I will not use oodles and gobs of paint on a great big paintbrush, as when I tried stenciling teddy bears on that wall years ago. What a colossal mess. I gave up and went to Sherwin Williams for a wallpaper border.
Saturday, we awakened to the awful news about the space shuttle Columbia going to fiery bits and pieces 40 miles over Texas. Horrible, isn’t it?
After listening to the radio a while, I got myself in gear and carried those 14 boxes of material out to the trailer. I was going to have fun that day stenciling the newly painted pattern file cabinet, but then I spotted a few things in boxes in the garage that needed to be cleaned up, sorted, put away… And it took five hours to do it.
There is one small clean spot in the garage now.
Caleb is tickled pink, because we found his little suitcase full of small cars and trucks. We found several of Victoria’s dolls, too.
Larry got the garage set down on the cement slab. He’s working on the plumbing now, removing old pipes that would probably cause trouble before long and replacing them with PVC that should last forever. There are a couple of copper pipes that cracked from water freezing in them; Larry located and replaced them.
Lawrence and Norma brought him a bowl of soup big enough for both dinner and supper. When he came home that night, looked at the table, and saw that we were having soup, he held his stomach and groaned, “I’m fuuullllll.”
Larry fixed our breakfast Sunday: chicken fried steak, frozen French toast sticks (well, we didn’t eat them frozen; we baked them first), and eggs, sunny side up.
That afternoon, Larry and I went to Walgreens to get Caleb’s albuterol sulfate for his nebulizer; he’d just used the very last vial. The box of vials cost $49.99.We then drove around looking at decks here and there. My opinion is that cedar decks, while they can be elegant per se, do not look right on houses that have no corresponding colors, such as brick…or weathered wood shutters…or dark paint or siding… Therefore, we will probably put a white deck on our house; that would match much better.
We saw thousands of Canada geese in a field off Shady Lake Road. Funny how they waddle along in files and rows, facing the same direction. They stay in formation, even on the ground!
I stayed with Mama Sunday night; Larry stayed with Caleb. He’d been fine in the morning, but at about 11:45, fifteen minutes before church was over, he started coughing and then had a big asthma attack. It must be the combination of colognes, perfumes, and hairsprays that cause his trouble at church.
It misted heavily most of the evening, and was cold and windy.
Bobby and Hannah stopped by Mama’s house for a few minutes after church. Bobby laid baby Joanna down on Mama’s lap, keeping hold of the baby, because Mama isn’t strong enough to hold her by herself. Little Joanna was awake, staring around wide-eyed at one face after another, and then at the unfamiliar ceiling and light.
Mama touched the baby’s soft face gently. “Isn’t she beautiful?” she smiled.
“Beebee,” said Aaron, pointing at his little sister and looking at us seriously.
Dorcas came and I went home, and Bobby and Hannah came here for a while. We shoveled off enough chairs that there was a place for everyone to sit amongst the heaps and piles of rubble, and Larry doled out ice cream.
Aaron came to find me. Looking earnestly up into my face, he did his best siren impersonation: “RRRRRrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrRRRRRRR!!!”
I obligingly turned on the firetruck video. Aaron grinned at me and seated himself in a little chair to watch the film.
Caleb stayed home from school today; he is worse than he was yesterday.
This morning, Hester opened the door as she and Lydia prepared to leave for school, then asked plaintively, “Why do we have to go to school in a blizzard??!”
I peered out the door. It did look like a blizzard.
It quit snowing by noon, but the wind was blowing so hard it still looked like a blizzard. When Victoria headed off to school, she couldn’t see where she was going, and there was deep snow on our sidewalk. She came to a bewildered stop at the end of the drive and, eyes closed tight, cried out, “I don’t know where I am!”
Fortunately, her little cousin Jamie, accompanied by her mother, Rachel, were just coming down the sidewalk, and Rachel helped guide her along. Jamie waded forth in unperturbed perseverance, hood off and sans boots, not acting like things were nearly so dire as Victoria seemed to think they were.
Victoria was bundled up with her warmest coat atop a turquoise sweater and navy pleated skirt of heavy knit, and on her head was a hat that Dorcas had sewn and given to her Friday, early for her birthday. It is made of soft fleece printed with teddy bears and bunnies, and has white fur around the face. It has an attached white scarf that Dorcas knitted, and Victoria could hardly wait to wear it to school today. She had on high navy boots with turquoise accents and tights printed with bright Crayolas and hearts that matched the colorful raised tucks on the sweater’s yoke.
They waded with difficulty through the big drift in front of our house. That walk definitely needed to be scooped. I pulled on my own boots, coat, and fleece mittens, and retrieved the shovel from the garage. Soon the porch was done…then the sidewalk to the drive…then the drive beside the Suburban…and then I simply couldn’t do the front sidewalk. The wind was blowing till I couldn’t see, and when the shovel was full of snow, I couldn’t lift and toss the snow to the side, because of being reduced to a wimpy milquetoast from carrying all those boxes out to the trailer. I gave up and came in, wondering if the school kids were looking out the school windows, laughing at me.
The sun is shining through intermittent clouds now, making the world so brilliant and sparkling it hurts the eyes. Larry is working on plumbing at the house, and I’d better get on with the packing. There’s no end! Perhaps I should close my eyes and torch the rest?
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