Monday, February 24th, was Victoria’s 6th birthday. She could hardly wait to get to school, so excited was she.
“I’ll get to be the ‘leader’, even though it isn’t my turn!” she told me, giving a little hop of glee, “And I’ll be first at the drinking fountain, first out the door, and I’ll get to hold the flag while everyone says The Pledge of Allegiance!” She frowned. “What shall I give the kids?”
I hadn’t thought of that. And it was too late to go to the store. Then I knew: “We’ll pull some suckers out of those Valentines we got at Wal-Mart after Valentine's Day, and you can give them those!”
She was delighted. “Look, they’re shaped like hearts!” She took a closer look. “What does it say on them?”
“Sweetheart. Be mine. Who, me? You’re the one. I love you. Precious one. Dear one. Cool kid. Wuzzup, Dude?” I read.
Victoria scowled. “That’s stupid.” She sighed. “Well, I just won’t read it to them, that’s all.”
She tucked them into a sandwich bag and was out the door, skipping happily down the sidewalk.
When she came home, she had a colorful cardboard ‘crown’ on her head, sporting her name in big scrolling letters through the middle of a bright yellow star directly in front. Her teacher had given her a little resin figurine of kittens.
After giving me a thorough and animated account of the day’s events, she decided to write me a letter. “How do you spell ‘ginna?’” she asked.
“What?” said I.
“Ginna!” came the reply.
“Huh?” I responded blankly.
“Ginna,” she repeated obligingly.
“Say it slowly and clearly,” I instructed.
“Giii – nuh!”
I pondered. Perhaps she was mispronouncing the country in Western Africa? Or was she was writing something about guinea pigs? “Say it in a sentence,” I requested.
“I am ginna go to Wal-Mart,” she said.
Oh. Well, it seems that perhaps we all need to be a little more cautious with our bebounciations ’round this he-uh neck o’ the woods.
The only thing I had left to give Victoria on her actual birthday--or so I thought--was a pair of purple socks. I managed to come up with a tiny cute gift bag (I have precipitously packed all my wrapping paper and bags), into which I crammed the socks after rolling them up as tightly as I could. She was terribly pleased; every present is wonderful, to Victoria.
Keith and Esther gave her a two-piece dress of purple velour. It’s cute, but the skirt is long enough for me; it drags the floor by several inches when Victoria has it on. And it’s only a girl’s size 7, which is usually Victoria’s proper size. Good grief! What models do they use for those sizes, anyway?
They also gave her a pair of white socks with fancy wide lace at the cuffs, onto which Esther had sewn a big lavender triple bow of wide and narrow ribbon and pearl strands. She’d made a bigger, matching bow for her hair.
Norma arrived, bringing Victoria a dress with a skirt of dark green velvet and a top of white brocade with a re-embroidered lace applique on the front. It’s beautiful. She also gave her a board with a magnetic Victorian doll and several changes of old-fashioned magnetic clothes, including dresses, shoes, headgear, and cape.
Lawrence has been sick; he didn’t come. I think he is getting better now; but we have all been rather worried about him. Lawrence is rarely sick, and when he is, he seldom complains.
Teddy and Amy came that evening to give Victoria her present: a gigantic green Crayola penny bank, and a little set of Winnie-the-Pooh address book and journal. They also brought cookies, which we launched into like famished vultures.
After they left, we went to Bobby and Hannah’s; they’d invited us over to get Victoria’s gift. They gave her a lavender dress with white lace overlay--and that’s what the socks and barrette from Keith and Esther match.
Dorcas gave her a lavender satin purse shaped sort of like a pyramid with a flat top. There is a little magnetic tab at the top that holds it shut, and Dorcas put a handful of coins into it. Bobby and Hannah had purchased all those lavender things at Burlington Coat Factory last week especially for Victoria for Easter.
Dorcas also gave Victoria two pretty pink dresses. The tops need a bit of remodeling, but all my lace and material is packed away in the trailer out at our house. If we hurry up and get moved, I’ll have time to fix them before Easter…
Leaving Hannah’s house, we returned home, and Larry went back out to the house. The rest of us went to Wal-Mart to get Victoria a quilt with the birthday money she’d received from Mama. We found a beautiful handmade quilt with lavender, white, and mint green half-pinwheels for only $14! (regular $40)--and a matching sham for $7.50, regular $20. We got a white embroidered sheet set--top, bottom, and pillow case--for $8.00. Quite a bargain!
Hester bought a beautiful afghan for $17.50 with running horses printed on either end; the middle is soft brown chenille. She’d been looking at one like it in a magazine--but it was $60. She got a pillow and rug with matching running horses.
Larry didn’t come home till almost 4:00 a.m.; he was putting primer on Caleb’s walls and didn’t want to quit till he was done.
Tuesday I went downstairs to clean--and found the magnetic booklets and a kaleidoscope I’d planned to give Victoria. So she got them a day late, which did not dim her enthusiasm in the slightest.
I cleaned in Hester and Lydia’s room all day. Ugh, it was icky, what with the ceiling partly down from when Larry and Teddy fixed the broken water pipe, and all the dust and dirt that had been up inside the rafters scattered all over the floor. Hester has been staying in Dorcas’ room, and Lydia in the room upstairs, ever since that Big Flood.
Hester swept it, but I feel like the whole room needs to be power washed with boiling Lysol. I picked up Lydia’s lap desk that she got from Loren and Janice for Christmas a couple of years ago--and discovered that it didn’t smell at all good.
Well, there is a load of wet clothes in the dryer with lots of good-smelling dryer sheets; that’ll be just the thing to freshen it up, I thought. I went and stuck it in.
I then went upstairs to eat supper. Afterwards, I headed back down the stairs. Halfway down, I smelled a strange smell--sort of like dried-out wet diapers.
“Ugh! What’s that?!” I exclaimed.
It suddenly occurred to me: that lap desk.
I galloped down the stairs and loped into the washroom. Pheweeee! I opened the dryer--and discovered that the lap desk had come apart at one end, and a gazillion of the tiny Styrofoam beads that filled the thing were strewn all about the dryer’s innards. Handfuls floated out when I opened the door. I pulled out the filter--and it was totally loaded with the stuff, and a good deal of them had gone down inside the dryer. That filter is an absolute joke. It catches stuff, yes, but it also lets gobs of lint and whatnot right down inside the dryer.
Larry brought the vacuum, and I vacuumed the floor and the inside of the dryer--but I couldn’t do it inside the lint trap, because Somebody has lost the attachments, and I didn’t have the narrow schnozzle. Bother. The clothes all stunk to high heaven, so I put them into the washer again and started all over.
Even though I put double the required amount of detergent into the washer, that load still smelt of that yucky lap desk. I thought a handful of dryer sheets would solve the problem, but it only helped slightly. Very slightly. I guess we’ll all go around permeating the air with the aroma of burnt Styrofoam till I wash those particular clothes again. Perhaps we’ll air out throughout the day until, by eventide, we’ll smell like daisies. Roses. Lilacs. Dryer sheets. Something.
Wednesday, Larry got a haircut--from a new, part-time barber, who nearly skinned him alive. And it’s an uneven skin job, at that. He’s been having all sorts of difficulty with it, ever since.
He sanded Victoria’s room, worked on the floor in Caleb’s room, and went to Menards for track for the closet door in Victoria’s room. He’s going to take out the original little door and put in a six-foot sliding door. That will be much better. Oooo, everything will be hunky-dory!
Thursday, I took all the dresses out of Hester and Lydia’s room, a good many of which are too small for Lydia. Every last one of them smelt musty and was all covered with dust. I am washing them all, and I will use my Dryell on the dry-clean-only dresses. I think I have just enough. That’s about the only thing I think Dryell is good for: to make something smell better, and perhaps to beat the dust out of it. It does not actually clean anything.
I’m putting the dresses that are slightly too big for Victoria into the last big bin, not to be confused with Big Ben, which, contrary to common belief, is not the clock, nor is it the tower. The tower is simply called The Clock Tower, while the clock is simply called The Clock.
Big Ben is the bell.
And do you know how much it weighs? 13.5 tons. Yes, 27,000 pounds. It first rang out its booming tones in 1859.
Uh, what was I talking about?
Oh, yes. Big bin. Not to be confused with Big Ben. (Did I already say that?)
Anyway, there are lots more clothes to pack away, and the bin is nearly full, and I have no more boxes that are the right size. Guess I’ll have to get another bin.
Last week a fin broke off inside my dryer; I heard the screws drop down somewhere…onto the floor? inside the dryer? into the underworld? Now the clothes take much longer to get dry, since they tend to roll around in a big wet lump. That washer and dryer set was the biggest joking rip-off we ever got from Sears. Bah, humbug.
Friday, I’d planned to paint another filing cabinet white, but Larry forgot to carry it downstairs to the room where I’d been painting things. I decided to paint Victoria’s little wooden peach-colored doll highchair white. That only took a few minutes…and I began to wonder if I could possibly carry my filing cabinet down the stairs on my own.
I went in my room…moved my cheval mirror out of the way…and picked up the cabinet. It was heavy. Therefore, I figured that if I would simply get the hanging folders and all my packets of negatives out of it, I could probably carry it down the stairs.
And carry it down the stairs I did.
The thing became progressively heavier with each step, but I got it there.
I was about halfway done painting it when Larry came home. I heard him stomping his boots on the garage steps, and then he yelled, “This place smells like a body shop!” haha
I left the furnace off so as not to pull the smell of paint through the whole house, and then opened most of the windows, in spite of the fact that the temperature was only in the thirties. When the kids came home from school, it wasn’t really too bad, although Caleb said he could smell the paint clear across the street.
While the paint dried, I washed another load of clothes. It occurred to me that I’d better quit with all those things from Hester and Lydia’s room for a while and wash some jeans for Larry and Caleb before they were obliged to wear their church pants to work and school.
“No, it’s okay,” Larry reassured me, “I’ll just wear a long shirt and tall socks.”
“I’ll wash jeans,” I told him firmly.
I began packing up the last few things in Victoria’s room. In one corner has been the wooden doll cradle that was mine when I was little. It was big enough to hold my largest doll, and I loved it. It wasn’t quite as sturdy as it used to be, so I pounded in every nail I could see, and tightened every screw I could find. And then it felt as solid as new. Imagining Victoria’s room with that newly painted highchair sitting in the dormer alcove with a score of Raggedy Anns and Raggedy Andys around it, I thought how cute it would be to have the cradle, painted white, added to the picture.
Fifteen minutes later, the cradle was white. And didn’t it look pretty! Victoria was sad that the teddy bear decal on the headboard disappeared; but I put one of those rub-on decals on it, a little bowl chock-full of colorful pansies, one of her favorite flowers.
Larry called about 7:00 p.m. “Is this the Jackson Catering Service?” he asked.
So we warmed up chicken pot pie and broccoli/cauliflower/carrot blend, and then collected peaches, orange juice, Sun Chips, and a slice of homemade bread liberally coated with butter and strawberry jelly. We put it into a box--a big Moist and Meaty Purina Dog Food box.
Dorcas was playing the piano when we left. I got out to the Suburban, realized my gloves were still in the house, and trotted back in to get them.
“WE’RE HOME!!!” I yelled as I came back in.
Dorcas laughed.
I found my gloves, went back out, drove off--and remembered something else I needed to get. I turned around and went back.
“WE’RE HOME!!!” I shouted as I rushed back into the house.
Dorcas laughed again. “When I do that at Grandma’s house, I always say, ‘Remember me?’ as I enter.”
I grabbed the things I wanted and hurried off; Larry’s food was getting colder by the minute. We stopped at Cubby’s to fill mug and thermos with coffee. And we managed to get out to the house before the food got cold.
“I didn’t want dog food!” wailed Larry when he saw the box. The children had been waiting for that.
Larry ate, and the kids helped him finish the chips and the orange juice, and Caleb had half a peach. I assisted in guzzling the coffee. Hester and Lydia headed downstairs to organize and clean things up.
After a while, Larry looked at his watch, and, seeing that he had just barely enough time to get to Menards before they closed, he, Caleb, Victoria, and I raced back to town. Hester and Lydia wanted to stay and continue cleaning. Larry needed some sandpaper for his belt sander, and he also got some paint stripper for the hinges and doorknobs that I plan to polish till they glow. I saw oodles of stencils and wallpaper that I would have liked to look at…but the store was closing.
We stopped at Wal-Mart to get Hannah a birthday present: a couple of mugs with scenic pictures, two round bath balls, a Wind Song scented candle in a glass jar with a gold filigree top, and a ‘Welcome’ shadowbox with a teddy bear and apples. I also gave her a Martha Stewart cookbook and small hors d’oeuvres book I had recently received in the mail.
For Victoria, we got a fluffy pillow to go in her new pillow sham.
On our way back out to the house, I called Hannah and wished her a happy birthday. They’d been planning to come see us, but Lawrence and Norma, and Teddy and Amy, had come to her house with cake and cookies and gifts.
“If it’s not too late when the company goes home, we’ll come,” said Hannah. “Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow!”
I touched up the black baseboard, door jambs, and window frame in Caleb’s room; it will have to have two coats, and I didn’t even get all the way around once. The kids scraped glue from the floor, getting about half of it done, I think. When they started staring off into space in unison, and Hester was falling asleep sitting up, I decided it was high time we quit and went home to bed.
Saturday morning, Caleb was in Hester and Lydia’s room playing with several small vehicles, including a little motorcycle and rider. Victoria, playing with him, had several stuffed animals and dolls.
They came upstairs, laden with toys.
“Where’s your motorcycle?” Victoria asked her brother.
“Oh!” said Caleb, frowning thoughtfully, “I must have left it in the warthog!” And he bustled off to get it.
Victoria looked surprised, then burst out laughing. “He means wardrobe!” she told us, when she could finally talk again.
Minutes later, Hester got out some grapes.
Victoria exclaimed, “Oh, good! We’ve got grapes!” She stuck one into her mouth. “Are these the ones that glow?” she queried.
All of us but Caleb looked blank. “You mean ‘globe grapes’?” he answered promptly.
Victoria giggled. “Oh, yeah, globe.”
Hannah and Aaron stopped by, and we gave her the gifts.
“Djshoooz,” said Aaron, scurrying over to me and holding up his foot, the better that I might see his shoe. “Chooch,” he added, and then went away to find a young aunt or uncle with whom to play.
He was explaining that they were on their way to Wal-Mart to get him some new church shoes. Victoria went with them; Bobby was home with baby Joanna. She weighs twelve pounds right on the dot. She’s been gaining a pound a week, and is quite adept at smiling at all the friendly faces hovering over her.
I put Victoria’s many hats into boxes, trying to pack them loosely enough that they don’t get crushed. Next, I cleaned out from under the kitchen sink, amazed at how much junk and stuff we’d managed to cram underneath.
By then, we were all starved, and supper was barely visible on the far horizon, so Lydia made Twice-the-Blueberries muffins. Then, just before they were ready to pop out of the oven, Hannah returned with Victoria, bringing us some of her leftover birthday cake. Good thing I didn’t have peanut butter on my muffin that morning! For supper, we had turkey filets from Schwans, California blend pasta/vegetables, fruit, and French vanilla ice cream liberally sprinkled with Date/Raisin/Almond Granola cereal.
I stayed with Mama tonight, spending the time sorting through a gigantic stack of my negatives. I was delighted to find a handful of my very most favoritest pictures ever; I will have a few 11x14s made of them for decorations at our new house. I am going to use Larry’s old filing cabinet--the one I just painted white--for my negatives. I pulled the little tabs out of the hanging folders, refolded them, and wrote headings on each, such as ‘Keith’ or ‘sunsets’ or ‘Wyoming, 1997’. Now the question is, when I have a strip of negatives with both Keith and Wyoming on it, which file does it belong in??
Well, I’m off to read a brochure about interior painting and wallpapering.
Toodle-oo!
P.S.: A few more pieces of remembery:
P.S.: A few more pieces of remembery:
Long, long ago, when the world was very young, I used to say things all backwards and inside out just to irritate my mother. Like, “Seelp sap the klim”, which, translated, was “Please pass the milk”. Or “Nood gight”, which, of course, meant, “Good night”.
As I write, it is 11:55 p.m. on the dot, and it is only 12° outside--and on my scanner I am hearing the Ready-Mix company’s crew busily talking to each other! Yes, they are working tonight! I have no idea where. Or why, for that matter.
It’s cold in this house. I have the thermostat (or ‘furnastat’, as Victoria used to call it) set on 85°, but the poor ol’ furnace has only warmed the house up to 69°. I have a blanket wrapped around my legs, but my hands and fingers are nearly frozen solid. I think, in this corner where my computer desk is, it must be at least 10° below zero. Sooo…I’m going to go get a big mug of coffee, curl up in the big easy chair, wrap up with a big quilt, and watch a video about installing light fixtures. Let the electric companies beware!
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