Birthday Trout... and a Wedding

Larry had to go to work at 5:30 a.m. last Tuesday morning, so he went straight to bed when we got home late Monday evening, and went to work without taking the kayaks off the top of the Jeep, though he did unhitch the Jeep from the trailer with the four-wheelers.  So... I could have gone to the bank the next day, but I had no idea if the kayaks would fit through the drive-thru banking where I like to go.  I can go inside to make a deposit...  but Larry said he would make the deposit when he got off work, so I decided not to embarrass myself by popping around town with kayaks overhead.

The deposit was important, because I needed to use PayPal, which is connected to that account.  A couple of weeks ago, you see, a couple of quilting friends mentioned some double knits they had, wondering what to do with it.

I know what to do with it!  ((raising hand))  Me, me!  ((waving both hands now))  I’ve been looking for affordable double knits ever since I used up most of my knits (leftovers from the 70s) making those rag-shag rugs for Aaron and Joanna.  (Click on each name to see their rugs.)  But if anyone around here had any to sell or give away, they weren’t saying; and any new fabric I found online was being sold for an outrageously pretty penny.

If you click a picture on my blog, you can enlarge it and then use the arrows on your keyboard to navigate through them.  The only trouble with enlarging the photos is that you then cannot see the captions.  Google Blogger needs to fix that so that the captions show up under the photos even when they are enlarged.

Google obviously needs me on their tech rostrum.  Heh.

I went out to hang a load of clothes on the line – and found a gazillion of teensy, weensy baby spiders stringing their silks all over the clothesline.  I wonder why they love that line so well??

It was my 55th birthday Tuesday, October 6th.  Larry hadn’t thought of it yet – but he had bought me that very comfortable pair of the brightest fuchsia tennis shoes I ever saw in my life Monday in Ainsworth.  Maybe he chose that color so I wouldn’t get lost.  Ever’buddy sees me a-comin’!  And a-goin’.

Lydia sent me a note:  “Jacob is having a deep discussion about when you were born and when Grandpa was born, versus when he was born.  He spoke of how OLD you are, then said, ‘I’m older than them.  I was born before them.’    Then, ‘I’m gonna be a grandpa when I get old .......to Dylan!’”  (Dylan is his little friend of the same age.)

These matters of time are so deep and involved... it’s hard to get it all figured out, when you’ve only been through a small piece of time, yourself! 

That afternoon, I pulled up a tab in Chrome to look something up.  The Google Doodle was doing its little ball-spin, indicating there was a new one for the day.  I generally ignore it, since they have a penchant for glorifying persons and/or causes of which I totally disapprove, but for some unknown reason, I clicked on it.  And just look what I found:

That’s spooky.  :-D

But even spookier are the Happy Birthday greetings I have gotten every single year, for many years now, ever since we had our very first computer, from the Online Ambulance Team.  How did they get my name and birthdate, and why do they think I will soon be needing an ambulance?!  Like vultures, they wait, hovering...

Amy sent me some pictures that evening – the kids had found three shrews and a mouse that had fallen into the posthole Teddy had dug for their mailbox.

A shrew is not a rodent, but is in the mole family.  As long as they stay outside, they’re helpful little critters who eat a lot of insects.  Inside, they’re troublesome, just like mice are.  

A couple of years ago, I found Tabby out in the lawn chowing down a bird, a wee shrew lying nearby.  I reached down to pick it up by the tail to see what in the world it was — and sweet li’l Tabby actually growled, reached out a taloned paw, and whacked it right out of my hand:  “Hey!!!  That’s my dessert!!!”

Victoria took a look at the picture of Emma holding the shrew (a baby, it appears), and, as expected, crooned, “Ohhh, cute!  I want one.”  (eye roll)

Supper Tuesday night was the rainbow trout, smoked in the Traeger grill, with broccoli.  We love steamed broccoli, so long as it’s not overcooked.  Dessert was pineapple.  I don’t fix dessert very often; we don’t need the calories or the sugar.  I gained almost a pound over our short vacation.  Therefore, Tuesday night dessert was not necessary.

By the next day, the extraneous pound had evaporated.  It would be nice if another five would take their leave, too – it’s easier to trot up a staircase without a couple of 2 ½ pound bags of sugar tucked under each arm, especially if one has arthritis, zat’s ze truth o’ ze mattuh.

Here’s Larry at Keller State Park, Victoria’s fish in hand (on thumb?), waiting for Victoria to arrive with the stringer.

Larry, busily making a marinade for the trout, firing up the Traeger, and getting it to the right temperature before putting the fish into it, had not yet thought of my birthday.  I like to keep still about it and see how long it takes before he remembers.  Norma has sometimes foils the scheme by telling him.  heh

But Bobby and Hannah, with their four children, arrived, gift in hand – and then of course Larry knew. 

He was right that moment going to get the rainbow trout out of the grill.  When he came back inside, he chose the biggest, nicest one on the tray, put it on a plate, whisked it under my nose tantalizingly, and asked, “Do we have any candles to put on this?”

Hannah burst out laughing.  “It’s not a birthday cake; it’s a birthday fish!” she told the kids, and they were laughing, too.

Actually, a birthday fish is fine with me – I like fish a whole lot better than I like cake, and I certainly feel better after eating it.  Mmmmm, mmmmm, was it ever good.  We shared some with our visitors.  Grandpa and Grandma don’t dole out chocolate chip cookies; they dole out smoked trout!  Ha!  

I don’t care for fishing, much.  I’d rather hike and explore.  But I put up with fisherpersons who enjoy it, out of the sheer goodness of my heart.  And smoked rainbow trout is quite excellent cuisine. 

Victoria, though she likes to fish, ate only a bite or two before announcing, “Fish doesn’t go good with me.” 

“I thought you liked seafood!” I protested.

Her answer?  “This isn’t seafood; this is river food.”  Kids.

Speaking of liking fish better than cake, you will notice, I did not mention pie.  Fruit pie, to be exact.  (((swoon...)))

Can you name a favorite kind of pie?  I like so many kinds... but I think, if I had to choose just one, it would be strawberry rhubarb.  Or blueberry rhubarb.  Or blackberry rhubarb.  Or marionberry rhubarb.  Or peach rhubarb.  Or mulberry rhubarb.  Or just leave out the rhubarb in any of the above.

Or cherry.  Or pumpkin chiffon (only chiffon will do, and with fresh pumpkin, too – it makes all those other pumpkin pies taste like pumpkin jerky, by comparison).

Here, scroll down through this page, if you have a hankerin’ to make your mouth water so violently you get lockjaw:  Desserts, Pies, and Fruit Pies

. . . . . .   Wait, did someone say I had to ‘choose just one’???

That night, I asked Larry why he picked fuchsia tennis shoes for me.  I expected him to say, “I knew you liked bright colors,” or some such thing.  But no, I was completely wrong.  His explanation?  “I checked the insoles, and they looked comfortable, and I thought the tread on the soles would grip well.”

Haha!  Once a vehicle and tire guy, always a vehicle and tire guy.

In the Nebraska National Forest, some of the needles on the ponderosas and Austrian pines are starting to turn an ominous shade of brown.  I fear that means the pine sawyer beetles have gotten into them, just as they did our big trees.  It’s too bad, because many of those trees are over 100 years old, and quite beautiful.  I particularly like the long-needled pines.

Somebody told me to use Deet to keep those tiny black gnats at bay.  Peyoooooweeeee.  Yeah, it works.  But I’d rather walk fast and swat wildly.  And complain later.

Wednesday morning, I checked the bank balance, thinking, Surely by now the deposit will have shown up, and I can pay those ladies for their double knits and the shipping.  Shipping was high, because fabric is heavy.  No deposit was listed.  I checked again a couple of hours later... still nothing.

Finally, after checking for the third time, I called the bank to find out what in the world had happened to our money.

I might have known.  Our little outback, hillbilly bank is behind the 8-ball when it comes to technology – and they’d had a serious malfunction with the Internet, somehow.  All their computers were offline, all systems down, and they could do no online transactions that morning.  Everything was being done manually, with paper and pencil.  

Good grief.  I asked if it would be okay if I went ahead with a PayPal transaction.  The lady went and asked someone else (maybe a visiting customer, out in the front lobby?), and then returned to the phone and told me that would be fine.

I think I have about 70 yards of double knits on the way.  I’ll have to give up quilting and make rugs for two years running!  Or maybe I’ll make somebody a ‘Mrs. Bigsby quilt’ and use it all up at once.

Not...  really. 

Someone wanted to know what a ‘Mrs. Bigsby quilt’ is.  So in case you haven’t heard the story...  Mrs. Bigsby was a neighbor lady who lived in the little house next to the one where I grew up.  She and her husband lived there from the day they married ’til the day they died.  She helped her church group make quilts for the poor.  I use the term ‘quilt’ loosely.  Hers were odd shapes sewn together willy-nilly, never mind if they laid flat or not.  The ‘quilts’ looked like incongruous combinations of cotton, double knit, canvas, silk, velvet, burlap.  She’d wash tops after putting pieces together and hang those strangely-shaped things on the clothesline, and let me tell you, they had more ravelings and frays than you can imagine.

I asked my mother, when I was, oh, maybe 4 or 5 years old, “Why do the poor people have to have ugly quilts?”  Mama, who very rarely said a derogatory word about anybody, replied, “I don’t know; but that’s why they blow out their candles when they go to bed:  so they don’t have to see them.”  haha

Just think:  all at the same time, whilst sleeping under a ‘Mrs. Bigsby quilt’, a person could be well-ventilated, snuggly smothered, exfoliated, and gently smoothed!

But I should say, in Mrs. Bigsby’ defense, she and her husband were poor people, and she was doubtless doing the best she could.  They always treated our family with kindness, and years later when I lived across the street and had my own children, they were kind to them, too – and they didn’t tolerate some of the bratty neighbor kids at all.  (They brought on some of the brattiness by being so intolerant and yelling at the kids before they’d done anything wrong, but that’s another story.  ;-)  )

The Bigsbys raised all their own vegetables in a tiny patch of garden behind their house, and they had a couple of fruit trees, too.  Even when old Mr. Bigsby wasn’t able to walk very well, he’d be out in his garden, crawling along the rows, planting, weeding, or harvesting.

Have you ever noticed that poor people are sometimes more generous than wealthy people?  Mrs. Bigsby, who knew I loved rhubarb from the time I was little, would sometimes bring me a handful from her garden, after I lived across the street and had a passel of kiddos.  I like rhubarb sauce hot, and poured over French vanilla ice cream.

When we started our church school, it was just down the block from the Bigsbys’ home.  There was a parking lot between my parents’ house and Bigsbys’ house, and the children would sometimes play soccer baseball there.  (The church now owns most of the block, and there are large playgrounds and playsets – but back then, there were more houses on the street.)  Trouble was, there wasn’t a fence, and the ball sometimes went into Bigsbys’ garden.  The children were all told to be careful, and the teachers explained how that garden was those elderly people’s main food source... but kicked balls can take an errant flight, especially when kicked by a youthful foot.

The games stopped if a ball went into the garden; that was the rule.  Somebody would try to step carefully down the row to retrieve it.  Several times, somebody bought a new plant, if one got broken.  A few times, friends brought fruit baskets to them.  We didn’t want our school to be the cause of upset and frustration for these good neighbors!

Finally, after a few too many balls bounced onto a plant, the teachers decided they just couldn’t use that lot for ball play anymore, and took the children to the large enclosed area that will someday be a balcony over the sanctuary.

A few days of that, and Mr. Bigsby called my parents.  “Where are the children?” he asked.  “We really miss them!  We loved watching them.  Don’t worry about a few bouncing balls; we want to see the children play!”

So the children returned to the parking lot ... and just tried hard to be careful.

The elementary children often made cards for the Bigsbys’ birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, and other holidays.  Mrs. Bigsby told my mother that after Mr. Bigsby was unable to walk, and was starting to get forgetful, one of the things he most enjoyed doing was looking through and rereading all those cards.

He was still crabby with other neighbor children – but never with ours, and never with the church school children.  I guess being crabby – or nice – is a two-way street, eh?

When it was time to get ready for church Wednesday evening, Larry, as usual, had not yet gotten home from work.  I glanced out the front window as I trotted past – and there sat the Commander in all its glory, neon green and blue kayaks still perched jauntily atop it. 

Aaarrrggghhh!!!  I would not go to church in a Jeep with kayaks on top, jaunty or not.

I sent Larry a text:  “Don’t forget the kayaks are on top of the Jeep.”

He took them off when he got home – and was late for church.  Victoria and I went ahead in her car.  I don’t like kayaks on the Jeep.  I don’t like to be late for church.  I don’t like cake.

Fussy little thing, ain’t I?

Here’s Victoria on the back deck of the cabin in Long Pine.

Thursday, Loren took down two more of our dead trees, the last two in front.  Well, maybe the last two in front.  It looks like one of our new blue spruce trees, planted last spring, is dying, too.

Loren’s a busy beaver!  Makes me a bit nervous... he’s 77, after all.  I keep peering out the window when he’s out there...  Those are big trees.  He has a brand-spankin’-new Silverado crewcab pickup, which he was using to pull the trees down after partially cutting through the trunk.  In addition to hoping he doesn’t get hurt, I also hope he doesn’t put a scratch on that snazzy, fancy-schmancy pickup!  He’s careful and particular... and I want him to stay that way – for a long time. 

I peeked out the window again... and down went the big tree, behind Loren’s pickup.  Pickup and brother were still in one piece.  Lura Kay, who is a couple of years younger than he is, sometimes asks him, upon hearing of these exploits, “Do you have any idea how old you are??” 

He laughs and assures her that he is careful. 

I fixed him some food for him to take home – but he got hungry and ate every last bite before he left.

That evening, I took Amy a birthday gift.  Her birthday is the day after mine.  We got her a soft, thick throw that looks like mink, with Sherpa on the reverse side.  I wrapped the box with calendar pages from a quilt calendar, and later Amy wrote, “Emma told me I was NOT going to tear the wrapping paper, so we carefully took it off.  J ”

That day, I finished the Amazing Grace quilt top, then put together the back.  This involved a lot of piecing, as I was running out of coordinating fabric.  When it was ready to be loaded onto the frame, I quit for the night, thinking I would need to buy some batting.

I sat down in my recliner and read the news and looked at some youtube videos of the floods in South Carolina.  So much devastation, it’s hard to imagine.

And then there was the guy waterskiing behind a pickup, zippity-splooshity-whoosh down Main.  (I hope he washed his feet before he went to bed.)

Friday, I filled my coffee mug with French Vanilla Almond coffee (mmmm, mmm – Cameron’s is good coffee), then went and looked through the drawers in my quilting room.  I was happy to find enough batting – and it was actually the same kind! – or at least similar enough that it wouldn’t matter.  I pieced it together (the quilt will have enough quilting on it that the pieced batting will never be felt), loaded it on my frame, and started quilting.

One of the things I like about my Bernina Artista 180 is its perfect 9mm zigzag, perfect for piecing batting together.

Later that afternoon, I took a little break to make supper and take some to my brother, then got back to the quilting.  Caleb and Maria’s anniversary is the 13th!  Gotta hurry, hurry...

Quilting Laws According to Murphy

Question!!!

How is it, I’d like to know, that a sonny boy who hasn’t set foot in my quilting room for months, marches right in, big as you please, when I have his quilt on my frame??? 

Yeah, that was Caleb, ka-thumpity-thumping down the stairs, purring Tabby cat in his arms, looking for the manual to his weight-lifting set, which used to reside at the far end of my quilting frame.  I never said a word about my quilting, just acted pleased to see him, and chatted about four-wheelers, purring Tabby cats, helmets, and the boxer puppy he’s in search of.  Dogs and cats and four-wheelers generally distract boys from quilts.

It was just a couple of months ago that Loren waltzed in unexpectedly – and half of the quilt I was making for him was draped over the back of the couch.

Are quilts somehow mysteriously magnetized to the people for whom they are being made, by telepathy?  Or maybe osmosis, with knowledge molecules traveling from the quilt into my fingertips, permeating upwards and storing themselves in the trochlear notch of the elbow, and then jumping into the projected quilt recipients’ brains when I get within a couple feet of them??

I rolled the quilt forward a smidgeon and got on with the next half of a row.  The first row always takes the longest, as I must decide exactly what to quilt and how to go about it.  

A friend wanted to know how it is that Caleb and Maria don’t already know all about their quilt, since I post details online all about it.  Wellllll...  I don’t think Caleb and Maria read my scribblings.  If they do, they haven’t told me! 

That being said, I have at least twice sent an email full of pictures of some creation I’ve concocted off to a number of recipients – including the very person for whom I made it. 

If people don’t stumble on a surprise accidentally, I whack ’em right in the face with it!

Hmmm.  I wonder just how many of my friends, enemies, relations, and acquaintances read my blogs, whom I never dreamed would do so?

I used up the last of the feline Amoxicillin that night.  Fortunately, Teensy seems to be all better.

Saturday evening, Teddy came for a haircut, bringing a big bag full of gifts for our birthdays (Larry’s is November 3rd).  They gave us each a pack of soft wool socks and Thermal, lidded coffee mugs, with auto-seal buttons on the lid and drink spout.  I cabbaged onto the purple one without so much as a ‘by your leave’.

The bottom of the bag was chockful of all kinds of chocolates.  I love chocolates... but I have to eat them with extreme care, these days.  Two small pieces at a time, no more.  If I get greedy and eat four in the span of 24 hours, I live to regret it.  Pathetic.

By late that night, I’d almost made it down to verse 3 with the quilting.  (Anybody who doesn’t know what quilt I’m talking about is going to be scratching their heads.  ‘Verse 3?’)  There are four verses, so that means I’m almost half done. 

Here I am at Keller State Park.  Get a load of those shoes.  You see why I say, with those on, I’ll never get lost. 

The shot is slightly blurry.  Or at least I am.  The trouble with self-timers is that the camera focuses on, oh, whatever it happens to think you might want it to focus on, and you go scampering to get into the frame, and put yourself in an unfocused area.

I think there’s a chickadee in a branch of the tree that’s due west of me that’s in absolutely poifect focus.

Sunday afternoon, since no large, flat, rectangular box had shown up for me to put the basket with the placemats and table runner into, I just wrapped basket and all with clear cellophane, pulling it around the basket to a floof in the middle, then attaching big handfuls of shiny white, matte white, shiny silver, matte silver, and crinkled silver ribbon curls around the floof (technical term meaning ‘floof’).  It looked kinda pretty, if I do say so myself.

See, here it is, smack-dab center stage:

My great-niece’s wedding was last night.  Since our new Fellowship Hall is under construction, and will be for quite a few months, we had the reception at our friend Tom Tucker’s big building where he sells campers.  It was all decorated so prettily, one would never have guessed it was a camper repair and sales business, except for all the campers outside on the lot.

My Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen were here from St. Louis, Missouri.  Uncle Bill is Daddy’s youngest and only living brother; he’s 91.  He certainly doesn’t look it.  He and Aunt Helen still travel a lot, and often go on bicycle rides near their home.

Back to the quilting!  I really don’t think I’m going to get that thing done by tomorrow evening.  If not... it’ll just have to be late!

,,,>^..^<,,,     Sarah Lynn     ,,,>^..^<,,,