Journal: Christmas Trees and Gifts and Bad Jeeps

Last Monday, our neighbor man put up a snow fence.  I wonder how that will affect all of us who must use the lane?  We maybe never know, if we don’t get any more snow than has been predicted on AccuWeather.com through the middle of March.

As I was looking at the AccuWeather map for this evening, I saw numerous places across the country where they are getting snow.  I like maps.  There sure are a lot of unique names of towns across the globe.  I picture people taking it on themselves to name towns and places, years ago, deciding not to follow phonics in spelling things, just making up all those names and words willy-nilly, then rubbing their hands together in glee as they anticipated all the people (to say nothing of the schoolchildren) who would come after them, and get all tripped up over rough and bough and cough and slough and suchlike. 

Like these:  Rough and Ready, California.  Mistletoe Bough, Alabama.  Coughton Court, New Jersey.  Slough, Berkshire. 

My friend Penny and I once decided that Council Bluffs should be spelt as follows:

Kownsill Bloughce

Clever, weren’t we?

One of the town mispronunciations that bugs me is Norfolk.  Nor’-folk.  Not ‘Norfork’.  When my kiddos said ‘Norfork’, I’d ask them if there was an ‘Old Forks’ Home’ there.  hee hee  They soon remembered.  Usually.

Tuesday, I went to my brother’s house and helped him wrap and bag Christmas gifts.  A few of the bags I took were used.  Still nice, easily reusable; but used.  I pulled out a bag that was the perfect size for one of the gifts Loren had.  It was one Hester had used for one of Larry’s gifts last year.  And it had three truffles in it! 

They were well wrapped; they’d been in a cool basement; they smelled good.  I put them in my purse, and later that evening Larry happily polished them off.

We spent about five hours sorting and bagging or wrapping gifts, and finished just in time for me to go pick up six little Jackson kids at school.  After I took them home, I went back to Loren’s house to gather up all the Christmas stuff I’d taken there, and to bring gifts for my side of the family home to put under our tree.  He paid me for the bags and the wrapping paper, and for my time, too, despite my protests.  Then he helped me load the Jeep.  When we finished, it was plumb full.

I bid him adieu, climbed in, turned the key – and the Jeep wouldn’t start.  All the dash lights came on, but it didn’t even try to fire.  No click, no noise at all.  It’s evidently the same old problem with the computer to the fuel pump, all over again.  :-\

I trotted back into Loren’s house, told him the troubles... and soon I was driving his Buick Rainier home, while my Jeep went on sitting stubbornly (and silently) in his driveway.

When I got home, I discovered Tiger in the house.  I inquired into whether or not Larry, or maybe Victoria, had come in while I was gone, but they hadn’t.  That fat cat had evidently squeeeeeezed in through the pet door, somehow.  I was gone for so long, he must’ve been desperate to get to the food!

I consoled myself for the Jeep troubles with peanut butter on multi-grain club crackers, and washed it down with chocolate milk.  Soon a hot cup of coffee was sitting on my mug warmer.  So, Jeep or no Jeep, all was well!

That Commander has worked wonderfully for two years.  It’s a 2008.  I suppose something computerish is sending bad signals.  I certainly hope we can get it fixed; I like that vehicle!

I started working on my Christmas letter – and crashed my brand-new Microsoft Word by trying to open 45 documents at once.  What’s wrong with the wimpy program, that it can’t handle the relatively small number of 45 documents?!  Hissss, boooo.

A few years ago, we got a Christmas letter from someone who told us the six-digit amounts their children were making per year. 

My Mama done tol’ me dat wuz rude. 

Me, on the othuh hand, I’m a-gonna tell about the cat thinking the potted plant was the litter box, and Larry cleaning it up with a vacuum in which he forgot to replace the filter, thereby putting fine grit on every surface in the house, whether horizontal or vertical.  I’m not rude!!

(Am I?)

So.  How many chapters shall I make in this letter?  ((evil sniggle))

While I typed, I tried out the neck-roll-collar massager/heater Loren gave Larry.  It has rollers in the back that go ’round and ’round, back and forth, massaging, and it’s heated.  I set it on Low and pushed the On button. 

!  Good grief!  I think if I turned it on High, I would be in danger of being beheaded!  Or at least benecked.

It does feel kinda good, though.

((purrrrrrrrrrr...))

Somebody wanted to know if Loren was now afoot.  hee hee  No... Loren has a big new Ford crewcab pickup and a Buick Lucerne, besides.  After he got off work, Larry went to Loren’s house to see if he could get the Jeep started.  A little while later, Loren and Larry walked into our house—to get my spare key.  Yep, Larry had locked the other key in the Jeep.

Back they went, and Larry tried various things, all to no avail.  The battery was not run down, there was fuel in the tank – but the vehicle would not start.

It was late, and the Jeep dealership was closed.  So Larry locked the Jeep (with the keys out of the Jeep, this time), and left it sitting in Loren’s driveway.  None of the gifts in it would be damaged by cold, so he left them in it.

Late Wednesday morning, Loren arrived.  He’d retrieved all those presents and gift-wrapping supplies from the Jeep, loaded them into his pickup, and brought them here.  I just knew he wouldn’t be able to wait until Larry was home and we could go get them ourselves!  It was very cold, the wind was blowing fiercely, and it took him a lot of trips in and out of the house.  I’d just washed my hair and it was dripping wet, so he didn’t want me to help.  (Not that I wanted to; but then neither did I like seeing my brother doing all that work in such weather!)  :-\

That afternoon, it made it up to 19°.  The wind chill was 4°, with winds gusting at 30 mph.  West Yellowstone was at -5°; Barrow, Alaska, at -18°; Jasper, Canada, -21° --- and Alert, Nunavut, Canada, the northernmost town in the world was warmer than both Barrow and Jasper, at -13°.

Soon it was time to pick up little Jackson chillen at school.  I wondered how many there would be to collect (some days Leroy goes to preschool), and how they would like sitting double-decker (i.e., one atop the other), if indeed it came down to it.  (For those of you who now have your fingers posed over the hotline to the Child Protective Agency, that was a joke.  Relax.)  The Rainier has only two rows of seats, seating five adults.  The Commander with its three rows seats eight. 

“Well, if you have some rope, there’s always the roof,” said one Helpful Hattie.  :-D

Fortunately, there were only four to pick up that day.

Tuesday, I had told the children that, in helping their Great-uncle Loren wrap gifts, I made sure to wrap the best one for myself. 

Wednesday, upon mentioning that we’d finished that job, Emma, quick as a wink, inquired, “Did you wrap one for me?!” 

So I, just as quick, responded, “Well, that was rude.” 

You haven’t really experienced the ‘ringing of laughter’ until you’ve had a throng of little Jackson kiddos burst out laughing in the confines of your vehicle. 

And yes, they all remembered that I’d told them I would wrap the best gift for me.

What’s funny about these kids is that, while they’re willing to help tease each other, it’s only to a point.  Once that invisible point is reached, they start defending each other.  :-)

As I climbed the steps to the back deck, I heard blue jays twarbling (it’s a word! Tell Bill Gates to stop underlining it in zigzagging red!) for food, so I filled the bird feeder, and soon they were clustered around it.  If you want to know what ‘twarbling’ sounds like, check out the 4^th audio clip here:  Blue Jay sounds

Sometimes they sound like those old Fisher Price apples.  Warning:  The narratorgirl [should be one word] will drive you nuts.

That day, a friend gave me a baby quilt she wanted me to quilt.  It was for her first grandchild, and it was also going to be my great-niece’s first baby.  I pulled it from the bag, thinking, Quick pantograph.  One look at my friend’s absolutely adorable baby quilt with its many hand-embroidered Noah’s-Ark-themed blocks, and I abandoned that notion.  No way would I feel right about just giving it a lick and a promise.   This baby quilt needed my best efforts!

In this new Office 365 program, ol’ Billyboy Gates has upped his game, grammar-wise.  (Okay, okay, I know I should blame Satya Nadella, but his name [why is ‘Satya’ a man’s name??!] is too hard to remember; I prefer to blame Bill Gates.)  Anyway, this program takes all sorts of umbrage at my eloquent loquaciousness, putting big obnoxious dashed red lines under wordage that is positively magniloquent, grandiloquent, impassioned, and expressive!  He’s just jealous of my mellifluence.  So there.

And here’s a funny:  he put no red lines (except a red zigzag under Billyboy) anywhere in that last paragraph, but put a dashed line under ‘absolutely adorable’ and suggests that I use ‘more concise language’.  Pffft.  The above paragraph evidently blew all his diodes.  ((evil sniggle))

Bet you didn’t know that the CEO of Microsoft personally stands invisibly behind you, reading over your shoulder, and Bluetooth-remotely throwing in those red wavy lines, did you?}

Here’s a little downy woodpecker that’s been frequenting the suet blocks.  More bird and squirrel photos are here.

Larry and I got the Christmas tree decorated that night after church.  We haven’t decorated a tree with help from the kids for... ?  probably 32 or 33 years.

Thursday, I started quilting the Noah’s Ark baby quilt.  By bedtime, I was almost to the halfway point.

I made split pea soup for supper.  Mmmmm... I really like that stuff, so long as it isn’t cooked to mush.  I put carrots, onions, and celery in it, with quite a bit of seasonings.  I use a variety of seasonings, as opposed to one big bottle of ‘seasoned salt’ with ‘everything’ in it.  To my tastebuds, those mixtures all blend and each spice picks up the flavor of the other spices, until it’s quite homogenized; whereas a combination of individual spices is more, uh, ... spicy.  ;-)  I feel the same way about canned fruit cocktail.

When Larry got off work, he went to Loren’s house to see if he could get the Jeep started.  He tried this and that... and finally decided he would have to short-circuit the thing, bypassing the faulty computer module, to get it started.  In order to make sure he disconnected and then reconnected the right relay switches, he put his hand on them, and asked Loren to turn the key.

The vehicle started, just as if nothing at all had ever been the matter with it.

“Let’s get this thing to Columbus Motors quick, before it dies!” exclaimed Larry.

He jumped in and drove it posthaste to the dealership, with Loren following in his own vehicle to give him a ride home, as there was no courtesy vehicle ready at the moment.  It wasn’t until Saturday that one became available.  So Saturday morning Larry took the Rainier back to Loren, and then picked up a Dodge Grand Caravan for us to drive until the Jeep is fixed.

As he was taking the Commander to Columbus Motors Thursday evening, Victoria called and asked if he would like to come get some food – she’d made steak, potatoes, and mixed vegetables, and had more than enough.  He would, and he did... and when he got here, having been polishing up his chops for said steak dinner all the way home, he ate that instead of the split pea soup.  I’d already eaten soup, so I saved Victoria’s supper for the next night, when Larry had split pea soup.  Short-order café, we have us here!

Friday, a friend sent me pictures with daffodils and tulips in them.  I glanced out the window... and saw – snowflakes coming down.

And now, in additional to the obese Tiger cat, Little Gray is bound and determined he WILL be my cat, whether I put him back out the door... block the pet door... or not.

At this very moment, we have three cats on the bed – Teensy, Tabby, and Tiger – and one purringly asleep on a piece of fleece atop the dyer – Little Gray.  Sigggghhhhhhh...

Featherweight little Tabby has always pretended to bite, when he plays – but he’d never, ever even touch his teeth to any of the children, even when he was just a year old.  But he’d pull his lips back so far, it would make his nose wrinkle, and boy oh boy, would he look fierce.  Now he’s had a number of teeth removed some years back on account of gum disease, and he’s learned he can actually make connection with his gums when he’s playing with us.  He’s 19 years old, but still loves to play. 

Socks used to like playing with strings and sticks and suchlike... but if he ever snagged one of us with a claw, he would immediately stop playing, lay down, and curl his paws under him, quite as if it made him feel terrible that he’d accidentally clawed someone.

Teensy purrs and pumps and kneads... and his claws go in and out, and if it’s on your bare arm, he can really do a number on you!  I howl and tap a little paw and tell him to be careful, and he slows waaaay down, gazes sorrowfully into my face, bumps the top of his head against me, and slowly resumes where he left off.  hee hee

Some cats understand the ‘ouch’ of their claws better than others, I guess!

We’ve always played gently with the cats.  I never let the children roughhouse with them, or do anything that agitated them; and thus we’ve wound up with especially nice cats.  Most of the time, animals are as nice as one gives them cause to be.  Most of the time.

Kitties have so much personality in those little heads of theirs!

I headed downstairs to the quilting machine, bound and determined to get the Noah’s Ark baby quilt done that day.  And get it done, I did.  More pictures here.

Saturday, I started typing my Christmas letter.  For breakfast, I had one of Victoria’s clover-leaf rolls, sliced in half and warmed under the broiler, then slathered with butter, and with an egg, sunny-side up, atop it.  Mmmmm.  I was happy as a turtle on a conveyor belt.

Remember the wool skirts I ordered from eBay?  They both came.  They are both nice.  But... when I pulled skirt #2 from the package... Aarrgghh, it reeked of mothballs!  It was a beautiful skirt... and I planned to wear it for Christmas with the new Pendleton wool jacket from Lura Kay... but it was totally unwearable, smelling as it did. 

I looked online to see what the best remedy was.  Sunlight was recommended... soaking in vinegar... bleach... dry-cleaning...

Well, I could hang it outside, but it was only 28° that day, and liable to snow, so that probably wasn’t going to do much good.  It would likely take a trip to the dry cleaners, and even that is not always successful with mothball odor.  The vinegar or bleach methods were out of the question, with this fabric.  I wrote this in a note to the eBay seller, adding, “Members of my family have asthma, and the chemical in mothballs is extremely harmful to them.  I don’t have asthma, but it immediately gave me a headache.  Ugh!”

 An alternative to mothballs is fresh lavender.

The lady answered later that day with an apology and an offer to repay $10 to me for dry-cleaning, or a total refund if I returned the skirt (and buyer pays shipping).  “I bought it secondhand and aired it outside for a few days,” she wrote.  “My husband and I honestly thought it no longer smelled of mothballs.  I actually asked him to smell it to be sure since he has a super sensitive nose.”

‘Super-sensitive’, huh?  Well... maybe being in that plastic-bubble packaging brought the smell back to life.  Maybe.

But in the meantime, I rummaged around in my laundry room, and came up with a box of Dryel, the 30-min In-Dryer Cleaner.  There was still a full little bottle of the cleaning booster spray, which is supposed to be okay for wool.  I spread the skirt out and sprayed it thoroughly.  Then I put it in the dryer on medium heat with one of the damp ‘ultra-cleaning cloths’ that comes in a sealed package in the box.

When the dryer buzzed about 30 minutes later and I pulled the skirt out, I was amazed to discover all traces of mothball scent was completely gone, and it has the good (but faint) smell of Dryel, mixed with the actual wool scent of the skirt fibers.  The process has taken the crispness out of the pleats a bit, but I’ll be able to put them back in easily with my Rowenta Steam Pressing Station.

So I told the lady this good news, adding, “I’m not blaming you at all; just wanted you to know, so you might be on the lookout in the future, since, as I mentioned, the scent can be particularly harmful to some people.  One thing we can all say for sure:  There are no moth holes in this skirt!!!  haha  I’m happy with the skirt, it wasn’t your fault, and you needn’t send me any refund.  Your price was fair.  But thank you for offering; I appreciate it.”

Thus ended that drama.

By then, I needed a snack.  I went to find the cheese curds Larry had brought home the night before.

Where were they, where were they???  Did he eat the whole package?!

I finally found them, hiding on a top shelf.  I fired off a note to the culprit:  “Cheese goes in the BOTTOM shelf in the refrigerator door, not the TOP shelf.”

An answer came back right promptly:  “I hide the cheese from mice.  🐭 ”

I retorted, “SQUEEEAK.”  Then, “If you bring home some vanilla ice cream, I could make some strawberry/peach milkshakes.”  He did, and I did, and mmmm-mmm, were they ever good.

Larry has had his hearing aids for a couple of years now.  He hasn’t been overly impressed with them.  There are three settings, and the instructions said that setting #2 was the right one for such places as church.

Yesterday for the first time, he tried it on setting #3 – and found it to be waaaaay better.

It was cold – barely got past 21°, and the wind chill was 6°.  Brrrr.  I pulled out my forest green wool dress coat with the big fur-lined hood.  We got out to the van – and I discovered I should have used the lint roller on that coat.  It looked like I’d cuddled every cat in the vicinity and then dusted the house with it.

I never exaggerate.

((ahem))

The Dodge Grand Caravan we are now driving is a bare-bones (but almost new) van.  ‘Grand Caravan.’  Hmmmph.  That’s false advertising.  Can’t call anything ‘Grand’ when it doesn’t even have heated seats, nor yet electric seats!  I find it difficult these days to pull up on a lever in front of and under the seat, whilst simultaneously trying to slide said seat either forward or backward.  But it will haul all the little grandchildren I need to bring home from school; there is that.

The Jeep, meanwhile, sits at the dealership, halo glowing.  It refuses to misbehave for the mechanics!  :-P

I gave my friend her quilt Sunday morning.  That evening, she wrote me the sweetest thank-you note in a pretty card – and she gave me extra $$$$, too.  I’m pleased she was so very pleased with the quilt.

Last night after church we went to Sapp Bros. and got a fleece blanket with a farm scene for Lawrence.  Since they were having a sale – two blankets for $40 – we got another for Loren, with a Bible and other books on it.

Today is the 13^th anniversary of when my mother passed away.  She was 86.  Even that last week before she died, she was worrying over whether or not her grandchildren and great-grandchildren had enough warm hats, gloves, scarves, socks, etc.  One afternoon she awoke from a nap (she was in the hospital), she saw me sitting nearby, asked what the temperature was – and told me to get her purse from under the end table so she could give me money to go buy warm clothes for the kids.

Then, suddenly realizing where she was (she’d thought she was in her own living room), she laughed and laughed, even though she was all out of breath (she had congestive heart failure).

Another time when she was in the hospital’s long-term care section for three or four weeks, a nurse would come in multiple times a day and ask questions to discern the state of the patient’s mind and cognitive status.  This got old, and not a little aggravating to Mama, though she was unfailingly sweet and compliant with her nurses.

Well, I was there one day when the nurse came in to commence her interview for perhaps the third time that day.  She was one of those sorts who had procedure all down-pat – but truly had no (or very little) common sense whatsoever. 

“What is your name?” she queried.  Mama dutifully told her.  “How old are you?” continued the nurse.

Mama, in her sweet voice, asked, “What year is this?”

The nurse’s eyes widened, and she looked around, clearly thinking, I knew it!  She’s all confused, and going downhill fassst!

“It’s 2002,” the nurse told her primly in clear, pronounced syllables.

Mama smiled.  Anyone who knew her would’ve spotted that twinkle in her eye.  “Well,” she told the nurse, “I was born in 1917.  So now, what you do is, you subtract the year 1917 from the year 2002, and then you’ll know how old I am.  And maybe if you figure it out that way, you’ll remember, and then you won’t have to keep asking!”

The nurse, evidently as short on humor as she was on common sense, stood a moment, nonplused, then, with a small smile at Mama, she nodded and scurried out.  Mama grinned at me, and I gave up trying not to laugh. 

“She’s just doing her job,” Mama told me, precluding any exclamations of annoyance I might have made. 

Mama probably wondered how in the world she had produced such a confrontational daughter as me.  I like to think I’ve become more like her as I’ve aged.  But I still have a long ways to go, I think.

I miss her. 

Oh, and the nurse did not soon ask that question again.

A friend asked if my mother quilted or did any other type of craft.

She didn’t, but she could have, and there were some unfinished projects in her basement that I never even knew she started:  embroidery, clothes construction, quilting, painting... but her time was not her own.  Our home was a busy parsonage, with people coming and going at all hours of the day, usually with no previous warning.  My parents welcomed them all; my mother was gracious and hospitable, and served many a lunch to many a soul.  Her own things always took a back seat.

I grew up thinking all this was normal... but, looking back, I can only imagine the pressure she must have been under most of the time, with all the impositions on her life.  I certainly couldn’t cope with what she did – or at least not without getting all snarly and miserable.  Instead of fixing yet another piece of toast and jelly for someone, I’d be more likely to thwomp (it’s a good word) them over the head with the loaf and say, “If you want some, fix it yourself!”  (Mr. Gates didn’t even under the word ‘thwomp’ in red squiggles!  ??)

I remember being so disappointed the time my mother started a prequilted mint-green robe for me, when I was about 8... but never got it done.  I grew out of it without it ever being completed.  But Mama was sure happy when I unearthed that unfinished robe from somewhere in her house, and then finished it for one of my own daughters! 

When I was a teenager, I sewed my mother a dress.  I made it from one of my own patterns – thus putting my 61-year-old mother (she was almost 44 when I was born) into a teenage-style dress.  She wore it without complaint.  Some years later, I remarked to my sister, “Mama must’ve liked me more than I thought, to wear that dress!!” 

Lura Kay laughed and said, “Mama was really proud of the way you liked to sew, and tackled anything that caught your fancy.”

I glowed in the light of my sister’s offhand remark for days. 

This afternoon my customer for whom I quilted the French lace quilt sent me a picture of her sister with her quilt.  “She said it is ‘breathless’.  Totally her and she is going to decorate her room to match it.  Paint the walls a lighter color.  She was on the phone for some time saying how much she loved it.  Thank you for a beautiful job, Sarah,” wrote my customer.

I’m very happy that the lady likes it.  I feel better about that quilt now.  It just wasn’t as perfect as I would have liked it to be.  I had a very difficult time quilting it, because the batting was thick and dense, and it caused too much fullness in the linen, as the batting had no ‘give’ to it.  The last thing I want to do is wreck up someone’s pretty quilt with subpar quilting!  The sisters had purchased the French lace and French linen in France when they visited that country.

Amy sent a picture of Lawrence holding Baby Elsie, who is almost a month old -- taken today, on his 89th birthday.

And then we got the news:  Mark and Jamie’s new baby had arrived.  It’s a little girl, and they named her Mckenna Rachel.  She’s my great-great-niece. 

The thing is, my friend had already made a quilt with lots of pink, in case it was a little girl.  The Noah’s Ark quilt was for in case it was a little boy.  But last night after church, I told her, “It really would be just fine for either a boy or a girl.”

Don’t you think so, too?

Some online quilting friends were talking about how in years gone by, people weren’t so concerned about locking doors as they are now.  Some told stories of break-ins (or ‘walk-ins’, as it were).  Here is my ‘Intruder in the House’ story:

It was Halloween, 1993, and Caleb was two weeks old. 

After our Sunday evening church service, several young men stayed to guard the church, as the area was having a bit of trouble from young rabble-rousers intent on destroying property. 

After a time of quiet throughout the neighborhood, all the lookouts went home.  It was not yet midnight, and Larry thought that, in view of previous incidents of vandalism hereabouts that had occurred after midnight, he would stay outside a while longer, driving or walking around the vicinity.

As it turned out, he should have stayed home and guarded his house, rather than the neighborhood.

I listened as he backed the car out of the garage and drove down the avenue.  The garage door descended, and all was quiet.  Caleb, who was two weeks old, had just had his usual midnight snack, and gone back to sleep.

I went into the kitchen to wash Sunday’s usual jumble of dishes.

Aleutia, our big Siberian husky, lay sprawled out on her side at the kitchen doorway that led into the front hallway, so that she was between me, the front door, and the garage door, all at the same time.  She customarily tried her best to sleep halfway between me and the door, any time Larry was out.

I pulled plates from the dishwasher, stacking them as noiselessly as possible, so as not to awaken the baby.

The front door opened quietly.  I, supposing Larry had returned for his gloves or flashlight, since he had not driven the car into the garage, glanced up, looking toward Aleutia, expecting her to jump up and greet him.

She had awoken immediately, lifted her head, and was looking directly toward the front door.  Her ears were straight up, and her bright blue eyes were intent.  Otherwise, she did not move a muscle.

I watched her, thinking what a funny dog she was.  She rarely barked, and sometimes her method of welcoming us was to lie silently, watching our approach until we were mere feet away, whereupon she would spring lithely to her feet and run to poke her cold, wet muzzle into our palms, big plume of a tail swinging gladly to and fro.

I heard the sound of a man’s heavy boot on the hall floor, then nothing for a moment.  A small rustling noise, and the door went shut again.

Hmmm, I thought, Whatever it was he forgot must have been right inside the door.

I turned back to the dishwasher.

Half an hour later, Larry pulled into the garage and came in, and Aleutia leaped up and ran to meet him, tail wagging hard.  Larry patted the big dog, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down at the table.  I wiped off the last counter, poured some coffee for me, and sat down beside him.

“Nothing’s happening out there,” he told me; “It looks like everyone has gone to bed.”  He took a sip of his coffee.  “There aren’t any young people driving around uptown anymore, either; I looked.”

I nodded and sipped from my own cup.  We talked companionably for a few minutes, and then, happening to remember, I asked conversationally, “What did you come in to get a little while ago?”

Larry looked blank.  “When?”

“Oh,” I said, waving a hand, “about half an hour ago or so, when you came in the front door.”

“The front door?”  Larry shook his head, puzzled.  “I didn’t come in the front door.”

“Yes, you did,” I argued, “I heard you.  Aleutia heard you, too; she sat up and looked at the door.  You must have picked something up and then gone back out.”

“I didn’t,” replied Larry adamantly.  “I never even got out of the car from the moment I climbed into it.”

I started to tell him he had too done just that, when it occurred to me that other men wear boots, too; and I had wondered momentarily about Aleutia not acting gladder to see him, and I closed my mouth, turned my head, and stared at my husband.  At the same instant, he set down his coffee mug, turned his head, and stared at me.

Then he jumped to his feet and hurried into the front hallway, Aleutia wagging along beside him, and me trailing along behind.

There was nothing there.

“What did you expect to find,” I asked irreverently, “A dead body?”

Larry ignored me and took a close look at the floor, evidently looking for boot prints.  There were none.

“Well,” I said, shrugging a shoulder, “I don’t know who it was, what he was doing, or why; but I do know why he went back out straight-away.”  I pointed at Aleutia.  “He took one look at that dog staring at him with those bright blue eyes, and he thought better of whatever he was planning to do.”  ((pause))  “But if Aleutia had not have been here, whoever-he-was would have gotten the surprise of his life when he walked around the corner and into the kitchen.”

“Yes?” prompted Larry.

“I was doing the dishes, the dishwasher was open, and it was nearly full of dishes.  Arsenal.  There would have been no end to the missiles I would have been hurling at him!  I tell you, he would have been surprised.”

“Until you knocked him cold, I suppose he would’ve been,” agreed Larry.

The End

This afternoon, I picked up Larry’s check... then the grandkids... then went to the bank (which surprised them, since I usually head straight home with them).  The Dodge Grand Caravan might be a bare-bones vehicle, but it sure works nice.

The Christmas cards for my friend Rita came today.  The pictures I ordered for both her and for us will arrive Wednesday.  Why Wednesday, when the parcel got to Omaha Saturday morning??!  I could’ve gone to Omaha and picked them up myself by noon Saturday.  ((rolling eyes))  Oh, well.  I have plenty with which to keep myself occupied, until then. 

A friend posted some pretty pictures of crocheting.  “That makes me want to learn to crochet!” I remarked.

“Where on earth would you fit it into your schedule??????” asked one lady.

Well, maybe I’ll...  I know, I know!  I’ll give up dusting.

...  ((pause)) ...

Oh.  I did that already.

Larry got home not so very long ago, tired and needing a bath.  So he called his mother and talked to her, then wished Lawrence a Happy Birthday over the phone, and said we’d come tomorrow night, if he got off work a little earlier.

His brother Kenny and his family were there; we could hear them in the background.  Rachel, our niece who makes the beautiful cakes, assured Larry that there was more than enough cake left, and he’d still get a piece tomorrow. 

Lawrence may be a ‘step-great-grandpa’, but he’s never acted like anything other than a ‘real’ grandpa to all our children, and to all of Larry’s brother’s children.  He and Norma, Larry’s mother, were married in 1991 a few years after losing both their mates to cancer.  I’ve known him since I was a baby – since before I can remember.  He’s been a loving, generous stepfather-in-law.

Here’s a picture of Lawrence and Norma that Hannah took when she was about 14 years old – that would’ve been when they’d been married about five years, I suppose.

It’s 8° tonight.  The wind chill is 6 below 0. 

Meanwhile, it’s 78° in Miami Beach right now this very instant, and it is expected to get up to 84° tomorrow.

And why is there a mosquito sailing grandly around the room in the dead of winter??!

This is your friendly weather service, signing off.

DL6KVA, may you have a good day!