Journal: Glasses, Tablets, Birthdays, & Country Drives

I got two pairs of new glasses Saturday, March 4^th, one with graduated or transitional lenses, the other with a single prescription throughout the lens.  The doctor called them ‘crafting glasses’; the man who made sure they were the proper fit called them ‘piano glasses’, and the receptionist called them ‘reading glasses’.  One way or the other, I’m very happy with them.  I can now actually read words on the song rack of my piano when I’m sitting on the bench!

One day last week I was cleaning the glasses – and was all dismayed because I thought I’d scratched them.  I put on my other glasses, the better to see them – but it was late, and my eyes were tired and didn’t want to focus.  Odd, though; there were identical ‘scratches’ on each lens, two on each.

The next morning, I took a better look.

How ’bout that?  There are tiny engraved emblems – numbers and letters – on the lenses!  I’d nearly removed the prescription in the lens, trying to rub those things out.

A couple of days later, I thought I’d scratched the other pair.  I donned the reading glasses, took a look – and discovered there are emblems on these, too.  First time I’ve seen that.  So I took pictures of them, using my macro lens.

I usually don’t notice the emblems at all on the transitional lenses while wearing them.  Now and then when wearing the crafting glasses, however, an engraving will catch the light.

Monday evening, I noticed a plethora of email notices from Verizon, including some concerning ‘new devices’.  Turns out, Caleb and Larry had gone to Verizon to see what they could do about making our astronomical bill lower.  Caleb is still on our plan; he and Larry both have smartphones.  I have a dum-de-dum-dumb phone.  They learned that one needs to go for more to get less.  That is, if they got two more devices – smartphones or tablets – and choose the unlimited data plan, we would wind up paying $110 less per month.

So, since he owed us for the monthly bill anyway, Caleb bought me a new Asus ZenPad Z10 tablet, and got himself a new iPad.  Thursday, I canceled our wirefree service from our local Internet Service Provider, except for my email, bringing the bill down from $35 a month to $5 a month.  So we will save a total of $140 a month.  Good deal!

Tuesday afternoon, feeling the need for a little snack, I trotted into the kitchen to have one of the cookies Larry had brought home the previous night.  Aauugghh!!  He’d eaten all the rest of them when he was home for lunch earlier!

And then, suddenly, I remembered:  There is one Ferrero Rocher left.

So I galloped down the stairs and retrieved it from its hidey-hole. 

One is just right.  I always want two (or more)... but two gives me a stomachache.

But one Ferrero Rocher isn’t a very big snack, and by 7:00 p.m., I was starving again, so I fixed supper:  Bear Creek potato soup and little 12-grain bread loaves fresh from the oven.  Mine was liberally buttered and slathered with Smucker’s cherry preserves (the bread; not the soup); Larry likes to dip his in his soup.  Pineapples (with pineapple juice, mmmm-mmm) rounded out the meal.

Last week I mentioned Dorcas’ chickens, which are now four weeks old.  Dorcas remarked that one can never be certain for a little while if one has chickens or roosters. 

That reminded me of the time years ago when one of the children asked me how to tell the difference between male and female chickens.  

I said, “The boy chickens play with Tonkas; the girl chickens play with Barbies.”  

On the way home from school the other day, granddaughter Emma confided, “Daddy is always telling us silly stuff!”

Humm.

Dorcas’ chickens are Rhode Island Reds.  When we were driving through the little town of Port St. Joe in the Florida Panhandle last year, a fancy Red went strutting and clucking right across the main thoroughfare.  Everyone stopped and let him pass, and then we all proceeded on.  He turned and stared at all the traffic surging through, clucked loudly and disapprovingly, and ruffled his feathers all up in a muss.

Pretty funny... but I hope someone collected him home again before he tried it again.

Wednesday afternoon when I went to the school to pick up the children, I took along my new tablet.  I added my gmail account, and then sent a note to Hannah:  “I have a comforter and sheets for Aaron and am at the school.  Writing from my new tablet!”

And then the Jackson kiddos all came out.  I gave Emma a white leather purse with lots of buckles and zippers that used to be Victoria’s, filled with all sorts of pretty headbands. 

I didn’t see Hannah... forgot to look for her... and drove away.  Meanwhile, she was parked right behind me, but didn’t get out in time to catch me, as she was talking on her phone.

So that gives irrefutable proof:  new tablets cause senility.  

No, I take that back.  It was after giving Emma the purse that I forgot what I’d just writing to Hannah and drove away.  I’d found the purse and headbands with Victoria’s things when I was cleaning.  Therefore, it’s cleaning house that causes senility!

I need to better learn how to use this tablet.  It’s a lot like Larry’s Android phone, and I used that now and then, so that’s why Larry and Caleb got me the Asus Android tablet rather than an iPad.  I set up Chrome and gmail – and of course one of the first matters of business is putting a cute picture on Desktop.  I chose a squirrel chowing down on a bright red strawberry.  Once there’s a pretty picture on Desktop, I can conquer the world.

Well, maybe.  I needed the thing to rotate!  Why wouldn’t it rotate???

<<...hunting through the settings...>>

Ahhh.  There we go.  My screen now rotates.

Now I can conquer the world.

Next, I connected my laptop to the tablet’s Wi-Fi, and discovered it’s much faster than Megavision.  Then I had to put a security code into my wireless printer so I could print from the laptop and other devices while using the Asus Verizon Wi-Fi.

One of the things I’m very happy about is that Larry will no longer have to go up on the roof or up in the scissor lift, then up a ladder, to reach the Internet dish and adjust it.  I didn’t like that, not one little bit.

Well, I couldn’t play with my new toy all day, so I finally (reluctantly) scampered upstairs to continue working on Caleb’s old room.  And I found the baby quilt that Norma had hand-embroidered and hand-quilted for him!  Soon I had the Jeep full of other things to give the kids after church that night. 

It was son-in-law Andrew’s birthday.  We’d gotten an LED lantern for him at Sears in the Oak View Mall when we went to LensCrafters there.  Later that night, he sent us this picture, writing, “Kitty likes it, too!”

Thursday was another day spent cleaning and sorting.  I found the stuffed beaver we got Caleb in Canada when he was nine months old.  The beaver is Canada’s national animal symbol.  Larry was heading into a station to pay for our fuel, and I asked him, “If you see a good toy or souvenir for Caleb, could you get it?”  He came out with a rather large stuffed beaver. 

A bit surprised over this choice, I thought, A baby won’t be awfully enthralled with a big ol’ beaver.

Wrong.  Baby loved his big ol’ beaver! – maybe in part because I’d flick the white felt teeth back and forth and make chattering noises and then flap the wide tail, which made the baby laugh and laugh.

Next, I found his Lego Technic harvester, still put together... a little black velvet bag of polished rocks he got in Yellowstone National Park... and then I opened up one of the cubbyhole doors and discovered his big remote-controlled Escalade. 

Almost every time I ask Caleb if he wants this or that, he answers, “Sure!”

Meanwhile, I was also finding things of Victoria’s.  So I write:  “Do you want your spray bottles?  There’s a pretty pink one...  What about your little stone waterfall?  How about this fabric-and-ribbon-covered board that Lydia made for you, with all the pictures on it?  And do you want your furry purple-gray bedroom slippers with the bow and big diamond?”

A few things, such as the picture board, she wants me to save for her, and some things I save for her whether she wants me to or not.  Most of the time, she responds to my query, “No, thanks!”  After a few times of that, she sent a link to a youtube video called ‘No No No Cat’, and wrote, “This is what I sound like!”  It was a clip of an extremely upset cat, ears laid down flat against its head, yowling what sounded very much like “No-no-no-no-no-no-no!!!”  Somebody who didn’t have a clue in his head kept reaching out and petting the cat, which made it crouch back and howl the louder.  I wonder how soon after the clip ended that the man got himself attacked, bitten and clawed to shreds?

Some people haven’t a clue as to how to read animals’ body (and vocal) language.

We were once at the Denver zoo looking at a large field of llamas and alpacas and vicuñas.  A tall llama walked over to the fence, where people were allowed to pet it.  It chewed its cud contentedly and its long-lashed eyelids hung low as it enjoyed the attention.

Enter a lady who looked like she’d dressed for a fashion show rather than the zoo.  Why would anyone go to the zoo in high-heeled shoes?!  She sashayed up and started talking to the llama in a strident, high-pitched voice:  “Hiiiiiiiiiii, llama, llama, llama!!!”

The llama’s eyes opened wide.  He raised his head, flicked his ears, and then held them backwards at odd angles.

The rest of us would’ve done the same, had we similar control over our ears.

The gal hadn’t the foggiest clue that she was irritating that llama.  Several more intelligent souls backed cautiously away from the woman, and were wise to do so -----

---------- because............

Do you know what llamas do when they are irritated?

He did it, too.

He spit.

Right smack-dab in that dolled-up doll’s face, he did.

Fact:  llama spit when they are irritated.  Furthermore, you can tell just how irritated the llama is by what’s in the spit. The more aggravated they are, the farther into each of the three stomach compartments it will pull its spit.

Now, I’m no expert on exactly what compartment contains what, but I can tell you this:  there was a whole lot of green slime running down that woman’s face.  Instead of closing her mouth, she screamed and screamed and screamed.

Most of the people nearby tried to keep their composure, but I particularly remember a man a little distance down the fence line who laughed so hard he was doubled over in half.

One of these days I’ll tell you about the elephant someone tossed something at, when we were at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Amy got delayed at the doctor’s office that afternoon, and she wasn’t going to be home when four of the older children, Emma, Lyle, Jeffrey, and Josiah, got out of school.  So after I picked them up, we went for a drive out through the countryside, and looked at fresh-hatched little calves on the nearby cattle ranches.  They’re soooo cute, with their big soft eyes, long lashes, and curious expressions.  Look at this one, with wet, messed-up fur on his face.  Now, that’s a cowlick!  His mama had just washed his face good and proper.

We took pictures... explored a bit near the Loup Canal... looked down on the Loup River from the bluffs... and then came back to our house to greet the cats.  I gave the children some games and a Beanie Baby stuffed toy apiece, with enough for their siblings, too, and then Amy came to pick them up.

Last Monday evening, I wrote a note to Larry:  “If you bring home some eggs and butter, I’ll make muffins.”  He didn’t see my note in time, and the eggs and butter were not forthcoming until Wednesday night after church.  So later Thursday evening when I found myself standing in the middle of Caleb’s old room, hands full of Stuff and Things, stumped and wondering, What bin, box, or bag shall I put this in? the thought of lemon-poppyseed muffins popped into my head.  ((...drool...))

Quick as a wink, I made up my mind and deposited the entire lot into the bag for the Goodwill.  Then I trotted down to the kitchen to stir up some muffins.  While they baked, I put an old chair and two big bags of things put into the Jeep for the Goodwill.  That is, the chair and bags were for the Goodwill, not the Jeep.  (Things can get confusing so quickly!  heh) 

I filled another bin with books – and then I was out of large bins.  So I filled two sturdy boxes.  I need to get bookcases situated where I want them, and start filling them up – and then the bins can be used for other things. 

I found the heavyweight black sweatshirt with the picture of a bear on it that Caleb got at Yellowstone National Park on our last vacation with him before he was married!  He’ll be glad I told him to get it a little larger than he needed right then – because now it’ll fit him just right (provided I don’t shrink it, washing it).

Somebody dumped two kittens out here.  Again.  Grrrrrr!  They’re probably about three months old.  My cats don’t appreciate this.  There are stray toms that will try to send them to the Great Mousing Grounds.  The town pound refuses to take any animals outside the city limits.  Furthermore, the kittens found the pet door.  So once again, I have the pet door blocker in, and our cats cannot come and go as they wish.  I am their personal valet, and I must stand ready and waiting at the door to open and shut it at two-minute intervals.  Or so they think.

People who dump their animals – particularly baby animals – are so mean!  Their punishment ought to be that they themselves get dumped on a remote Alaskan island.  Kodiak comes to mind.  Did I mention, Grrrrrrrrrr! ?

Friday night, I peered into the freezer to find out what supper was going to be.  There were plenty of Black Angus burgers – but there were no more ciabatta rolls.  We like potato soup poured over them, but we’d already had potato soup a few days earlier.  The next time I fix Black Angus burgers, we need onions, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sweet peppers, ketchup, mustard, relish, and bacon to go with them.

Tomatoes this time of year aren’t so good.  Fresh-picked are not to be had.  Most store-bought tomatoes taste like soggy pink Styrofoam, in comparison to fresh-picked.

(Not that I’ve ever eaten soggy pink Styrofoam.)

I recently ordered Muir Glen canned organic whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes.  They just arrived today; soon we’ll give them a try.

Larry has been working on his older blue pickup at Caleb’s garage most nights after he gets off work.  Friday evening, he wanted to bring two vehicles home.  So Loren followed him home from Caleb’s, ate Mexican pizza with us, then took Larry back to get his other vehicle.

Saturday, Hester sent a picture of a big bull elk and wrote, “Look what we found!” 

I wrote back, “In your back yard?”  (They live in the middle of town.)

She replied, “LOLOLOL  That’s just what Daddy said.  We took a short vacation to Estes Park.”

We don’t have elk, except in far western Nebraska, but we have a lot of deer.  The ones around our neck of the woods are fat and healthy because of all the cornfields.  There are white-tails here, but just a little ways to the west there are also mule deer and antelope.  Farther west, in the Sandhills and National Forests, there are bighorn sheep.

There are so many turkeys that Game and Parks often extends the hunting season on them.  And of course we have a plethora of little critters... let’s see how many I can name:

Opossum, skunk, porcupine, raccoon, black-footed ferret, river otter, muskrat, beaver, bobcat, fox, coyote, prairie dog, weasel... and the usual collection of rodents, from squirrels down to meadow voles and shrews.

Along with turkeys, we have ring-necked pheasants, greater and lesser prairie chickens, grouse... dozens of songbird species and waterfowl... and many birds of prey, including bald eagles that periodically soar right over our house.

As for bigger animals, most years there are cougars or mountain lions that follow the Loup River down through the Sandhills, coming all the way to the outskirts of Columbus.  Some have been sighted just a mile to our south.  The Loup curves and bends its way along, and winds up closer to Jeremy and Lydia’s house than to ours (they are about five miles closer to town than we are), so when I hear about the lions coming through, I call to warn them not to let the little boys play outside alone, especially in the evenings.  They do have a big dog; that’s some protection.

Once, a moose wandered down into the northern part of the state----------- oh, my goodness!  I looked it up to see where it was, and discovered there was one in Platte Center last October!  That’s just eight miles north of us.  That’s somewhat uncommon here, but not so much out west, where they wander down through the Pine Ridge area from the Black Hills of South Dakota.  The Platte Center moose headed back northeast, probably towards Minnesota.  How in the world did I miss out on that news??

Oh.  Yes.  I do know how:  there was a wedding, last October.  I neglected to read the news for a couple of months!

About 13 years ago, a wolf was shot near Spalding, about 60 miles to our northwest.  That wolf had come from a pack in Minnesota – first confirmed wolf in Nebraska since 1913.

There are buffalo, too, but only in the National Grasslands and Wildlife Refuges.  Every once in a while, a black bear wanders over from northwestern Iowa.  The latest I know about was three years ago – and it was in a wooded area not more than an hour’s drive north of Omaha.

Another piece of trivia:  The biggest mammoth fossils ever discovered were found in Lincoln County – that’s out by North Platte, 200 miles to our west.

There!  How was that for my biology lesson of the day?

Shortly after I wrote that, I walked past a window, looked out in the front yard, and saw a cottontail go hippity-hopping through.  I forgot to put bunnies on the list! 

A friend wrote, wanting the story of the elephant at the zoo.  So...

There he was, just minding his own business, blowing dust all over his own back (this wards off bugs and cools the animal), slupping up water from his pool...  Henry Doorly Zoo is a big, nice zoo, and the animals have lots of room with natural habitat, and always look healthy and content.  I enjoy going there. 

Along came a couple of teenage boys, bags of popcorn and peanuts in hand.  The elephant was sucking up trunksful of water, spraying it on himself, and drinking.  Here’s a 45-second clip that shows how they do that:  Elephant Drinking

The boys tried to get the elephant’s attention:  “Hoooooo!!!  HOOO!”  That didn’t work, so they tossed a couple of clods in his direction.  (Not right at the animal, just nearby; they weren’t being mean, just ill-advised.)  They rattled their bags of popcorn and peanuts.  They yelled again.

I saw that wise old elephant’s big eye roll toward those boys, though he didn’t turn his head.  And I thought, Now we will have some entertainment.

The elephant slupped up water into that looong straw.

He swung his trunk.  Back... forth... back... forth... 

The pendulum’s trajectory grew.

Those boys didn’t have clue that, if the elephant doesn’t spray himself, and doesn’t drink the water in that trunk, why, then, that trunk is still plumb full of water!

On the fourth swing, the elephant let loose his suction on his water.

SPPPEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW

He was a good shot, and he didn’t show any favoritism, either – he gave both boys equal doses.  Those two went from hot and dry to dripping wet in three seconds flat.

And both boys said, and I quote, “AAAAAAAAA (blub blub blub) AAAAAAAAAAA (blub blub blub)AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Everybody else said (and I quote), “HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

The elephant calmly looked around at the visitors, blinked his long-lashed eyes a couple of times in good-natured acknowledgement, and went back to drinking and splashing.

So the visit to the zoo was well worth the money that day.

By Saturday night, the back of the Jeep was half full again with stuff for the Goodwill.  One dresser and several more drawers in Caleb’s old room were empty. 

That day, Larry and Caleb put in electric and water lines to Samuel and Grace’s trailer from Caleb’s house.  It’s a big trailer, 45 feet long, with three large slide-outs.  Caleb’s father-in-law Dwight (Samuel’s father), with some help from Jeremy, finished fixing up all the things in the camper that needed to be fixed.  Jeremy put wood trim on the ceiling, and it all looks very nice.

I found a book of Hannah’s – My First Baking Cookbook.  Inside the front cover it says, “To Hannah, from Aunt Linda, 1989.”  Hannah would have been eight years old.  And Linda, Bobby’s aunt, signed it “Aunt Linda”, because.......

Back in 1988, after both Larry’s mother Norma and Linda’s father Merlin had lost their mates to cancer, they married.  Six weeks later, Merlin was killed in a one-vehicle accident while working (most likely he had a heart attack).  Everyone was just devastated.  Merlin was one of my own father’s very best friends, and Linda has always been one of my best friends.

Well, Norma then moved into step-daughter Linda’s home, and lived with her until she married Lawrence (who died just a month and a half ago). 

Linda had been glad to call our children her nieces and nephews, and 11 years later, she became Hannah’s aunt by marriage when Hannah married her nephew, Bobby.

So this cookbook will have special meaning.

Did you get all that?  There will be a quiz later.

I also found Caleb’s very first glasses.  They look so little.  He was about 5 years old when he got them.

There’s enough perfume that Victoria left behind and no longer wants, that I could spray myself with five long squirts every hour on the hour for 300 years, and never use it all up.  I’d be woozy, but aromatic.

Sunday night after church, we visited Norma, taking her the machine-embroidered tea towels I made for her birthday.  She’s 78 now.  We had birthday cake and coffee with her, and had a lovely visit.  I have a sweet mother-in-law.

This morning, since I can receive but no longer send email from the lajack@megavision.com address, and I want to use my Outlook program along with my gmail account, I forwarded gmail to Outlook; I will use Outlook to send from gmail.

Soon, just as I feared, having done this before, there was a big mess because the two emails and my gazillions of rules were clashing.  For a while, I was getting duplicates of all group (quilting, sewing, etc.) emails, until I drug all the Megavision folders into the gmail folders.  When some of those folders hit their destination, they were plumb empty – all the saved email was gone.  Now, I had an inkling that this could happen, and I could have saved all that email before dragging it into gmail, but did I? 

Noooooo.  I was in a hurry.  And there was nothing that would be too awful a calamity if it got lost.  I’d saved pictures into folders, and much of my weekly letters are pulled from emails.  Account information (such as for Schwan’s, Wal-Mart, Fabric.com, Amazon, etc.) is saved online.  So I drug folders and hoped for the best.

The computer pretended it was doing the right thing, working away, status bar showing good progress.  When it was done, I checked – and discovered that many folders are totally empty.  Ah, well.  No serious losses.  Quilting business is saved in Excel. 

I’ve been redoing the gazillions of rules I had set up.  I’ve changed my email at various places of import around the Internet.  I have a lot of accounts here, there, and everywhere!  I do all our finances online, and I order a good deal of our necessities (and wants) online.

For a while, multiple rules were in error, preventing most from working properly.  It was sort of like someone in a big office had emptied all the files onto the floor, and then everyone had run and jumped and slid through all the files, like kids on a haystack.  😃

I’ll get ’er whipped into shape, though, just see if I don’t!  I like everything (and I have lots of ‘everythings’) on my computer to be in tiptop shipshape.  Somebody hand me a hammer!

This afternoon, I took a load of stuff to the Goodwill, a matter of necessity if there was going to be anyplace for the grandchildren to sit on their way home from school.

A little later, I took Loren some supper:  Black Angus burgers, mashed potatoes and country gravy, green beans (Schwan’s – they taste like they’ve been picked fresh from the garden), corn on the cob, and orange jello.

It’s 23°, and the wind is gusting up to 45 mph, creating a wind chill of 12°.  Brrrr!

A kitten just came in, with another right behind it.  Teensy prepared to rip into them.  So I had to put the pet door blocker back in; I’d removed it for a little while, since I hadn’t seen the kittens for a couple of days.  These kittens are not tame, not in the slightest.

This evening, Larry went to help Caleb get a water pipe sealed.  Maria sent chicken fajitas home with him – best I’ve ever tasted, I do believe.  Yummy.

As if the Big Email Fiasco wasn’t enough, now I’m uploading 7,910 songs to my account with Microsoft OneDrive ‘in the cloud’.  It’s not done yet, but Larry has already managed to access it with his smartphone.  He just listened to Levi at age 4 or 5 singing The B-I-B-L-E and Heavenly Sunshine.  Now he’s listening to Joanna and Victoria singing Singing I Go.  Bill Gates (unless it’s Al Gore) thinks I should not put two ‘singings’ in a row.

Larry will be able to sign into OneDrive and listen to our old favorites as he’s out riding his bike or driving his truck.  I have my computer set to change the letters SD to ‘South Dakota’.  So I wrote, ‘an South Dakota card’.  And Al Gore (unless it’s Jimmy Buffet) didn’t even notice that the wrong indefinite article was in that sentence and underline it for me in a blue wiggly line.

Now I’m listening to Golden State Baptist Church, and a girls’ choir is singing, When the Savior Wipes the Tears from Our Eyes.  It’s so pretty.

I was listening to music... and wondered why in the world the violins were sounding so screechy.  Then I turned off the music... went to the door ----- and discovered the maple trees were plumb full of red-winged blackbirds, migrating back for the spring.

Teensy took the opportunity to rush outside, even though it’s colder than ever – 19° and windy.  The wind chill is 9°.  There’s a 70% chance of snow tonight and tomorrow, and freezing rain Wednesday.

Bedtime!  I’m tired of fretting over email quallyfobbles.  I’ll let my email do what it wants, and maybe its brain will come unboggled.  Okay, I’ve talked about email problems quite enough in this letter.  Somebody stop me!

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