Journal: ♫ ♪ Messin' With ♫ ♪ The U.S. Mail ♫ ♪

Tuesday, I finally mended Larry’s nearly-new, soft, fleece-lined pants that Teddy and Amy gave him for Christmas.  These were the pants he was wearing when the grinder he was using hit a snag, bucked, got caught in the pants, tore through them, and chewed up his leg.  The leg is nearly recovered.  The pants were done just in time for a week wherein the temperatures ranged from the high 50s to the low 60s.  Yesterday the high temperature was 67°; today it was 69°.  He needed those britches the previous week.  Ah, well; in a few days it will be cold again, with a possibility of snow.

While I was at it, I mended a hole in a sweater.

I headed to Loren’s house with a box of food at a quarter ’til 5 rather than 4, as he’d requested that I bring the food an hour later than usual.  

He called about the time I got to the bottom of the hill on Old Highway 81, ready to turn onto Rte. 22, wanting to know if ‘everything was okay’.  I said yes, told him I was on my way, and where I was.  Odd things sometimes happen when I take him food an hour later than usual.  He often takes a nap, and probably dreams, wakens, and thinks the dream really happened.  Sometimes he thinks I’ve already been there, and wonders why I’m coming again.

When I got there after the ten-minute drive, he came hurrying out the door to meet me.  This almost always means he’s a bit agitated about something.

As I trotted around to the other side of the Jeep to get the food and a gallon of water, he said, “Did you see where Norma and all those girls went?”

“No,” I answered, and he asked, surprised, “Weren’t you with them??”

I said no, and he said, “Well, you saw them earlier!”  I said I hadn’t, and he said, “You were here when they came!”

“No,” I said, “this is the first time I’ve been here today.”

“Oh,” said he.  “Scratch that, then.”

He informed me that Norma and her boyfriend and ‘all those girls’ were heading west.  “Who lives out that way?” he pondered, pointing... “Roger and Glenda?” 

They’ve been dead for years.  But I nodded, “Yes, they lived by Genoa, back when they were alive.”

He looked at me, surprised.  “You live by Genoa?”

“No, Roger and Glenda used to.”

He frowned.  “I’m not talking about them.”  Then, “Isn’t it something, how all those girls call themselves ‘Norma’?”

”The only ‘Norma’ I know is the one who passed away last year.  I don’t know any of these other people,” I said.

I tried to distract him with his food (chicken noodle soup, etc.), but he pawed through it with his spoon like the cats do when something distasteful is in their bowl, and said, “It’s hard to eat when they keep doing things like this.”  He shook his head.  “Isn’t it crazy?”

I thought, Yep, it shore is, but just told him that the chicken noodle soup should help him feel better.  He nodded and started eating.

Hopefully, I left him in a better state of mind when I headed back home again.

As usual, I scanned old photos most of each day last week.  Here’s Lydia at age 6 weeks, in August of 1991.

That night, just about the time I was dropping off to sleep, a scurrying, scrabbling in the outer walls awoke me.  Not squirrels this time, I decided, listening.  They weren’t making enough racket to be squirrels, and the small squeaks I heard were quite mousey- sounding.  But believe me, mice can make a lot of noise.  I think these were either staging the chariot race from Ben Hur, or having a bowling tournament.

Squirrels, on the other hand, take down whole forests, build condominiums, and then throw hammers and monkey wrenches at each other just for entertainment, all whilst chattering loudly enough to rival a large Irish family debating a cricket score.

The mouse traps did their duty that night.

Wednesday afternoon, I put a piece of battered cod in the oven for Loren.  After I flipped it over at the halfway point, I popped some California blend (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots) into the microwave.  In his lunchbox was V8 Cocktail juice, strawberry yogurt, and mandarin orange slices.  He still didn’t feel just the best, so I chose things that I knew he liked and that I thought might help him feel better.

He said he had no energy, and was very tired.  The game cam showed him walking across his drive with a shovel – I’ll bet he thought he should do something about the snowdrift across his yard, and the pile made when he and Larry pushed snow off his drive.  And later, I think he took a nap, forgot all about shoveling, and didn’t have the faintest clue why he was all worn to a frizzle-frazzle.  He stayed home from church that evening.

Here are Hannah and Dorcas, in the summer of 1991.

After our midweek service, Larry and I went to Dairy Queen.  Larry got a fish filet sandwich, I got a salad, and we both got Royal New York Blizzards.  We drove across the street to Pawnee Park, parked beside a pond, and ate our food.  It was almost like a date night! – though our topics of conversation are somewhat different than they were back then.

Thursday morning, I swept and mopped the floors.  Several boxes of groceries were delivered.  I put them away, then went to town to sign Loren’s tax papers.  He will get a nice refund.

When I called Loren at 3:00, he said he would rather have supper at 5 rather than 4 that day, and I said that would be fine.  15 minutes later, I got a notice from Hy-Vee and remembered:  I’d scheduled my grocery pickup for 4:00-4:30.  How would I manage this?

Well, at a quarter ’til four, I filled the lunchbox with V8 cocktail juice, pears, applesauce, and a little bag of dried apricots.  I would leave for Hy-Vee at 4:10, then go across the street to Subway for a beef and cheese Sub sandwich (one of his favorites), then go to Loren’s.

I got to Loren’s house at about ten ’til 5, so the plan worked.

He was a bit upset again about finding no mail in his mailbox, and starting to air his complaint, so I hurriedly set out his food, then pulled the paper from the box on which I’d written how much is in his account, and what he’d received from his various investment funds.

That cheered him up.  But he told me he’d been to the post office (he told it like it was that very day, but I knew he hadn’t gone anywhere that day, and would later learn it had been a week earlier) to have his address ‘changed back to his place’.  He didn’t know when it would take effect.

Aarrgghh.  Even if I have all the important accounts and businesses notified to send things to me (his bills, things for taxes, bank accounts, investment accounts, vehicle registrations, etc.), his forwarding request will trump the address on the envelopes!

But I kept still about ‘mail’ and talked about food, and Hy-Vee, and Subway, and warm weather, and tax refunds, and automatic deposits.

He’s been doing fairly well this last month, and, so far as I know, hasn’t gone on any Norma-hunting excursions.  Most of the time, he seems happy and in good spirits.

I went back to scanning old photos.  These were taken on Teddy’s 8^th birthday, August 13, 1991.  Someone sent him out to pick up the newspaper – and there he discovered his new Schwinn bike.

Larry came home late that afternoon wearing those dark shades they give you at the eye doctor’s office.  He’d had both eyes dilated, and they gave him another shot in the eye that had the mini stroke.  They usually ask if a person will be driving before dilating their eyes; but they didn’t this time.  Larry had a hard time seeing to back out of the parking space in the lot, mostly on account of his eyes, and partly because the rear and side view mirrors on his pickup were all dirty.  So before he came home, he drove to the shop and washed his truck.

The eye that had the shot was burning and hurting, so he retired to his recliner to take a nap.

I poured an energy drink into a cup (no, I don’t make a habit of that)... went back upstairs...  set the cup on my desk... moved my laptop — and the cord knocked the full cup over.  😲  It was one of those cups that’s narrow on the bottom and wide at the top – they oughta make ’em the other way around, and there’d be fewer calamities.  I grabbed it and righted it, managing to save less than a quarter of it. 

Most of it spilled on the lighthouse rug.  I gathered it up and took it downstairs to put it in the washer, then swept and wiped the floor and the slideouts on the desk.  Fortunately, it didn’t spill on the laptop or separate keyboard – but it did spill on the mousepad and get the underpart of the mouse wet.  I wiped it off, but it wasn’t working right. 

I took it apart and cleaned the insides, but it didn’t help much.

I decided I needed a new mouse.

I pulled up Amazon, chose a pretty red ergonomic Logitech with lots of functions, and clicked ‘Buy’.  It would arrive Saturday.

Or so they said.

Saturday morning, I got a notice that it had been delayed, and would arrive Monday.

This morning I got a notice that it had been delayed, and will arrive tomorrow, supposedly.  It’s in Rockford, Illinois, right now, some 503 miles to the east.

The mouse continues to work, sorta, if I press down hard every time I right- or left-click.

I trotted back downstairs to refill my cup, and proceeded to drink the whole thing in one fell swoop.  Or maybe one fell slurp. 

I should not do that!  (Especially since I also drank the ¼ can I managed to save.)  I usually only drink half a cup! 

Well, anyway, being well-energized, I returned to the photo-scanning with vim, vigor, and vitality.

It’s sure a lot harder to scan and edit pictures with a touchpad, as compared to a mouse.  Maybe I should’ve just driven to Wal-Mart for a new mouse, rather than ordering one on Amazon.

Ah, well... I ordered a red one!  

Wal-Mart didn’t have a red one in the style I wanted, last time I looked.  It’s just like the one I have now, which I got at Wal-Mart – but the one I have is blue, as that’s all they had.  I’ve had this mouse for 2 or 3 years, I think.  Poor thing.  Sorry, mouse.  RIP.

In looking at last week’s letter, I saw the screenshot I took of skyscrapers along a harbor in New York City.  Every time I see “New York, New York”, I am reminded of a local rural radio announcer who was terribly proud of herself for acquiring a northeastern accent.  It wasn’t a very dependable accent, however, and midwestern twang jumped rudely into the middle of it quite without warning, now and again.

So there she was, snootily (not that New Yorkers or Bostonians are snooty; but this radio announcer certainly was) (or at least she tried to be) informing everyone about some occurrence in New York City.  And she said, said she, “Nyew Yawk, Noo Yörk” (with a very hard ‘o’ in the latter ‘York’).  haha  Sounded hilarious, it really did.

Here’s Hester, 2, and Lydia, about one week.  Hester was quite fond of her new baby sister.  😊  The photo was taken on August 2, 1991.

Loren didn’t think he wanted any food Friday.  He said he hadn’t felt like eating, and didn’t have much energy.  I convinced him that food is the answer to that problem (and it often is!), and took him chicken noodle soup (yes, twice in one week – but he likes it, and it’s probably good for him, if he’s not quite ‘up to power’, as a friend of ours used to say), a banana nut muffin fresh out of the oven, a banana (they were particularly good last week from Hy-Vee), Oui peach yogurt, and a strawberry yogurt drink.  Overkill on the yogurt entrées, but it would be easy on the stomach.  He launched right in as soon as I set the food on the table and brought him some silverware.  He was hungrier than he’d thought!

In the scanning, I came upon a crib ensemble I made for Hester, age 2, in 1991 that I’d forgotten all about.  Looks like I took the picture before I quilted the quilt.  Maybe I’ll come to the quilted version in the next album.  

Once I saw that quilt again, I remembered Hester taking it with her everywhere she went for two or three years thereafter.  The quilt weighed almost as much as the girl, and she could often be heard saying, “OOF!!” as she tried dragging it around a corner, and got herself thoroughly stuck.  😂

We had two of those canopied cribs.  We got the first from Sears & Roebucks when our oldest, Keith, was born, and we got the second a year later when Hannah was born.  We used them until Victoria, the youngest, grew out of hers when she was about 2, some 19 years later.  They were long-lasting pieces of furniture!

The other day, a friend was telling about his dog, an English bulldog, getting all bent out of shape because, while cleaning out a closet, he had set a black fur teddy bear on the dog’s wire ‘nighttime house’.  A while later, the dog came around the corner, sleepily heading for his refuge and bed.

He stopped short when he spotted the furry intruder atop his cherished house.  He snorted.  He growled.  He snarled.  And then he howwwwled.

Dogs are so funny.  I had The Most Wonderful Dog in the World when I was 12, and, as my Uncle Don said, I taught her everything I knew, and then she was smarter than me, because she knew something in the first place.  Anyway, she once went to bits and pieces when I came through the house wearing an unfamiliar coat with a fur-lined hood pulled snugly around my face.  And then wasn’t she embarrassed, when she realized it was me!  Here I am with my dog Sparkle at Summit Lake on Mt. Evans, Colorado, in 1973.

Sparkle was part Collie and part German Shepherd.  She was a terrific guard dog for me.  (That’s our International TravelAll in the background of the first photo, and it’s pulling our Airstream trailer.)

One time when I was about 14, I was riding my bike with Sparkle at my side.  I’d taught her to heel, and she stayed immediately at my left side, whether I was walking or riding my bike.  I went farther afield than usual, and wound up on a little dirt road heading down to the train trestle over the Loup River.  

I rounded a curve – and there was an old jalopy with a group of older boys lounging around it.  They saw me coming... started smirking... and I, naïve as I was, thought, This looks like trouble.  But I kept my pace, put a determinedly nonchalant expression on my face, and said to Sparkle (loudly enough they could hear), “Heel.”

Now, I didn’t need to say that to her, and she was already heeling ----- but I wanted them to know the dog would do what I said.  Indeed, one kid muttered to the others, “That’s a trained dog.”  

And then my dog did something she had never done before:  She lagged back for a moment, then moved around to the right side of my bike, just in time to be exactly between me and those boys – and her beautiful, long wavy black fur stood straight up, from neck to tail, though she never once glanced their way.  I think she heard... something ... in my tone that told her to be on guard.

I grinned at those boys as I rode by (partly because I was about to laugh, and partly because... well, life is usually better when you grin at people).  They smiled back, somewhat nervously.

Sparkle moved back to my left side after we got past them.  When we got out of their hearing, I told my doggy what a good dog she was, and she made her doggy grin at me, and wagged, then shook hard to get her fur all back in order.  What a dog!

Saturday morning, I heard a lot of distant honk-honk-honking.  I peered out a window, and spotted streams of Canada geese, far, far overhead, in V formation.  Yep, the geese are coming back north!  They’re not the resident geese that stay year around, for the local geese never fly that high, nor do they fly in such large groups, nor in such perfect formation for their short hops between the nearby lakes and the abundant cornfields.

It was son-in-law Andrew’s 32^nd birthday that day.  We have him his gift the next day after church:  a blue check Tommy Hilfiger shirt and a silver Pentel pen.

Here are a couple of pictures that show well what a funnybone Hester had, from the time she was very young.  She’s just past two here, second from the left.  Zoom in and take a good look at her face. 😆

Upon seeing these pictures, along with the one below, Hester sent a picture of Keira and her wagon, writing, “I think Keira got the crinkly-nose smile from me. 😅”

Keira’s a funny little thing, too.  I look at her, and I think, Yep, she looks like Hester — and then I find pictures of Andrew at that age as I’m going through my albums, and I think, Yep, she looks like Andrew! 

Here's another of Hester, 2, with the aforementioned crinkly-nose smile:

Another bird just got into the addition Saturday afternoon.  That was the second one in two days.  I am alerted to this when they flutter against the windows in the door between the addition and my little office, where I am scanning photos.  So I go into the addition (frightening the poor bird out of its wits and causing it to beat itself against the windows), slide open the patio door, and then back off until the poor thing discovers the exit.

That day, sure enough, I got a notice from the post office telling me that a ‘forwarding request’ had been made to send Loren’s mail to his house.

Results:  he has gotten at least three bills, according to the email notification I get from the post office (which only shows me what should come to my house), and neither have been paid, according to his bank statement online.  I don’t know what he’s done with them – if indeed he has received them.  They weren’t on his table with his magazines that I had brought him; I looked when I took him his supper.

Furthermore, I have not received some of my mail, including a notice of registration due for one of our vehicles.  Whether that’s the fault of the post office sending my mail to Loren’s house, or the fault of our inept postwoman, who can’t get things delivered properly to save her life, I have no idea.

I filed a dispute online and set another of those bills for auto-payment; that was all I could do on a Saturday afternoon.

So much for all that bragging I did a few days ago, saying I had the address changed on everything that needed changing.

Needing a bit of consolation, I made myself a fresh pot of Chocolate Almond coffee, and then went to the piano and played Stand Up for Jesus and Onward Christian Soldiers with all my might and main. 

I trotted back upstairs to my office, steaming cup of coffee in hand, in a much better humor.

That evening, I started on the 45^th album (I’m not going in order).  There are 82 more to go, counting this one.  I had originally thought to just do this two or three days a week, but after calculating how long it would take me (years!), I decided to dig in and do it all at once.

Most of the albums have about 300 pictures.  But some have had 800 (because I had the stupid habit of trimming them to fit like puzzle pieces on the page), and some have only 200, as some albums have fewer pages and/or larger photos.  I now have 12,404 photos scanned.

Here’s Maria when she was three years old.  I didn’t have any notion that she would become my daughter-in-law, 16 years later!  She was a sweet little girl, and she’s a sweet young woman.

A quilting friend wrote, “I started my day with a cup of coffee and my Jonah Bible study.  After realizing how much like Jonah I really am, I am focusing on God’s guidance through the rest of my day.”

We all have a little bit of Jonah in us, don’t we?  Back when I was a teenager, a friend of mine named her car ‘Jonah’, because, said she, “it didn’t want to go.” 🤣

After the morning service yesterday, we took Loren some food:  venison meatloaf, a potato-vegetable combination, grape juice, a banana, yogurt, and rice pudding.  While we were there, I looked for the lost mail, but found none. 

We went to the cemetery after leaving Loren’s house to look at the new headstone for Lyle and Norma, and for Caleb and Maria’s Baby Liam.  We knew Liam’s was in place, but there have been quite a few inches of snow on it for the last several months.  The engraving on the stone is of Baby Liam in Caleb’s hand.

Last night after church, we needed to fill the Jeep with E-85.  It’s been a month since we did so, instead putting E-10 in it, as that’s all that’s available in Columbus.  Before heading to Shelby, we went to Runza to get some supper to eat as we drove.

As we pulled into the drive-thru, we saw that Jeremy and Lydia were directly in front of us in the queue.

I ordered a BLT Runza, Larry ordered a Reuben Runza and onion rings, and we each had iced tea.

We got to the window – and were informed that the people ahead of us had paid for our order!

I promptly texted Lydia, “Hey, what in the world do you think you’re doing???!!!  You aren’t supposed to do that!!!!”

And then I added, “Besides, we didn’t order nearly enough!  We would’ve ordered two of everything, had we only known.”

I waited a minute, then wrote, “But anyway, thanks bunches and bunches.”

Later that night, Lydia sent video clips of Ian putting on the fleece pajamas we gave him for his birthday.  He giggled the entire time he put them on, so delighted he was with them.  Then, once he was cozily inside those jammies, he said, “Thank you, Grandpa and Grandma Jackson!  They’re super warm, and I like them super much!”

Today I called the post office, and hopefully got everything righted again.  But... Loren can just as easily go place another forwarding request – or stop forwarding request, as it were – at any time. 

Maybe...  hmmm... I should ask:  if they cancel all forwarding, would I still get all the bills and things where I’ve requested a change of address with the company?  And then could I send an address change to one or two of those vitamin/snake oil companies, and give them Loren’s address, so he could at least get his junk mail again?  He does like to order vitamins from them, and I reckon they’re helpful.  But he gets a little too agog over testimonials for the Fountain of Youth, Magical Elixirs, and Jeremiah Peabody’s Polyunsaturated, Quick-Dissolving, Fast-Acting, Pleasant-Tasting, Green and Purple Pills.

Two quilts have arrived today from a lady who lives in Washington State.  I have them spread out over my frame, relaxing the wrinkles a bit, and will get started on the first one tomorrow.  Photo-scanning will be on pause for a couple of days.

Here’s one final picture from the album I just started scanning:  Lydia is helping wash dishes.  It’s January 15, 1996, so she is 4 ½.

Time to hit the hay!

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