Journal: When Push Comes to Shove

Last Tuesday, I hemmed a dress for Emma.  It was lined, and the top layer was a sheer knit that wasn’t hemmed in the first place, so I didn’t hem it, either, but just cut it as straight as possible.  That stuff was slippery!  The lining was tricot, and it’s pretty slippery, too.  I used my Bernina serger on the edge, and my Bernina 730 for the topstitching.  I should’ve rethreaded the serger and done a coverstitch... but it was just lining and wouldn’t show, and this way was quicker.

When I was done, since Emma’s 17^th birthday and Grant’s 10^th birthday were the next day, I put some gifts into bags and signed a couple of birthday cards for them. 

We gave Grant a black fleece sweatshirt, a little pewter and brass train clock, and a set of knit hat and gloves.  

For Emma, we had a black skirt with ribbons and embroidery on it, a coral knit hat, a matching coral purse, and a big Scripture reference book.

I gathered up the dress, the birthday gifts, and my purse, and headed out the door.

One of Larry’s pickups was behind the Mercedes.  Furthermore, it was the big truck that has no running boards, and is too tall for me to get into without endangering life and limb.

I came back into the house and waited ’til Larry came home and moved the beast, then off I went to Teddy and Amy’s house, which is a mile or two to our east.

They sent me home with a few things, including a Starbucks set of red mugs and packets of hot chocolate.  The perfect way to finish the evening – with a steaming cup of Starbucks hot chocolate, made with milk.

I then spent a couple of hours quilting.  Before quitting for the day, I rolled the quilt forward – and the last bird made its appearance.

Perhaps some of you might recall that when I was collecting the fabric for this quilt, I was a bit unhappy with those pieces that have a lilac cast to them.  I hunted in two or three different fabric shops, but couldn’t find the mid-range-to-light plum or light maroon I wanted.  Now I’m quilting them with the ice blue Omni thread that I’m using on the pale blue and the light pink patches, and it’s actually making them blend a little better with the pinkish and plum-colored fabrics.  I think it’s going to be fine.

Or if it’s not, it’s a little late to worry about it now.

Wednesday morning as I was getting ready to head to Lincoln for an appointment with the eye doctor, a quilting friend wrote, “I went to quilt club yesterday.  I wore my favorite Mighty Mouse sweatshirt.  Nobody noticed.  Being an adult is dumb.”

That made me laugh right out loud.  “I’m wearing my sweater with a kitty and a basket of apples appliquéd on the front.  Reckon the doctor or nurse will notice?” I asked.  (They didn’t.)

Canada geese on the frozen Platte River

Larry went with me to Lincoln that day, as he hoped to stop at Affordable Dentures office and have his dentures adjusted.  We were surprised to find the office closed, with a sign referring patients to the office in Omaha.  Nevertheless, I was glad he was along to drive, as my eyes were a bit irritated and blurry.  Also, I can take more pictures while he’s driving.  😉 

We got back home with enough time to spare before the evening church service that Larry could take a nap while I edited a few photos.

I like taking pictures of houses.  I find the subtle change in home styles from not only state to state, but from city to city, intriguing. 

In these shots from a week ago Saturday, a farmer was burning old brush, and possibly some old haybales, too.  We were too far away to tell for sure.  Not to worry; it’s farther from the barn than it looks in the picture.  It appears close because I was using my long lens at 300mm, which compresses distance notably.

While burning old brush does release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, in these parts it’s often the better option (as opposed to letting it decompose), because we often have very dry weather, and prairie fires are a real hazard.  A small, controlled fire on days of low wind, with snow cover to prevent the fire from spreading, is much better than an out-of-control fire that might wipe out whole fields with crops, or pastures full of livestock, or people’s homes.  We saw too much of that last year, and several people were hurt, and two died.

Sometimes hay bales spontaneously combust.  If they’re in a barn with tractors or other equipment, everything can be gone in a hurry – and parts of rural Nebraska are a long way from a fire department.  That happened a couple of weeks ago, but, fortunately, a neighbor spotted the burning bales in the barn, jumped into the farmer’s truck that was in the building, and backed it out before it, too, caught on fire.  He had big hoses connected to a water supply, and kept the fire from spreading until the first firetrucks got there.

As I edited pictures, I zoomed in on the photos of geese filling the sky somewhere near Schuyler.  I had thought they were Canadas, but on my big computer screen, I could see they were neither Canadas nor Snows.  What where they?  There were huge flocks of them covering the skies.

I plugged a description and location into Google, and soon discovered what they were:  Greater White-Fronted geese, so named because of the white patch above their bills.

I went to pick up Loren’s tax papers at the accountants’ office Thursday; they were all done.  I signed the papers, and they e-filed them for me.  Loren got a sizeable refund this year, on account of all the money paid to the nursing home.  

So taxes are behind us for another year.  I dropped off some things at the Goodwill, then came home and quilted until suppertime.  We had deer burgers on toasted whole wheat sesame buns with tomatoes and steamed green and red peppers and onions, with thin slices of Hickory Farms jalapeño cheddar cheese that Kurt and Victoria gave us.  About the time we finished the burgers, a strawberry-rhubarb crumble pie was ready to come out of the oven.  We put Kemp’s Old-Fashioned vanilla ice cream on it while the slices were hot.

When supper was over, I returned to the quilting room for a little while.  When I quit, I was past the middle point, and beginning to work on the bottom half of the quilt.  Here is the top part of the birdbath.

Sometimes I wish I had a larger quilting space, so the plumes could extend farther vertically; but I might have a difficult time reaching any greater distance than I already must reach.  My machine has an 18” harp.

Late that night, I posted a few pictures of the quilting progress.

“Beautiful!  I wish I had your patience,” commented one quilting lady.

I thanked her, then remarked, “My friends and family snicker when people accuse me of being ‘patient’.  The truth is, I don’t need to be patient, because I’m enjoying what I’m doing!”

Friday, Keith sent a picture of the mountains to the east of Salt Lake City, from his viewpoint behind the windshield of his front-discharge cement truck.

“There is a pass and canyon on the very right of that picture that has received over eight feet of snow this year,” he told me.

Nebraska has had its third wettest January since 1889.

Next, we discussed the fact that three of our children and seven of our grandchildren have birthdays in February, including four on one day, the 8^th.

“Winter holidays and birthdays are difficult when you work in construction and the winters are harsh,” commiserated Keith.

“Yes,” I agreed, “people should be more considerate and get borned in July and August.”

That made him laugh.  He has one of the February birthdays; he’ll be 43 on the 22^nd.  Victoria will be 26 on the 24^th, and Hannah will be 42 on the 28^th.

“Can one change their birthday?” wondered Keith.  “Everything else can be changed these days!”

“Sure,” I answered, “people do it all the time.  ’Course, it’s usually when they’re on the lam from the law, or when they’re a movie star, and their age doesn’t match their facelift.” 🤣

I got a little bit of quilting done Friday, but not much; there were too many other things to do – such as go to Willie’s first birthday party.  He’s the youngest of our 27 grandchildren.

“How in the world do you keep all those designs in your head??!!!” asked a friend and fellow quilter.  “I know you look on Pinterest for ideas, but still...”

“Wait... you think those designs are in my head??!!!” I exclaimed.  “I thought they were in my longarm handles.  I get a grip on them... start going... and these things... happen!”  😂

Saturday was a blue, sunshiny day without a cloud in the sky, and it was 50°.

Larry needed to paint the Jeep he was working on in Genoa, and he also needed to clean out a couple of pickups, wash them, take pictures, and advertise them.  So he didn’t come with me to visit Loren that day.

When I walked into the main commons at Prairie Meadows, the lady named Nina came to meet me.  I greeted her.  She muttered something, giving a little push to my shoulder, which could have been construed as a friendly pat.  Except...

When I said, “How are you today?”, she gave a hard shove to my shoulder, saying, “You get over there RIGHT NOW!!!”, pointing off to her left.

I braced my feet, then took a step closer to her, and, with a hard stare straight in her face, said quietly but adamantly, “DON’T DO THAT.” 

She looked surprised, backed up, and did not touch me again.

I met her several times in the hallways thereafter, and each time, she gave me wide berth, even though I gave her a friendly smile each time. 

I wonder just how scary I looked, anyway?!  And I wonder how many people she’s caused to fall, doing things like that?  I hope she wasn’t the cause of any of Loren’s falls.  She’s the one who tries to ‘help’ people, and gets residents and staff alike all riled up, with residents howling, and the staff scurrying about like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to stay up with her and redirect her.

Loren is doing pretty well again, though he’s been frailer since those falls – at least three, last month.  He’s had physical therapy, and it has definitely helped.  He’s not in the wheelchair anymore; he uses a walker.  He’d forgotten it somewhere, though.  So when I walked with him to his room and then back to the dining room at suppertime, I held his hand, and then he could walk fairly well.  As we exited the lounge where he’d been sitting, he told the woman who’d been sitting in a wheelchair beside him, “We’re going to walk over to my house.”  He gestured out the window.

She craned her head to peer out, though the window only opened into the inner commons. 

“It’s the ranch-style house with the bay window,” Loren said helpfully.

“Yes, I see it,” the woman answered – but now she was looking straight at the TV, where there was indeed a house on the screen (though not necessarily ranch-style, or with a bay window).

As we headed for his room, a woman in a chair in the commons area said to him, “I had to move, because the sun was in my eyes.”  She gestured down a hallway to the wide glass door that leads into the courtyard.  There are chairs near the door – and the sun was indeed shining right in from the west.

Loren stopped and gave her a concerned look.  “I’ll have to do some research on that,” he told her.  “I just haven’t had a chance to read about it yet, but I do know the fields are still covered with snow.”

{He was confusing a title he’d just read in one of the magazines I’d brought him with what she had said, I think, as he’d thanked me and said, “I’ll take it to my house and read it later.  I enjoy this kind of ...”  (he fished for a word) “... research,” he decided, tapping the story about ranchers in western Nebraska, and their winter hardships.}

Mrs. Sun-in-Eyes frowned a bit and gave a little shake of the head.  Every now and then, some of those non sequiturs that float around so freely in that place give someone pause.  🤣

When we were visiting in his room, Loren explained very thoroughly to me what had happened to make his hip hurt:  he’d been walking in the church parking lot, and a Jeep had pulled in and bumped him right on his side, not very hard, but enough to hurt his hip.  He gave me such a thorough demonstration, I quickly moved closer to him, in case I needed to catch him.  Yikes.

I waited until he was done describing this incident, then gave him a wide-eyed look, tapped my chest with a finger, and said, “Well, it wasn’t me!!!”  which of course made him laugh.  (He remembers that we had a Jeep.  Several Jeeps, actually.)

Canada geese

I spotted the walker in the dining room by the table where Loren usually sits when we walked in.  “Yes, that’s mine!” he said happily, and I helped him move it closer to his chair so it would be handy when he was ready to get up.

A woman sitting at a nearby table in her wheelchair wasn’t eating.

“Eat your supper, sweetie!” said one of the staff – a very young girl I had not seen before.  She looked to be about 14.  No, 12.  (Ever notice how, the older you get, the younger the young look??)  (She was probably in her mid-20s.)  In any case, she was fast and efficient with everything she did, and johnny-on-the-spot to help any of the residents who needed anything, and careful and kind with them, too. 

I was impressed.  That’s the kind of a person I want at a nursing home where my brother is.

The woman she was addressing glared at her.  “I can’t!” she announced.

The young lady, swiftly doling out plates of food from the rolling cart, asked, “Why not, dear?”

“Because I don’t have my chair!!!” said the woman.

Loren snickered so suddenly, he dropped the bite of food on his fork.  He grinned at me, that familiar old sparkle in his eyes.  “She doesn’t have her chair!” he said.

I raised my eyebrows.  “Well, supper isn’t right, when you don’t have the right chair!  Why, roast beef can turn into liver, and a nice mashed potato can change to spinach, right before your eyes – if you don’t have the right chair!” I told him.

He laughed and laughed, over that.

(And no, we didn’t make a scene; no one was listening to us.  There is always music playing in the background during their meals, and people are talking, and there’s noise from the kitchen, too.)

The young nurse came back to the woman, and then, saying, “Here’s your chair!”, helped her stand up, made sure she was steady, then rolled the wheelchair out of the way and rapidly slid a chair behind her.  She helped the woman sit back down.

 This changed the woman’s stance at the table nary an iota, but she picked up her fork and began to eat.

The nurse gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder and moved on.

As they often do, one of the nurses offered me a plate of food.  “No, thank you,” I said.  “I’ll just drink this juice,” I added, pointed at a small glass of what I thought was grape juice on the table.

I picked it up and sipped – and was amazed to discover it was not grape juice, but Pepsi!  Pepsi?!

What in the world.  Pepsi with their supper, for dementia patients. 

Listen to this:  “The Framingham Heart Study has shown through its data that people who more frequently consume sugary beverages such as sodas are more likely to have poorer memory, smaller overall brain volumes and smaller hippocampal volumes – an area of the brain important for memory.”

People who draw up menus for nursing homes, particularly nursing homes for Alzheimer's patients, should really do a little research on what’s good for them and what isn’t good for them.

The corn syrup in the Pepsi left a bad taste in my mouth.  I picked up the glass of water to wash the stuff down – and it tasted like chlorine!!! 

Again, listen to this:  “Studies have discovered that patients with dementia have a much higher chlorine level in hair samples than those patients who do not have dementia.”  That’s from the National Library of Medicine at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Good grief, why don’t they use spring water??

If I can learn these things, so can – and so should – those who are responsible for caring for our fragile elderly!  Siggghhhhhh...  

When I bid Loren adieu, he said cheerfully, “Goodbye, honey!” just like he has ever since I was a little girl.  My Daddy called me ‘Cookie Doodle’; my brother called me ‘honey’.  I thought that was fine and dandy.  He married Janice when I was 8, and she called me ‘honey’, too.  I was quite pleased with that.

I got home at about 7:30 p.m.  Supper that evening was creamy chicken noodle soup and Oui blueberry yogurt, with strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert.

A man on the MeWe quilting group was having trouble with his longarm machine skipping stitches, and the readout screen was flickering on and off.  He finally dug out some old telephone cables, put them in place of the cords on his machine, and, voilá!  The machine was working properly again.

Telephone cords!  It would never have occurred to me that there was even a possibility of telephone cords working on a longarm machine.

Military plane from Offut Air Force Base in Omaha

Mind you, I am no electrician, but I figured the wires inside that rubber or plastic coating would be device specific.  I would be inclined to think that, once hooked up with old telephone cords, my longarm would start taking calls from telemarketers or dialing Time & Temperature, entirely without my permission.  Or, seeing me quilt myself into a corner as I so often do, perhaps it would call ‘Dial-A-Prayer’ for me.  😏

The only thing (other than connecting telephones) that I thought those old cables were good for was tying Tonka trucks and tractors and graders and whatnot together in order to make long trains.  (Well, that’s what our boys did with them, anyway.)

Sunday morning, I turned on a news station on my tablet to listen to as I got ready for church.  The weatherman informed all and sundry that it was Saturday.

He also told everyone that they needed to push their crocuses back down into the ground, because wintery weather is coming. 

Larry forgot his hearing aids last night.  He didn’t bother putting them in after we got home from the evening service.  We chatted during and after supper... until finally I informed him, “I’m hoarse, from trying to talk loud enough for you to hear me!”

And he said (can you guess what he said?)... he said, “Huh?”  😂

This afternoon, Victoria sent a picture of Willie in the knit outfit we gave him.  I put it side by side with the one Hester sent of Oliver a few days ago in the outfit we’d given him.  They're sooo cute.

Two little boys, five days apart.  This is such fun!

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky today, and it got up close to 60°.  I had to turn off the pellet stove this morning.  We’ve been keeping it going since the week before Christmas, and it nearly cut our last electric bill in half.

When suppertime was approaching late this afternoon, I pulled the thawed deer burger from the refrigerator, preparing to make meatloaf – and realized we had no ketchup for the topping I usually make with brown sugar.

Hmmmm.  I rummaged through a cupboard and came up with chunky Ragu.  Another cupboard yielded half a pound of spaghetti.  I mixed one egg, salt, and pepper into the meat, shaped it into meatballs, and set it to cooking; then dropped the spaghetti into a pot of boiling water.  Ten minutes later, I drained the spaghetti, then added the meatballs and the Ragu to the pot.  A little simmering... and supper was ready to be served.

Tomorrow I shall quilt!  Lord willing, that is. 

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