Journal: Making Memories

 

This old barn and the horses in the adjacent pasture are located northeast of Clarks, Nebraska, a village of about 344 residents, founded in 1866 when the Union Pacific Railroad was extended to that point.  It is named for Silas Henry H. Clark, superintendent of the UP.

I took the first two pictures as we traveled to the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island last week.  The other two are from Google Maps.

Green and Millard Streets are still paved with brick, and businesses still have the false fronts of long ago.  On the side of one of the Strobel Manufacturing buildings is a pioneer mural.

At a family farm that produced soybean, corn, and cattle near this little village, Evan Williams, the American internet entrepreneur who cofounded Twitter (now X) and created major web publishing platforms like Blogger and Medium, was born on March 31, 1972.

That evening, Victoria sent pictures of Carolyn with her new Molly American Girl doll, in their matching outfits, uptown by the old Schweser’s building.  Carolyn got the doll and the first book in the series for her birthday.  She even has a heart-shaped locket like Molly had, with a picture of her Daddy (Kurt) inside.  Molly kept her father’s photo in her locket, while her father, Dr. James McIntire, was serving as a U.S. Army Medical Corps doctor in England during World War II.  Each American Girl doll has a set of six books that go with it. 

Schweser’s department store was started in 1880 by George Schweser in David City, Nebraska.  His sons moved into the Columbus building in 1929, and operated their clothing and retail business here for nearly 87 years.  It is now used as a premium event venue.

My mother used to buy clothes and shoes for herself and for me at Schweser’s, and it’s where I bought her a birthday present when I  was about eight years old, ‘all by myself’ – with her own money, while she sat waiting in the car just outside the doors.  The ladies who worked there knew me, and helped me buy something that cost a little less than the money I had in my little coin purse.

I bought Mama a necklace called ‘Aurora Borealis’, and was sooo delighted to give it to her, never mind that it was her own money that had purchased the gift.  I have that necklace now.

A lady posted this picture on Facebook, writing, “We got a bad groomer for our dog.  I feel like he’s about to ask me for the car keys.” 

Hee hee  How does a groomer who does something like that stay in business??

Wednesday was a sunny, pretty day, with a high of 81°.  There was only a 10-mph breeze, which is unusual.  I drained the gallon jug of Raspberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee that morning; it was time to make more.  

I wrote that, Wednesday morning – and promptly forgot to make more.

That afternoon, I texted Hannah and Aaron:  “The kids’ quilts are in our Mercedes; I’ll give them to you after church.  If Aaron’s has lemon sherbet on it, it was NOT MY FAULT.”

I attached this picture of a woman in front of Aaron’s quilt, a piled-high cup of sherbet in one hand, spoonful of sherbet in the other.  I’d taken a full-sized photo of Aaron’s Soaring Eagle quilt, never noticing the lady in the foreground until I was looking at my pictures later.  (Photo cropped to protect the identity of a nice lady who never intended to do anything wrong.  Signs are posted saying 'No Food in the Quilt Room', but people do it, nonetheless.  At least hers was somewhat confined to her wheelchair.  I saw someone with a flimsy plate heaped with cheese 'n meat nachos in one hand and a tall ice cream cone in the other dashing helter-skelter down an aisle between the quilts!  Yikes.)

“It could be banana puddin’,” I added.  “Or smashed summer squash.”

After returning the quilts as promised, we went to Walmart to pick up a grocery order.

Home again, Larry brought the groceries in while I began putting them away.  I discovered one loaf of bread – that yummy Nature’s Own® Perfectly Crafted Multigrain Bread – was smashed down to no more than an inch high.  Bread doesn’t do well with a 64 oz. jug of juice ker-plopped atop it!  🥴😵‍💫😵😖😕🫤😒

I would later discover that one of the two clocks I’d ordered was missing, too.

Thursday morning when I went to get my usual tumbler of cold-brew that I like to sip whilst blow-drying and curling my hair, I realized I had forgotten to make more.  Fortunately, I keep bottles of Starbucks or Dunkin cold-brew concentrate on hand for just such emergencies.  They’re not as good as the fresh-made-from-beans-and-steeped-overnight cold-brew I make, but they’ll do, so long as I have a dollop of Coffeemate creamer to add to them.  So that morning I had Starbucks Pumpkin Spice cold brew with Italian Créme Coffeemate creamer added to it.  I reckoned I’d survive!  😉

For supper that evening, I put chicken in the Instant Pot, and while that was cooking, Bear Creek vegetables and noodles simmered on the stove.  It already smelled good, and there were still ten minutes to go!  When the chicken was done, I cut it up and added it to the Bear Creek soup.  Scrumptious!

Larry got home late, just about the time I was preparing to put the big pot of soup into the refrigerator.  It had been out an hour and a half and had partially cooled down.  I was sitting in my recliner, so I didn’t realize he hadn’t put the pot in the refrigerator after he got himself a bowlful, until over an hour later.

I voiced the obligatory complaint, whereupon he protested, as he has done, lo, these many years, never mind how often I’ve tried to edjeecate him, “But the lid is on it!”

This time, I looked it up online, then texted him this (since he was on a different floor of the house):  From a webpage on Cooking and Food Safety:  A pot of hot soup cools more slowly with the lid ON, which traps heat and moisture and allows bacteria to grow much quicker than with the lid off.

Larry responded as follows:  “Interesting 🤔”

“Yeah, act like I’ve never told you such a thing,” I retorted in my politest wifey way.

He replied with a bunch of funny emojis.

Friday I finished putting the Maple Leaf background blocks together, and sewed them into rows.  It was a sunny, pretty day, but hot, with a high of 87°.  The wind was blowing at 25 mph by afternoon.

Here’s a link to an amazing light show via utilization of 2,977 drones, commemorating the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks that took place in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania 25 years ago, September 11, 2001:  Lights Over New York Harbor

I did not know such elaborate displays could be done with drones.  I knew Fourth-of-July displays are increasingly done with them, but I haven’t looked at videos of them; so I was astonished to watch this.  2,977 drones, all in perfect synchronization, swirling upwards and then aligning themselves into outlines of the Twin Towers.  Wow, it was incredible.

The display reached an altitude of 1,368 feet to match the exact full architectural scale and height of the original North Tower, including its telecommunications antenna.

I listened to the last half hour of the reading of the names of those who died on 9-11-2001 by relatives who would read a few, then stop at the name of their own relative, say a few words about them, and then let a couple of others come to the mic to continue reading.  I’ve gotten sappy in my dodderage, and have become an excellent sympathetic crier.

It’s now been posted on YouTube – but the whole ceremony is nearly 4 ½ hours long:  Those Who Died on September 11, 2001

If I start watching footage from back then, and continue on through stories of survivors or families who have lost loved ones, I can’t get stopped, and then have dreadful crashes with myself going to bed and getting up!  I set my playback speed to 2.0 and made it through several videos, doubletime.  (So long as one can understand Hamsterese/Chipmunkese, everything’s fine and dandy.)

A friend wrote to tell me what she was doing (coloring in a coloring book for adults, as she often likes to do), and inquired into my activities of the day.  When I said I was sewing quilt blocks together (and mind you, I was quite excited to get to that stage, too!), she said, for approximately the gazillionth time, “Don’t you ever get tired of quilting.”  (She invariably ends the sentence with a period rather than a question mark, which always seems to add a dab of aggression to the slight antagonism.  But I could be too easily annoyed, too.)

“No,” I answered.  “I never do the same thing twice, after all!”  Still feeling peevish, I added, “Neither do I get tired of playing the piano... taking and editing photos... hiking... cooking... gardening... journaling... I like to do all sorts of things.”

“That’s good,” she responded.  “All I seem to do is text and color.  It is nice to have a variety of things that you enjoy.”

Ooookay, that disarmed me and made me feel guilty for being irritated in the first place.  She isn’t very well, after all.  I will be nicer.

There were a whole lot of vegetables and cornucopias at the fair.  Here’s a pretty one. 

And just look at this beautiful little wooden train somebody made by hand.

Here are some of the piglets that were in the nursery.  A Landrace-Yorkshire sow named Dolly had 23 piglets!  They were three days old.

A sow named Violet had 19 piglets; they were only a day old.

They’re so tiny and cute; hard to imagine how big they’ll get.  The mothers were huge.

These stalls are so clever; the mother can get up and eat and drink, and lie down to nurse her babies; but the babies have plenty of room to move out of her way and not get crushed.

Baby piglets often get crushed.  Teddy’s sow once had a dozen piglets, and, one after another, every last one got crushed.  That’s sad when that happens.

There’s a gate at the end of those stalls, so the owners – youngsters in 4H – can take their pigs out for exercise and to clean the stalls.  Sometimes people fuss about those stalls if I post pictures; but they don’t understand that all those babies might die, otherwise!  They’re really very well cared for, both mother and babies.

There were over a dozen little ducklings in a big, straw-filled, galvanized tank; and right next was a pool with a slide and a cute little ladder.  The owners sometimes took ducklings from the tank and let them play and swim in the pool.

I finished sewing all the quilt blocks together, making rows; then sewed the rows together, completing the flimsy.  I then cut all the necessary strips for the three borders and sewed the strips together before quitting for the day.

During the night, a thunderstorm rolled through.  The worst of it was to our north, though some very strong wind gusts rattled our house.

Saturday morning, Teddy sent me a video he’d taken of the lightning.  Throughout his video, there was no letup at all in the lightning, which was occurring in multiple locations throughout the tall thunderheads.  I learned from Rural Radio that wind gusts were clocked at 62 mph at a weather station to our north a couple of miles.

By a quarter ’til eight, the borders were on the Dresden Flowers & Flutters quilt.  I sorted stacks of fabrics into coordinating groups for the Dresden Plates – and then quit when I finally realized, You know, the reason I don’t feel like continuing is because I’m just plain sick!

Larry has had a number of colds all year long, starting at Christmastime last year, and I’ve never once caught one, or at least not bad enough to talk about (as Roo said, explaining that he only had a ‘biscuit cough’).  But this week, Larry got another cold – and a few days ago he shared the cold brew in my tumbler.  And whataya know, now I have a cold.

I went to make myself a cup of Theraflu tea – and discovered it was all gone.  (Somebody in this house never thinks of replacing things that get used up, or asking the other one of us to order more; and it’s not me.)

So I made myself some Orca Spice Chai tea, which is supposed to be made with milk.  But the milk was all gone, too; so I added a dollop of French Vanilla Coffeemate creamer.  It wasn’t what I needed; but it wasn’t  bad.  🥴😵‍💫🫤😒😵

Here are a couple of pictures showing the borders.  Things don’t really look like they match – yet.  But I think after I add the fence, the flowers, and the butterflies, it’ll all go together.  That’s what I think, anyway! 😄

I got out the vacuum to clean up spiderwebs I’d noticed earlier on the ceiling light, fan, and pull chain.  But the extension was missing; Larry must’ve used it with his shop vac somewhere.  Lacking the extension, I scooted out a chair to climb onto.  We have 9’ ceilings.

I looked up, the better to position the chair – and discovered that the spiderwebs were plumb gone.  How ’bout that.  The spider had evidently ingested its own web, as orb-weavers do, thereby recycling valuable silk proteins.

I wish bunnies would gobble up the dust-bunnies they leave around the house, too!

At 10:00 Sunday morning, it was 58° on the way up to 62°, and rainy.  The latter was determined by a look out the window; none of my weather apps showed any rain at all.

Larry and I both stayed home from church yesterday on account of our colds.  We were especially sorry to miss last night, as it was daughter-in-law Maria’s youngest brother Royce’s wedding.  The bride, Megan, is a paternal cousin and good friend of Joanna’s.

Joanna and Bobby sang a duet for the wedding.

Royce and Megan moved their wedding up from mid-October to mid-September because Royce’s mother Mary, who has been struggling with cancer, is not doing well at all.  She was at church a week ago, so everyone hoped she’d be able to come to her son’s wedding; but Saturday night she was taken to a hospital in Lincoln, in much pain.  She’s still there; the doctors are doing what they can to make her more comfortable.

Royce and Megan both went with other members of the family to Lincoln Saturday night.  They didn’t know if she would make it through the night.

So everyone was running low on sleep.

The wedding was streamed live, but I don’t know if Mary was well enough to watch it.  I’ve just spent the last hour and a half pulling screenshots from the video and putting them into a pdf file to save with my photos, since I wasn’t able to take any.  I think I’ll give it to Megan and Royce, too.  Here they are saying their vows, and the next picture is when they were walking out to the foyer where the reception line would be, while the congregation sang the last song.

Our granddaughter Eva and her cousin Hunter were one of the flowergirls and ringbearers.

Yesterday evening, I pulled up a chat with a Walmart agent to tell them I didn’t get the second clock that should have been in my order last Wednesday.  This agent, too, had an Arabic name, and though he was much faster than the previous person I talked with (regarding the soup that was missing from a previous order), he didn’t know English much better.  They obviously make use of ChatGPT, though, because, after an awkward, illogical sentence, they quickly spew out an entire paragraph of platitudes:  “You’re patient and lovely, blah blah, and I appreciate you so much, more blah blah.”

I described the clock, gave him the correct price – $11.84 – and then copied and pasted it directly from the order page, too.

Lickety-split (without asking how I wanted it), a refund was issued – in the amount of $32.00.

I said, “No, the correct amount was $11.84.”

“I gave you a refund for both clocks,” he informed me, “so you’ll have enough to reorder and have it sent Express Delivery!”

Express Delivery is only $3.00.

I knew he would never withdraw that money, now that he’d already sent it.  I only want what’s coming to me!  I don’t want to feel like I’m stealing from the company!

Sigghhhh...

But I said, “Okay, thank you, I appreciate it.”

And with that, he was gone, in the blink of an eye.

I wonder if Walmart knows their employees are doing this?  If everyone who needs a refund gets back two or three times the correct amount, either Walmart or the customer will have to pay for it eventually!  Smaller companies would go under.

Rain and lightning woke me up during the night, though I didn’t hear any thunder.  The high this afternoon was 84°, and the weather couldn’t decide if it should give us rain or sunshine, all day long.  Things smelled a bit mildewy, so when the sun came out, I opened some windows and the patio door.  Every single time I did that, it immediately started raining again.

It’s a quarter ’til midnight, and it just started raining once more.

I hope I feel better tomorrow; I want to get started on the Dresden Plate flowers and butterflies for Keira’s quilt.  Larry brought some medicine home for me – and a couple of tacos!  The tacos were the most helpful, by far.

Someone asked this question on a Facebook birding group:  “If an eagle feather drops in my yard, is it legal to keep it?”

A man promptly answered, “No.  You must stick it in your hat and call it macaroni.”

Some just as promptly took offense.  Tsk.  It was funny!

Now for a good COD (Conversation of the Day):

Someone texted me from phone number (236) 888-5479:  “Why can’t I ever seem to reach you by phone?  Did you restrict me?”

I usually ignore stuff like this, but I did look up the number.  I found many similar numbers, but with different prefixes.  All those seemed legitimate, so, curious, I texted back: 

“Who are you?”

It took whoever-it-was about five minutes to respond to each of my texts, which makes me think the person was conducting multiple whatever-these-are with multiple other whoever-they-are.

Eventually, she (if it was a ‘she’) replied, “Hello, Ms Misia. This is Angelina from NY.  This is my other phone number.”

“You evidently have the wrong number,” I answered.  “I do not know you.”

Another five minutes, and then, “I attended your 55^th birthday party in Omaha last week, didn’t you remember?  I also brought you a bottle of Petrus, which you really liked.”

(Never heard of Petrus; had to look it up.)

Then I responded, “I hope it was vintage 1990, which is worth $199,999.99.  Obviously I had too much of it, because I didn’t know I had a birthday, don’t remember going to Omaha, and no longer know my name is Ms. Misia.”

A few more minutes, then she said, “Ah, sorry!  If you're not Misia, then who are you...”

“I’m Harry Houdini,” I informed her, “and I’m outta here.  Byeeeee!”

Six minutes later:  “I’m sorry, Harry.  Do you know Misia Henhold?  She gave me this number.  Would you mind asking her if she and her shareholders have had a chance to discuss the possibility of funding the ALS research initiative we talked about before, and what they decided?”

Hasn’t she ever heard of Houdini??

I believe in this particular case, ‘ALS’ stands for ‘Always Launching Scams’.

I declined to answer further.  I said “I’m outta here,” and I say what I mean and mean what I say! – even though I did want to tell her the name was actually ‘Misri  Henhouse’, ‘Misri’ being the name of a chicken breed from Pakistan.

There have been numerous Monarch butterflies in the yard today.  They like the tall lavender phlox and the Autumn Joy sedum, which has turned pink now.  Here's one on a purple coneflower.

There are also dozens and dozens of Cabbage Whites.  They not only like the Autumn Joy sedum, but also the Autumn Lily hosta blossoms.

Time to take myself and this bizzerble cold to bed!

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

Journal: Birds & Bees & Butterflies

 

It’s rainy today and the high is only 84°, a bit cooler than it was yesterday, when we were at the Nebraska State Fair.

Here’s a story from Joanna, who works in a boutique uptown called Lavender Thyme:

A mother came with her children, an older girl around 13 years old, and a boy about 10.  

The sister found a baby necklace and asked, “You’re telling me babies’ necks are this small?”

Her younger brother confidently answered, “Babies don’t have necks yet.”  😆

It was hot every day last week, with high temperatures in the 90s and heat indices 10-15° higher.  In spite of that, I often have a small space heater on as I blow-dry and curl my hair, because my feet are cold.  😄

Be sure that never happened in the BCBC days.  (Before Cold-Brew Coffee)  I made a fresh jug of cold-brew coffee last week – this time, Raspberry White Chocolate.  Another excellent flavor from Aroma Ridge.

Not very many birds have been visiting the bird feeders the last few days.  This is common, this time of year, as there are seeds, ripe berries and grains, and tasty insects everywhere the birds look.  All they have to do is fly with their beaks open, and they’re a-gonna swallow a bug.  Just ask the swallows and the kingbirds.

Wednesday morning, I heard an ad on Rural Radio with the final line as follows:  “Don’t get caught flatfooted when the market takes a turn for the worst!”

The ‘worst’?  Arrgghhh.  I live amongst country hicks.

It was Carolyn’s 9^th birthday that day.  We had been invited to her birthday party, which would be Friday night; so in the meantime I sent her half a dozen animated eCards with cats and kittens on them.

Victoria sent several pictures of Larry and me with baby Carolyn the day after she was born, when we stopped at the hospital to see them.  We were on our way home from southern Kansas, where we’d gone to get a big scissor lift.

I had a sunburn, because we’d gotten stalled out for hours the previous day in the town of Atchison in eastern Kansas, north of Kansas City along the Missouri River.

While Larry fixed the brakes on the trailer we were towing, I had hiked the walks of the riverside park.

The lack of brakes had made itself known on a steep downhill street covered with gravel, which gave little traction.  There was a stop light at the bottom of the hill.  It had turned red, and a couple of cars were waiting in line.  If there hadn’t have been a left turning lane, we would’ve knocked those cars crashity-bang right into the busy intersection!  The pickup’s tires were locked and sliding, but the heavy trailer was pushing us along without mercy.  Yikes.

It was 95° Wednesday, with the wind blowing at 20 mph.  A ‘gentle breeze’, or so said one of my weather apps.  It didn’t feel like a ‘gentle breeze’ as I walked out to the car that evening to go to church, and my hair was all in a tumbleweed around my head.  

I forgot all about ‘gentle breezes’ and even tumbleweed hairdos, though, when I walked into a huge spiderweb stretching from tree to tree in the front yard.  I had successfully avoided two smaller webs between other trees, but did not see this one at all.  Ugh!

I wondered if the people who sat behind me in church would be distracted by the builder of said web, should she decide to go strolling down my back.

Before walking into the sanctuary to sit down, I said to a young friend, “I have a strange question.”  She looked at me and waited.  “Do I have spiderwebs in my hair?” I asked, and explained about walking through one in my yard.

She laughed, looked me over, proclaimed me web-free, and commiserated, “We have those things all over our yard, too!”

Did you know that young male spiders spin webs just like female spiders do – but once they reach maturity, most types of male spiders no longer do so?  Instead, they wander, looking for a mate.  They then utilize the ‘hunt and pounce’ method to grab prey, and they sometimes, depending on the species, ‘share’ a web with their female mate, if she will tolerate them.

Most male spiders barely live a year, if that.  Many female spiders, on the other hand, live to the ripe old age of two and even three years of age.

When I went out to collect the bird feeders late that night, the neighbor cat we call ‘Kitty Chaplin’ (for obvious reasons) was out there, sitting on the retaining wall big as you please, looking like a stone lion.  I called to him, and he ‘Meow! Meow! Meow!’ed all the way up the steps to the deck, telling me he was coming, coming, coming!  I petted him, told him to wait a minute, and went in and got him a little dab of cheese.  I could hear him at the patio door telling me to ‘Hurry!  Hurry!  Hurry!’

Thursday morning after rehanging the bird feeders, showering, shining the bathroom back up, playing the piano, making myself a tall mug of Raspberry-White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, blow-drying and curling my hair, starting a load of laundry, and eating breakfast, I headed upstairs to my quilting studio to continue working on the Maple Leaf blocks.

That evening, Hannah, who with Joanna was at the Grand Island fairgrounds setting up her booth for their Lilla Rose hair accessories, sent pictures of the ribbons on my quilts – including a surprise ribbon/rosette on the Soaring Eagle quilt from NACQJ, which I had never heard of before.

“!  What in the world does all that mean?” I queried, looking it up even as I texted.  “National Association of Certified Quilt Judges?”  Then, “Wow, look at this:  About the Award.”

Joanna, though, was already giving me her best answer:  “I think what it means is one of the judges has a special piece of paper in his back pocket and he gives you that special piece of paper if he especially feels like it.”

Hee hee  That girl.

Here’s a little part of the explanation, from their webpage:

 

The NACQJ Award of Merit is distinct from traditional show awards.  Rather than competing with Best in Show or category placement ribbons, this recognition identifies a quilt that serves as an exemplar—one that showcases mastery worth studying, techniques worth learning, or approaches worth emulating.

 

A quilt may receive this recognition when it demonstrates excellence in an area such as:

·     Outstanding Design:  Thoughtful composition, innovative use of color, pattern, or structure that elevates the visual and conceptual impact

·     Innovation:  Creative problem-solving or original approaches that advance quiltmaking and inspire new possibilities

·     Exceptional Technique:  Mastery of specific methods such as (but not limited to) piecing, appliqué, quilting, embellishment—executed at the highest level

The Award of Merit is not a consolation award.  A quilt that receives the NACQJ Award of Merit Recognition may also win show ribbons, or it may not have placed due to category competition or judging criteria, but it has distinguished itself as having something meaningful to teach the quilting community.

 

The Recognition

·     Personalized letter from the judge detailing specifically what makes the quilt significant

·     Quilt show gallery card and ribbon

·     Quilt’s image and information featured in three places on NACQJ social media: nacqj.com (Website), the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges (Facebook), and nacqj2015 (Instagram)

This recognition serves NACQJ's mission to elevate standards in quiltmaking through education, observation, and the celebration of exceptional work.

 

Well.  I feel terribly important, of course; but fame and fortunate would be nice.

Ah, well!  We take what we can get!  😅

I then found a picture of the judges.  There were 15 of them, all women.  I sent the picture to Joanna, writing, “Here are the judges!  You should’ve said, ‘...in her pocket.’”  😄

Here’s Joanna standing by her quilt, and just across the aisle is Nathanael’s quilt.  I’m surprised these quilts didn’t get overlapped by other quilts any more than they are, as there were 581 quilts on display – about 100 more this year than last year.

Friday, the temperature got up to 93°, with a heat index of around 110°.  The humidity was 72%, and the dew point was 73°, well into the uncomfortable-to-miserable range.  We were issued a heat advisory.  

An elderly quilting friend posted a meme which reads as follows:  “I just witnessed a lady throw away the center of a cinnamon roll.  The center of a cinnamon roll.  The greatest bite of the cinnamon roll.  The reason you get the cinnamon roll.  The center.  Of the cinnamon roll.  This world is full of monsters.  Monsters.”

I have a Cinnamon Roll Story.  To be precise, I have a Center of the Cinnamon Roll Story:

We were in high school, Larry and I, and we ate lunch together every day.

There was a cook there who made the most delightful cinnamon rolls I ever did taste in my life, I do believe.  They were always warm and soft.  She’d make them once or twice a week.

One day it was Cinnamon-Roll Day.  We went through the line, filled our trays, walked to our table, and ate lunch hurriedly (didn’t want the cinnamon rolls to get cold!), and picked up our cinnamon rolls.

Larry ate his, fasssst.

I unwound mine, eating it carefully, savoring every bite.  I liked to save the best – the warm, gooey middle – for last.

So there we sat around the table with our friends... chatting... eating... and I had that last bite in my fingers, polishing up my chops, anticipating...

...

...

...

And Larry leaned over and ate that thing right out of my hand.

 I married him just to give me more opportunities to get even.

(It took me a minute or two to find a good picture of a yummy-looking cinnamon roll.  Many look overdone and dried out.  Don’t cooks know that it’s a serious crime to overcook cinnamon rolls?!  And it’s just as serious to undercook them.  They must be just right.)

That evening, we went to Carolyn’s birthday party.  Here she is immediately after opening the box with her quilt inside.  Their daddy Kurt is holding it up so Carolyn (and Violet and Willie) can properly view it from the front.  Victoria is on the right, with baby Russell.  Kurt’s younger sister Wendy is on the left, and a little cousin is at the far right.

When we were leaving, Willie called after us, “Thank you for giving her (waving a hand in his sister’s general direction) such a nice present!”

Little brother Arnold, a good little parakeet, called out the same.  😆

Makes me anxious to give them theirs! 😃

Saturday, I spent the majority of the day piecing the last of the Maple Leaf blocks, finishing just before suppertime.  Now to put these background blocks together, and after that, I’ll start on the Dresden flowers and butterflies.

For supper that evening, I cooked ground venison, adding spices until it was so good, it would’ve been scrumptious all by itself; then I added it to some Bear Creek dried soup that had vegetables, pasta, lentils, rice, and barley in it.  Yum, it was sooo good.

As for Bear Creek dried soup, I had ordered several varieties with my last grocery order from Walmart.  One was slated to arrive via USPS.  On Thursday, I received an email from Walmart informing me that it had arrived and was on my front porch.

It was not.

I clicked ‘Tracking’ and checked out the matter on the USPS website, where the package was listed as having been ‘Delivered to Mailbox’.

It was not in the mailbox, either.

I waited the requisite two days, then initiated a chat with a Walmart ‘agent’.

It begins with AI:  “Hi Sarah, I’m your customer support assistant.  What can I help you with?”

I started typing.  I am not a slow typist.  But AI, apparently standing for ‘Artificial Impatience’, interrupted to ask again, “How can I help you today?

I plugged in the order number and item, and wrote, “I did not receive this item.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get your item,” stated the bot.  “I’ll help you with that.”

A long pause, and then, “Next Step”  Another lengthy pause.  Then, “To get started, could you tell me which order this is about?  If you have the order number, please share it.  If not, I can show you a list of your recent orders to pick from.  Which would you prefer?”

I had already done just that; so, in order to make life more interesting, I wrote, “Show me a list.”

Walmart bot:  “Here’s a list of your recent orders.  Please pick the order that’s missing an item, and I’ll help you from there.”  Pause...  “If you don’t see the right order, let me know and I can show more.”  I clicked on the order.  “Thanks for sharing the order number,” wrote the bot. 

Then, “Which Item Is Missing?”  (I wonder why it kept shouting, in bold font?)  “Could you tell me the name of the item from this order that you didn’t receive?  If there’s more than one missing, just list them all.”

Maybe the third time would be the charm.  “Bear Creek vegetable soup,” I stated.

At this point, the bot wrote, “A live agent can help with the refund or replacement for your Bear Creek vegetable soup.  Would you like me to connect you to someone who can assist you further?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“I can connect you with an associate,” wrote the bot.  “How should we contact you?”

“Via chat,” I responded, upon which this popped up:  (1 min wait)

“You’ll be connected to an agent shortly,” said Walmart’s AI generated chatbot.  “Please remain on the page while we transfer you.”

After several minutes, the chat pinged, and I received this:  “Good news! Our agent Syed has joined the conversation.”

Whether or not that was good news remained to be seen.

Two minutes later:  “We’re transferring you to an agent now.  Thanks again for your patience.  We estimate your remaining wait time is:  0 minutes.”

So much for the agent joining the conversation, huh?

Another two or three minutes passed, and then someone wrote, “Hi Sarah, thank you for contacting Walmart.  My name is Syed.  I see you are reaching out about a missing item, Bear Creek vegetable soup, from order 200015151556971.  How can I best assist you with this today?”

“I would like either a replacement or a refund,” I replied.

A couple more minutes ticked by.  Then, “I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that you have faced with an incomplete order but please do not worry as I will take care of your concern like my own and will try to have this issue resolved with my best ability.”

I’m not sure that’s English, but... okay?  Since no question was asked, I did not answer.

Nevertheless, Syed wrote, “Thank you so much for confirming that!  I appreciate your understanding just give me a few seconds while I check into the next steps for you.”

What did I confirm, I wonder?

More time passed before he or she said anything else.  (Is ‘Syed’ a male or female name, and in what language?  Okay, time out, time out; I gotta look that up.)

Huh, look at this: 

‘Syed’ is a male name used in Arabic and Urdu.

About the Name

·                  Gender:  Male.

·                  Meaning:  It means ‘lord,’ ‘master,’ or ‘chieftain’.

·                  Origin:  It is an honorific title used by Muslim men who claim descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and grandson Husayn.  (Do they name themselves??)

·                  Languages:  It is common in Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and other languages spoken in Muslim communities around the world.  The female equivalent is usually Sayeda or Syeda.

Would you like to know about other related honorific titles or common variations of this name?

Oops, I misread that last sentence as ‘other related horrific titles’, haha.

Back to the issue at hand:

Syed finally wrote, “I really appreciate you waiting patiently as this is taking a bit longer than expected.  Please be assured that I am still working on your issue and will make sure that it is resolved.  I would please request you to allow me a couple of more minutes to get this sorted out for you.”

I said nothing, so as not to boggle any brains.  It didn’t help, as just fifteen seconds later Syed wrote, “Thank you so much for your patience, Sarah.  I’m truly sorry for the oversight, I understand how disappointing it must be to receive an incomplete order.  Frankly, I’m quite embarrassed that we missed an item.  Please be assured that this would not go under the rug and we will surely monitor the situation of the stores from now on.”

That was the first clue to the error he was making:  The item was not missed at the local store and left out of the order we picked up; rather, it alone, that one item, was lost somewhere between a warehouse and my house.  It was, however, from the same order number.

He continued before I realized this:  “In the meantime, to make this right, I’d love to issue a $6.45 refund for the missing item would that be okay with you?”

That wasn’t the right amount.  I clicked on the order to make sure, but before I could give him the correct price, he asked, “How would you like to receive it?   • Walmart balance:  Available within 3 hours   • Original payment:  Discover card (Credited within 10 business days depending on your financial institution)”

I found the amount and told him, “It was $7.17.  And Walmart balance is fine.”

He then informed me, “I am giving you the exact amount of refund of this item Sarah I really wanted to be honest with you and did not want to give you any false expectation this is why I mirrored all the details that were visible on my end.”

He ‘mirrored’ all the details?  He didn’t even find the details, and he knew it.  And he sounded slightly antagonistic, besides.

I did my own ‘mirror’, copying and pasting the details straight from the Order page:

Bear Creek Country Kitchens Vegetable Beef Soup Mix, 8 Servings, Shelf-Stable, 8.1 oz Pouch, Multipack Quantity: 1 (How can a ‘multipack’ be in a quantity of 1?  The person who writes up the description must be of the same caliber as Syed, brainwise.  Continuing...)  88.5¢/oz  Qty 1 (because ‘Quantity’ and ‘Qty’ are two different things, eh) $1.64 from savings, $7.17, Was $8.81.

Syed, pretending to not see this, happily shared, “I’m happy to share that I’ve processed a refund of ‘$6.45’ to your Walmart Refund Credit Card, and you should see the funds appear within 3 hours or less.  You’ll be able to use this credit instantly to place a new order if needed.”

“There it is, above ^ – $7.17,” I told him.  “That’s copied and pasted directly from the Orders page.”

“No worries I am giving you some extra refund as well,” said Syed.

Would his boss be worried, I wondered?  I waited to see what would happen next.

After a few more minutes, he informed me, “Original payment method(s) $9.8 CREDITCARD Credited within 10 business days depending on your financial institution.”

A pause, then, “Now you will have $6.45 in your WALMART refund and $9.8 refund in your credit card, can you please check your email and confirm if you received it?”

I obediently looked at my email, then told him, “Yes, I have received it, but now you’ve given me too much!”

He never had found the correct item.  Instead, he’d grabbed two items from the pick-up order that he thought would add up to somewhere ‘close enough’:

Then, when that didn’t seem to satisfy me, he’d grabbed two more items.  These two added up to more than the correct amount, and this time he applied it to my credit card:

Syed launched into accolade and acclaim:  “Your satisfaction matters a lot to me, I must say, if there were stars for amazing customers, you’d be a glowing 5/5 in my book because people like you make tough days feel lighter. I really hope I was able to make your day a little better too.”

Wow.  And I didn’t even do anything.  He wasn’t done with the bonhomie, either:

“You are absolutely welcome.”  (I hadn’t even said ‘thank you’ yet!)  “If there’s anything else I can help you with to ensure this chat meets your expectations completely, please don’t hesitate to let me know?  If you are satisfied with my service please do share your thoughts on email as it really means a lot.”

“Okay, thank you,” I responded; “but I didn’t need more than I had coming.”

That brought on even more laud and homage:  “Thank you for being so sweet and understanding.  I really appreciate it, I hope your interaction with me has been a pleasant one.  You were speaking to Syed.  I would request you to please keep an eye on your email.”  (I already did that.)  “I’ll be ending this chat now.  Have a great day and take care!”

I had no chance to add anything further before this popped up:  “Your agent has left the conversation. You can close this chat window now or send another message to be connected to another agent.”

Somebody needs to train or retrain that ‘agent’.  Syed, as it turns out, is neither a ‘lord’, nor a ‘master’, nor a ‘chieftain’ when it comes to finding the missing items in a Walmart delivery and issuing a correct refund.  Very many more ‘Syeds’ on their payroll, and Walmart is going to go under!  (Maybe that’s Syed’s and his cronies’ agenda.  Do I need to report the matter?)

A little before 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning, a thunderstorm was passing over us, and the rain had just started.  The high that day would be 85°, and it was already 73°.  The big-leafed Autumn lily hostas along the walk to the drive collect what seems like gallons of water when it rains, hold it carefully, and then gleefully dump it all over the legs and shoes of anybody who tries to walk alongside them.

Friday night as I walked from the car to the front porch, I wound up with something else those plants collect:  a giant bumblebee!  They like to spend their nights snoozing inside the big white blossoms, and I’d brushed against it.

Unknowing, I went into the bedroom to don pjs, started pulling off my top -- and, with a loud buzz of protestation, that big bumblebee went lumbering off toward the ceiling!  It’s a wonder he didn’t protest by poking his stinger into me.

Wait... ((...looking something up...))  Okay, I’m wrong about that.  It’s the male bumblebees who sleep overnight inside flowers, under leaves, and along stems; females return to the nest.  And males don’t sting.

Having sorted that out, I got back in gear, continuing my preparations for church.

The rain had nearly stopped by the time we walked out to the car, so only legs and shoes got wet.  Before stepping into the Mercedes, I grabbed a tissue and wiped my shoes off.  The nylons were dry enough that their dampness didn’t show by the time we got to church a few minutes later, though I felt slightly soggy around the extremities for a time.

It was granddaughter Eva’s 6^th birthday.  We gave her a gift Sunday night after church – a lightboard.

Yesterday, I was hoping we could leave for the Nebraska State Fair early enough to try some of the breakfast foods certain vendors offer; but Larry needed to pick up a fuel pump for Levi’s car at a parts place in town before we left, wouldn’t you know.  He’d ordered it Saturday evening, and was told it would be in at about 10:30 a.m.

Sigghhhh.... Don’t remind me of all the times we didn’t get to the fair until it was so late, we hardly had time to see anything.  I said, Don’t remind me!!!

I blow-dried my hair, sipped Raspberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, and listened to one of the funnier Rural Radio announcers, who, after doing a First-Rate Spoonerism, diagnosed himself with ‘Monday Morning Mushmouth’, hee hee.  There are other broadcasters who make more mistakes than he does, but they simply continue on with aplomb, while he stops and mocks at himself – “I need more coffee!”, thus calling unnecessary attention to the blunder, when the majority of his listeners probably hadn’t even noticed.

Speaking of blunders, I found this sentence amongst a set of comments on Facebook: 

“idk why they wouldn’t of not went through normal procedures.”

Now, that’s pathetic.

A little after 10:30 a.m., we headed to town to pick up the aforementioned fuel pump, after which we continued on to the State Fair in Grand Island.  It was hot and muggy, with a high of 94°.  We arrived around noon, and decided to go into the big Quilt Room first, in the hopes that it wouldn’t be as crowded as it usually is later in the afternoon of the last day of the fair.  It actually wasn’t too bad at all.  I did my best to take pictures of every single quilt. 

I had earlier gone through the list of food vendors to see what foods we (ahem, I) might like to try.  Larry prefers to stick to the old tried-and-true foods he knows he likes.  But I like to try new things (within reason, mind you!); so sometimes I have to work up a good sales talk to get Larry on board.

Not this time, though.  After we’d been there for a couple of hours, and were hot and hungry and thirsty, we got a carton of jalapeño, beef, and cheese nachos, with a tall glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade, and shared both.  It was hot, and cold, and yummy, and kept us going for another couple of hours, through the Souvenir Shop, the arena (which we entered just in time to hear a lady singing The Star-Spangled Banner), and the Sheep Barn.

We walked back to the car so I could change from sandals to Asics walking shoes, and so we could drink some of our ice-cold Celsius and cold-brew coffee (for me), and Thompson Irish iced tea (for Larry), carrying mugs of it back into the fairgrounds to go with whatever we decided to eat, as we were hungry again.

We decided on a bison burger.  We asked the man who was making the burgers to slice it down the middle for us.  Half a burger was plenty for each of us. 

We looked at the cows and the sheep, though many people were already gathering their animals into livestock trailers and departing.  In the Nursery, we saw tiny piglets, calves, ducklings, chicks, and kids.  A Landrace-Yorkshire sow named Dolly had 23 piglets on the 4^th, and another named Violet had 19 piglets on the 6^th.  One nanny had twins, and they were both sound asleep, curled up in their mother’s shallow round feeding pan.  😄  A Jersey cow named Nellie had a one-day-old calf named Carol.

Next, we went to Scoops Parlor, where Larry got Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream in a waffle cone, and I got Cherry Nut ice cream in a waffle cone.

Then off we went again to look at the campers, after which we went into the Textiles & Crafts building.  In addition to the near-record number of quilts in the Quilt Room, there were many quilted items in the Textiles area.  In that big building were also displays of flowers and produce, woodworking crafts, photography, paintings, and so much more.  Last year, we didn’t get to see this division, as we got there too late.

As we started heading out of this huge maze-like building late yesterday afternoon, I was surprised to discover a big room across the main hallway full of quilts by 4H kids around the state.  I was happy to see so many beautiful quilts by so many children and young people from age 8 up to age 18.  Here’s a small sample of those quilts.  There were barn quilts in this room, too, also made by 4Hers.

I was particularly impressed with a couple of very large diamond pictures.  The Mandala Elephant picture is 38” x 44”, and the Battlefield Cross picture is 26” x 45”.  Both were done by Macy Diehl.

A diamond picture (or diamond painting) is a mosaic picture made up of small, faceted plastic or resin gems placed onto a pre-printed, sticky canvas.  It creates a sparkly image especially when viewed in the right light.  The canvas is covered in a sticky adhesive and printed with a color-coded chart or symbols.  The diamonds are tiny colorful rhinestones with a flat bottom and a faceted top that catches the light.  Using a special stylus dipped in wax, each gem is picked up and placed onto its matching symbol on the canvas, much like paint-by-number.

The Battlefield Cross picture was made from a photograph, which Macy Diehl then sent to a company that makes up the kit from which these ‘paintings’ are created.  If you zoom in, perhaps you can see the tiny little rhinestones that make up the picture.  I had not known such things were done, until I saw some at the Platte County Fair – and they were in a bit of a dark corner in a big cabinet, so I did not see what the work consisted of until a friend commented on it, and I zoomed in on my own photo.  I was quite surprised! – I’d thought it was cross-stitching!

In one area of the huge Crafts & Textiles building, there was a large display of succulents.  Here’s a beautiful plant I’d never seen before.  It’s an Aeonium arboreum, commonly known as a tree aeonium or Irish rose.

I took a total of 786 photos and 6 videos at the State Fair yesterday.

A quilting friend from upstate New York whom I’ve known for a good 20 years posted a photo, writing, “It’s good to know there are people like me out there.”  It’s a picture of an older woman handing a wildlife rehabilitator a box with a curled up brown furry thing in it. 

The caption:  In 2024, a woman in Cheshire, England, found what she believed was a cold baby hedgehog on a pavement.  She placed it in a warm box with cat food overnight.  When it still had not moved by morning, she took it to a wildlife hospital, where staff discovered it was a hat pompom.  🤣

FYI:  When rescuing sick or injured wild animals or birds, do not give them food or water; let the rehabber take care of that.  Offerings of food might be from the wrong source; and, depending on what’s wrong with the animal, they might not even be able to tolerate water, but might need an intravenous of one sort or another.

This morning Hester sent me a video:  Keira and Oliver had found a monarch caterpillar over a week ago, and put it into Keira’s nifty little Bug House.  It soon made a chrysalis – and it emerged yesterday! 

Did you know that chrysalises are made by butterflies, while cocoons are made by moths (and some other insects)?  A chrysalis is the actual transformed outer skin (exoskeleton) of the insect itself.  A cocoon is an external layer of silk spun around the body.  A chrysalis is hard, smooth, and rigid.  A cocoon is soft and fuzzy, or paper-like and fibrous.  A chrysalis usually hangs down from a twig or leaf.  A cocoon is often hidden in leaf litter, buried in the ground, or attached to a flat surface.

When the butterfly seemed well able to fly, they brought the Bug House to the front porch, and Keira, age 8, pulled aside the little door.  The butterfly fluttered its wings – and within seconds, it was out the door and onto a nearby bush, where it waved its wings experimentally, and then sailed up and away.  Keira was laughing in delight.

Meanwhile, in the background, Oliver, 4, asked in some concern, “Why did it go out?”  And then, in alarm, “Wait!  I need to catch it!”  And “Let’s go catch it!”  hee hee

Poor Oliver, he evidently thought he had a pet – and then it got away!

I was so amazed when one of my schoolteachers showed us closeups of a butterfly’s wings with all those tiny scales, and told us that the ‘dust’ that gets on our hands when we catch a butterfly is actually those scales (microscopic hairs), and that if enough come off, it can hurt the butterfly and hinder its flight.

I never caught another butterfly, ever.

I sent these pictures to Hester for Keira and Oliver. 

She wrote back, “We don’t usually catch butterflies since it will hurt their wings, but sometimes we get caught up in the chase.  😂”

It makes me laugh, every time I watch the video.  After all, first the caterpillar, and then the butterfly, was theirs, in that cute little pink bug house; and then all of a sudden, it wasn’t, anymore!  “Catch it!!!”  haha

Speaking of bees and butterflies and spiders, as if it’s not bad enough that there are spiders lying wait for me in my own yard, this morning there was a big ol’ wolf spider right in the kitchen sink!!!  Aiiiiyiiiiieeee.

Here are those cute little twin kids – baby goats – we saw in the Nursery.  They were sooo tiny!

Time to hit the hay.

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