Journal: Wind & Rain, Doctors & Masks, and Quilts

Last Monday night, Larry didn’t get home until around 9:00 p.m., because his truck’s boom wasn’t working properly.  He’d hoped to visit Norma, but by then she and whichever granddaughter was staying with her were sleeping and/or getting ready for bed.

To add insult to injury, the sump pump went kaput and made a small lake in the basement.  Larry took it apart and cleaned it out (the sump pump; not the basement), and it’s been working fine ever since.  Mixed in with the general dirt inside that thing, a spider had deposited a large sac full of eggs.  Aiiiyiiieee.

The next day, thinking the problem with the boom and remote were most likely electrical, Larry took out the passenger’s seat in his truck in order to get to the three big batteries that power the rig.  Lo and behold, one of the connecting wires was so loose it was barely making contact, and the ground wire was totally off.  He reconnected the wires – and the problem was solved.  Furthermore, the truck, which never started with enough oomph to suit him since the day it was new, about three years ago, now cranks with vim and vitality.  Those wires have been loose since they bought the truck!

When shortly after its purchase the remote wasn’t working properly, the company in Omaha added a supplemental battery especially for the remote.  It probably wouldn’t have needed that at all, had the main battery wires been connected good and tight.

Anyway, Larry is happy to have that problem fixed, and glad that his truck starts the way it ought to now.

Tuesday, Teensy cat came in wanting to be petted and held – because he was all wet.  He thinks I’m his personal towel and warm-up system.  I peered out the window.  Yep, it was starting to rain.

I went to blow dry and curl my hair, but Teensy sprawled out and went to sleep right where I needed to stand.  He looked funny, on his back with his feet up against the bathroom cupboard, and his little front paws folded on his chest like kangaroo paws.

I lured him out of the way with Feline Greenies Smartbites Tuna Flavor Hairball Control Cat Treats.

A little over a week ago, he hurt his paw or leg, and was limping rather badly.  I’d planned to call the vet (their doors are still locked on account of COVID-19; one must call them when one gets there, and have someone come out to one’s vehicle), but Teensy was better by Tuesday and hardly limping, thankfully.

It rained hard that afternoon, and the wind was blowing at 35 mph.  By nightfall, the wind had increased to 60 mph, with gusts up to 65.  I always feel like I need to quilt fast when winds like that hit, before a tree falls over on the house and takes out my quilting studio.  😆  For a little while, the house sounded like it was being torn apart, and the trees were all leaning – away from the house, fortunately.  I was hoping those trees wouldn’t come crashing down.  I like trees.  I like our house, unfinished as it is!

Larry worked on his friend’s vehicles in Genoa for a couple of hours that evening.

While I quilted, I ran a backup from my laptop to two external hard drives, one of them a new WD (Western Digital) Passport with a three-terabyte capacity.  Each of those little hand-sized hard drives now holds 20 years’-worth of photos, journals, quilting patterns and information, music, and miscellaneous.  Amazing.

When the data backup was done and I stopped quilting for the night, there were only three more rows to go on the Log Cabin quilt.

A week ago Saturday, one of the hospice nurses mistakenly went to Loren’s house to help care for Norma.  Loren, confused about the matter, informed the nurse that Norma had gone shopping in Omaha with one of her granddaughters, and he hadn’t heard from her and didn’t know when she’d be home.  The nurse was quite bumfizzled.  

That shouldn’t have struck me quite so funny.  But... that’s what she gets, for not following instructions.  (She did find her way to the house where Norma is staying, shortly thereafter.)

Wednesday, we found a large branch that had come down from the sugar maple in the back yard.  Jeremy calls those trees ‘weeds with trunks’.  I should’ve planted a cottonwood there, instead of that sugar maple.  😐

There were trees down all over this part of the state, and a lot of people were without electricity.  Jeremy, who owns a tree-removal business, is swamped.

I took Loren some supper:  orange chicken dinner (not much, in case he didn’t like it) (unfamiliar food is tolerable, in small quantities), tomato basil soup, Black Angus burger, green beans, and a couple of blueberry streusel muffins.  I even remembered to return his freshly-laundered clothes, too.

After our midweek church service, we went to see Norma.  We met Teddy, Elsie, and Warren coming out; Amy was helping Norma with her feeding tube.  Kenny had stayed with Norma during the service.  Kurt, Victoria, Carolyn, and Violet were just leaving, too; they’d stopped for a few minutes to see her.

Amy moved a chair or two and offered them to us – but Larry, standing next to Kenny, who was sitting on a chair next to Norma’s bed, said, “I’ll just sit on Kenny’s lap if I need to.”

This made everyone (including Kenny) burst out laughing, because Kenny doesn’t exactly have a lap to speak of.

Kenny got a notification on his phone; he has it set to sound like a cricket.  A LOUD cricket.  Larry immediately took hold of Kenny’s earlobe, leaned down, and peer into his ear to see what was making that noise.

They don’t act much different than they did when I first met them, way back when Kenny was 12 and Larry and I were 13 years old.

Lydia came shortly to spend the night with Norma. 

After getting home, we ate a late supper, and then I finished quilting the Log Cabin quilt, trimmed it and removed it from the frame.

Thursday afternoon, Hannah, Nathanael, and Levi met me at Loren’s house when I took him some food, and we found Norma’s albums (about two dozen, I think) and carried them out to the Jeep.

Later that night, Larry (under protest) helped me carry them down to my gift-wrapping room in the basement.  He wanted to put them in the living room!  Why do men think if there’s a clean place anywhere in the house, that’s exactly where we should pile stuff, for pity’s sake?!

That evening, I put the binding on the wool/corduroy/velvet Log Cabin quilt.  So now we have two large throws out of one huge, unmanageable quilt.

I used the burgundy velvet binding that was on the original Jewel Box/Log Cabin.  This quilt measures 66” x 74”.  A variety of brown blocks were added to get the quilt to get a good size for a throw.

Friday afternoon, I took Loren to the eye doctor for a check up on his cataracts.  It was a long siege – two full hours.  They had to do some tests multiple times, because Loren kept blinking when they were trying to take a picture.  Furthermore, I think when the nurse shouted (because all old people are deaf) (aren’t they?), “HOLD IT!!!” (meaning, keep the eyes open and don’t move), he thought she meant close your eyes and keep them closed.  If she would’ve just hushed up and taken the picture on the sly, she’d have had it accomplished in five seconds flat.  Furthermore, she was incapable of learning from the failures.  Siggghhhhh...  🙄 At least she was nice.  All consoling and commiserating and “the same thing happens to me!”

Loren has really sensitive eyes, and they were burning, particularly after the eyedrops to dilate them. 

Or, as Caleb said in grave and somewhat forlorn sincerity when he was about 6 years old, “They dilapidated my eyes.” 

If he’d hoped for any sympathy from his next-older sisters (Hester and Lydia), they promptly disabused him of that fond desire right quick-like when they both shrieked with sudden laughter.

Loren is now scheduled to have cataracts removed August 26 and September 2.  Too bad they have to wait so long; the longer they wait, the less able he will be to cope with it and understand it, I fear.  They are very far behind schedule on account of COVID-19.  The delay in all types of doctoring has harmed a lot of people.  We know for a fact that it’s hurt a whole lot more than the virus itself has done, here in our community.  Imagine what similar medical-treatment delays have done all over the country – even all over the world.  It’s awful. 

Loren might be losing his memory, but he still has his sense of humor:  when they gave him first the August date, and then the September date, he said, “And that will be all that’s necessary; I don’t have any other eyes.”

The doctor asked if he was on any type of medication.  I handed him the paper on which I’d written the drug his family doctor had started him on a week and a half earlier. 

The eye doctor asked Loren, “What are you taking this for?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head.  “I don’t really know.”  He looked at me.

“It’s for memory,” I said. 

Loren nodded, put up an index finger, and said, “Yes!!!  It’s for memory!” which made the doctor and nurses laugh.

By the time we left the Eye Physicians’ office, Loren was worn to a frizzle frazzle. 

I had a splitting headache (or ‘headcake’, as one of our children, maybe Joseph, used to say).  This was partly due to only getting one hour of sleep the previous night on account of bones and joints hurting and brain going too fast to slow down.  If I ever did start dropping off to sleep, somebody started snoring, and it wasn’t Tiger or Teensy or me. 

The headache was also partly because of the masks we had to wear at the doctor’s office.  Those things give me gangrene and water on the knee.  I pulled it down to right under my nose, and managed to survive without dying of asphyxiation.  Yeah, if anyone at the doctor’s office gets COVID-19, they’ll blame me.  Ugh, the thing gives me claustrophobia! – never mind the fact that it was a nice one, soft and fairly thin, and disposable (though I kept it, in case I need one again someday).

I took Loren to his house, and then came home to fix him some food – chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, and peaches.  He said he hadn’t had anything to eat yet that day; I have no idea if that was really the case or not.  Fortunately, I’d brought along a couple of blueberry muffins to give him after we left Eye Physicians.

His yard is mowed and looks nice, and he’s tickled that an American goldfinch (he calls it a ‘canary’, like people used to do) has built a nest in the wreath right beside his front door.  There were four little blue eggs in it at the beginning of the week, and then Thursday two birds hatched, and he could just barely see their fuzzy little heads.

I retrieved a large jewelry box for Norma when I took him his supper.  It’s a big, heavy, freestanding one that should’ve had Larry carrying it. 😲  He took it to her later that night.

When Loren worries about ‘burdening me’, I tell him airily (despite wanting to cry), “I raised nine kids!  I should be able to raise one brother.”  So he quits worrying and laughs.

Norma was telling a couple of her granddaughters, Olivia and Lydia, of some of her favorite songs.  She mentioned The Lights of Home.  Lydia relayed the information to me, and I sent a request to my blind friend, Penny, who promptly gathered together that song and several more, sung by our family and friends, and burned them onto a CD for Norma.

Lydia picked it up when she went to stay with Norma later; Penny lives just three houses down from where Norma is staying.

When Lydia and Olivia were little and our families would get together, we’d call for Lydia, and Olivia would come, too.  Kenny or Annette would call for Olivia, and Lydia would come, too.  No one had noticed that their names sounded similar, until that happened!

Of course the girls thought it was funny; Lydia in particular couldn’t quit giggling.  I suspect that after it happened by accident a few times, she answered to the wrong name on purpose a few more times.

At 8:30 p.m., I noticed a note from Schwan’s stuck to the front door.  The lady was supposed to have come between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.  They’d sent emails saying that they were moving delivery times forward one hour ‘to keep their drivers safe in these uncertain times’.  ‘Uncertain times’ is a euphemism for ‘COVID-19’, you know.  Somebody please explain to me why their drivers are more likely to catch the virus, if their schedule is an hour later. 

I got up extra early so as not to miss her.  She didn’t come before I left to pick up Loren around 1:00 p.m.

I went to the door to get the note – and discovered three big insulated Schwan’s bags with frozen foods and a couple of those big gel ice packs in each bag.

The food was still frozen, amazingly enough; it was nearly 90°, after all.

Larry helped me carry in the bags.  I donned a pair of gloves, and managed to cram all but one box into the freezer.  The freezer was stuffed.  The box that wouldn’t fit was an apple pie.  I turned on the oven, and baked a pie.

While the apple pie baked, Larry took Norma her jewelry box, and I cut apart the panel blocks for an Old-Fashioned Sewing-Machine quilt.  I got three-strip sashing cut and sewn together, and some of the sashing pieces attached to the panel blocks.

Norma was glad to get her watch.  Larry helped her put it on.  It will be easier for her to see than the clock on the wall that’s out of her line of vision.

After visiting for a while, Larry stopped at Walkers’ shop and washed the Jeep.  The barn swallows in the garage are making a wreck and ruin of it.

That long day finally wound down.  Larry was having his before-bedtime nap on the loveseat while I sat in the recliner, heating pad behind my back, answering a few emails and messages.

A baby bunny screamed right at my feet.

I leaped up.  Teensy, eyeing me nervously, let go of the bunny – and it escaped into the laundry room and scrambled behind the washer and under one of the big square hoses.  Larry hunted down a long piece of trim and carefully slid it behind the dryer and washer.  The bunny suddenly came dashing out and hippity-hopped to the other side of the room.  After a few misses, I caught it, carried it outside, and released it.  It went hopping off – but it was missing a patch of fur.  I always figure they’ll die from such things.  😖

“I hate cats,” she said, petting the purring feline in her lap.

(At least while he’s in my lap, he’s not outside marauding and terrorizing the local cottontail population.)

Saturday afternoon, I got the center of the Old-Fashioned Sewing-Machine quilt sewn together.  The blocks are from a panel.  I cut them apart, repositioned them, and added sashing.  The sashing consists of three half-inch strips (finished size) sewn together, with cornerstones added.  The central section measures 27” x 40”. 

That done, I began cutting the pieces for scrappy 3D Flying Geese for the next border.  I plan to hang the quilt from an oak clamping quilt bar Loren gave me about five years ago.

This panel was purchased when we were in Texas in February and stopped at a little roadside quilting shop, Quilts, Etc., in Sour Lake, Texas.  It was in a clearance bin.  Larry spotted it and thought I really, really needed it.  😊

I hardly ever want to stop at quilt shops when we’re traveling, first because we have ♫ ♪ Places to Go ♫ ♪ and a Short Time to Get there ♫ ♪, and second because Larry finds too many things to buy.  ha

After church Sunday, we took Loren a Black Angus burger with American cheese and some ketchup on half of one of those small 12-grain loaves, some fire-roasted potatoes and vegetables, peaches, and a monster cookie (oatmeal, with M&Ms).

On our way home, I pointed at the Monastery Road going north, and said, “Let’s go that way.”

We wound up driving all the way to Creston, just to see if they might sell E-85.  They didn’t.  We turned west and drove to Humphrey – and lo and behold, they do sell E-85!  That’s 18 miles from our house (or 19 minutes, according to Google maps), as opposed to 26 miles (29 minutes, so says Google – which is about right, since we have to drive all the way through town) to the Cubby’s store in Shelby, where we’ve been going, if we really want E-85.  The Jeep runs sooo much better on it than on regular gas.

It was such a pretty drive, and I didn’t have my camera.  Rats.  I hadn’t expected to go for a drive.

That afternoon, Lura Kay sent me a note, saying that she had made steak soup, and had a large jar full for Larry and me and for Loren.  We picked it up after the evening church service, and scurried right home to have some.  (Loren goes to bed quickly after the evening church services; I would take him some soup today.)  As expected, it was scrumptious.  My sister is a good cook.

She is not well, either.  She has had serious heart issues for many years.  And yet she tries to help wherever she can, and apologizes for not doing more.

This afternoon I took Loren a big bowl of that steak soup, along with Schwan’s Southern-Style biscuits, fresh out of the oven, and the everlasting peaches.  (I accidentally ordered one of those gallon cans again – they look surprisingly like normal-sized cans, on Wal-Mart’s webpage, and why would I ever think to read the size description?!  Besides, the price seemed right.  Which means I got an excellent deal.  Doesn’t it?)

Larry came home a little earlier than usual, unloaded the metal roofing from his flatbed trailer, then loaded his vehicle lifts and went to Genoa to work on another of his friends’ vehicles.  He’s hoping to get it painted tonight.

I looked out the window while Larry was unloading the trailer, and discovered that Loren was out there helping him. 

The metal roofing is for our house; Larry got it at an auction for a smashing bargain.  Loren likes his peace and quiet, but he gets lonely.  And he’s always happy if he feels like he’s done someone a good turn.  He and Larry have been good friends for years.

It’s so sad when our loved ones are failing, whether in body or mind.  I truly cannot say which is worse.

But... we put these things in God’s hands, trust Him, and just take one step at a time.  ‘God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ – I Corinthians 10:13

I know and believe that with all my heart.  As the beautiful old hymn says, “I’ve found it true, I’ve found it true!”

Some of my ‘ways to escape, that I may be able to bear it’ are 1) visiting with my children, 2) hugging my little grandchildren, 3) playing the piano, 4) quilting, 5) photography, and 6) working in the flower gardens.  And I’m very thankful that we can go to church again.  All these are comforting solaces.

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