Last Monday, my nephew Kelvin wrote to ask if I had any pictures of my father’s (his grandfather’s) blue TravelAll with his Airstream. He’d seen a similar rig, and it reminded him of Daddy’s.
Sho’ ’nuff, I did; it hasn’t been very long since I
scanned those pictures.
Here’s my dog Sparkle, part German shepherd and part
collie, in front of the (International Harvester) TravelAll, and below is my
father with his TravelAll and Airstream camper (we called them ‘trailers’).
Too bad I didn’t have a better camera back then!
Kelvin agreed, “I wish I’d have taken more pictures,
but each one cost money back then.”
“Yep,” I replied, “And after my first foray into
photography, wherein I used up all 12 shots on Loren skinning a rabbit, I think
Mama was a little leery about developing my pictures! Good thing those shots were in black and
white. 😬”
Can you see the muffler in the back window of the
International, in that first shot? It’s
connected to a generator that could power everything in the camper, including
the air conditioner. The warmth from that
generator caused more than one hummingbird to fly in, after the generator was
off, and get trapped in the vehicle until Mama noticed and scurried to open the
doors.
Once, a whole volley of bees flew out of hives on a
truck parked next to us at a rest area and made themselves at home all over the
warm ceiling of the vehicle.
We finished eating in the camper, walked out to the
TravelAll (or perhaps it was the Suburban we had after the TravelAll), opened
the doors – and found the ceiling had turned into a fuzzy,
yellow-and-black-striped, crawling, buzzing mess.
Mama and I backed off.
Daddy removed his hat and went to swinging.
Soon realizing the error of this approach, he instead
took off running, hat yet in hand.
The swarm went after him.
He picked up speed.
The swarm flew faster, too.
It was around noon, and people were sitting at
picnic tables around the rest area, eating lunch. Forks paused midway to mouths while people
stared in mute amazement as Daddy dashed by, an angry, buzzing cloud of bees
hot on his heels.
Mama laughed ’til she cried.
Daddy, making a wide circle around the rest area,
outran the bees and came tearing back to the TravelAll, panting and yelling as
he came, “Jump in! Jump in!”
Mama and I peered into the windows. Seeing that all signs of the bees were gone,
we got in just as Daddy dashed around the front of the vehicle, gave a cursory
glance around the inside, and then, diving through his still-open door, flung
himself into his seat. He started the
engine, and we departed that rest area with quite a lot more speed than usual.
I did a search on Google Images, and see that the TravelAll
was a 1973 model.
The Airstream was a 31-footer. I had my very own bedroom in the back, which
quite pleased me.
When we got ready to depart any parking
place, it was part of my job to help look around the camper, inside and out,
for anything that wasn’t put away properly.
Stabilizers needed to be rolled up, vents cranked down, windows latched,
refrigerator door locked, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc., put in drawers,
accordion doors fastened back, roll-top cupboard doors slid shut, table latched,
and all jetsam and flotsam put into their respective places. I thought it was great fun, and used to time
myself as I flew around setting things to rights, just to see if I could better
yesterday’s time.
After I got to be 14 or
so, I didn’t travel with my parents much anymore, so Daddy sold the Airstream and bought
a 26’ 1975 Argosy. People call them ‘The
Painted Airstreams’. After Daddy passed
away, Mama gave that camper to Kelvin, who has always loved camping.
Kelvin asked about the
interior design and floor plan in the 31’ Airstream. But we had several campers, and I don’t
remember which one was which – especially since Larry and I have had a variety
of campers, too.
“I do remember the time I
wound up with ticks all over me, though,” I told him, “and made the mistake of
throwing the first one I found on the floor.
It was trying to latch onto my finger, after all! Daddy, no fonder of ticks
than he was of bees, ran in midair for a little while, until gravity got the
better of him.”
Daddy and bugs. Yikes. 😱
“We found one in the shag
carpet once,” said Kelvin, “and David and I were playing ‘football’ with it
across the piano bench until my mother saw what it was. It was almost the size of a nickel and twice
as thick. So then I checked it out close-up,
and could see the tiny little legs.”
Ugh. A huge
one fell off of our Siberian husky Aleutia once, and Caleb, about 2 ½, cried, “Oh,
YUCK!” He shuddered. Then, “Just don’t even look at it,” he
advised his likewise-shuddering sisters – while he himself was all hunkered
over getting a real close look at it.
I got 122 pictures
scanned Tuesday. Here are Hannah and
Aaron on Father’s Day, June 16, 2002.
Aaron was the first grandchildren on both sides of the family.
It
started raining Monday afternoon, kept it up all night, switched to snow in the
morning, and went to a rain-and-snow combination until late Tuesday afternoon. The wind howled around the eaves the entire
time, and didn’t calm down for several days. But the sky cleared enough that we actually
saw part of a sunset Tuesday night. It
was 39° at 1:00 a.m.
We drove
out and took a look at the new wood-look vinyl flooring in Loren’s kitchen; it looks very nice.
Wednesday, I went on
scanning photos. Here are Victoria and
her cousin Michelle Walker (Robert’s daughter), June 23, 2002. Watching a wedding-gift-unwrap is serious business, when you’re
4 and 5 years old!
Kelvin and Rachel went to see Loren after Kelvin finished his chemo treatment Wednesday evening. They had a nice visit, and Loren enjoyed looking at Kelvin’s pictures from his recent vacations with his family.
Most recently, they went to Maine and stayed in a lovely old farmhouse,
built in 1902, on Little Cranberry Island, just south of Bar Harbor. Cadillac Mountain, elevation 1,530, is a
couple of miles south of Bar Harbor.
They climbed to the top of the mountain.
From that point, the sunrise
can be seen before any other place in the USA.
Kelvin told me, “Uncle Loren hurried and tried to
get out of the door when we left. Whew,”
he added, “but that is sad. I hope he
forgets that.” (I had earlier
told him that Loren remembered his previous visit a week earlier.)
“The lady at the desk was calling for security real
loud,” continued Kelvin, “but I told him he had to go back, and he said, ‘Okay.’”
Siggghhhh... At
least he’s not like one of my uncles, who, after being placed in a nursing home
because of Alzheimer's, kept crying and crying because he thought he was in
prison. He pleaded with his daughter (my
cousin) to take him home. “I’m innocent
of what they’re accusing me of!” he told her again and again. She cried, telling us about that.
Rachel took the above picture of another resident,
Kelvin, and Loren in the nursing home dining room. The food always looks very good there.
Loren was mixed up that day about where he was, what
he was doing, and so forth; but he continues to seem happy, despite sometimes
wanting to go home. He might have dementia
and have trouble keeping all sorts of things straight, but one thing has never
wavered: his absolute faith in God. What a difference this makes, particularly
when one is suffering with physical problems of any sort. The words of King Solomon in the Proverbs are
so true: “The spirit of a man will
sustain his infirmity.”
I got 85 pictures
scanned Wednesday, and that’ll be all for a while, until I get done with everything
I can do at Loren’s house. I have a
total of 27,060 photos scanned. The
album I’m scanning right now holds 600 photos.
After our midweek church service that
evening, Larry and I went to Wal-Mart for markers to repair the wallpaper trim
in the lower level at Loren’s house. I found
a set of about 24 in the art department.
It was the only set they had, and it didn’t appear to have the colors I
would need. I took it, in case there was
no other choice. Where on earth was the school
supplies department?? They move that
area around more often than they rotate the milk. I asked the next workers I spotted, and they
directed us all the way back to the farthest corner in the store to a point
between the electronics and the liquor section.
There I found a 64-piece set of Crayola markers, most of which were in
varying ‘skin tones’ from light to dark, or so it said on the box.
Just the ticket. I needed ‘very dark rose’, ‘medium almond’,
and ‘blue-gray’. (‘Skin tones’? Perhaps the blue-gray person was suffering
from low oxygen levels?)
We also got something that will hopefully
fix the toilet downstairs. Ours, that is. Why do all sorts of things quit working at our
house, right when we’re busy trying to get Loren’s house all
fixed up??!
There’s also a toilet at Loren’s house
that’s not working. Larry thinks he can
fix it – but he works too many hours as it is, and doesn’t get much else
done. The toilet is one of those odd
things that has a button on the top of the tank lid – and it’s so hard to push
(and someone discarded of the wooden T-handle Loren made for Janice, years
ago), that when the button comes shooting back up, it’s liable to throw you to
the ceiling, if you don’t get out of the way in time.
Anyway, Larry took the lid off, and I was
surprised to see a roundish, submarine-shaped plastic tank inside the bigger
ceramic tank. Hmmm... I later looked it
up, and after fumbling about for a bit (because I didn’t know what to call it),
I discovered that it’s a ‘pressure-assisted toilet system’.
I called a plumber to come take a look at
it. He will come on Tuesday.
At 1:30 a.m., about the time I was
heading for bed, I belatedly remembered I needed to toss the wet clothes into
the dryer – and then I discovered that the clothes I’d put into the washer before
church had not finished washing and spinning, because the load (Larry’s heavy
jeans) had gotten off balance. Bother! I rearranged the clothes, restarted the
washing machine... looked at the minutes left on the readout... and decided to
stay up a little longer, so as to dry those and start another load in the
washer. Larry might be glad I did that, come
morning!
Thursday morning, Kelvin sent
a picture of himself in his chair with his little namesake, Baby Kelvin, tucked
in beside him. “Working from home today,”
he wrote.
The company he works for has been good to him these
last five years, while Kelvin has battled colon cancer. On the not-so-good days after his chemo
treatment, they let him work from home.
I spent the day at Loren’s house, scrubbing, dusting, scrubbing, mopping,
scrubbing, cleaning, scrubbing, washing, and scrubbing. Please pass the hand lotion!
Once upon a time when Joseph was a wee little guy of
no more than two, he colored on the wall with a Crayola. Upon finding this piece of dubious artwork, I
handed him a damp rag, a little bar of soap to rub on it, and set him to
scrubbing.
He beamed at this novel pursuit, and got in gear
with a purpose. After a moment, he
looked around to see if I was watching, grinned at me, and said in his happy
little voice, “Dus’ a-cwubbin’ and a-cwubbin’!”
However, I hadn’t put any cleaner on the wall or the
rag, and that bar of soap was worthless on crayon. I let Joseph scrub until his arms were
getting tired, and then took pity on the child and sprayed a good dose of
cleaner on the wall. A couple more
swipes with the rag, and the crayon was gone.
Fun as it was, Joseph didn’t color on the wall
again!
I took my computer with me to Loren’s house, and
cranked up some of my favorite music on YouTube: the Old-Fashioned Revival Hour. I especially love to listen to the men’s
quartet: Old Fashioned Revival Hour
Quartet
It hasn’t been so very long ago that there wasn’t a
single song from the Old Fashioned Revival Hour on YouTube, neither from the
quartet nor the choir. I’m thankful for
those who have uploaded this beautiful music.
It puts today’s ‘music’ to shame.
I took along my cute little red Bluetooth speaker,
which I carried with me into any room where I was working, while the computer
stayed in one of the bedrooms. Nifty.
At 3:45 p.m., I texted Larry: If you go home before coming to Loren’s house,
could you bring the markers? They’re on
the chair next to yours in the kitchen.
Larry:
Ok
At 4:30 p.m., I texted again: Bring the blow dryer, too, so I can get the stickers off the
side of the cupboard.
Larry:
Ok
At 6:20 p.m., I sent another text: Could you also bring a can of Easy Off oven spray? There’s some in the box of cleaners
downstairs.
Larry:
Ok
At 7:00 p.m., I wrote yet again: Would you want to bring the pan of macaroni, vegetables, and
Philly steak when you come?
Evidently,
the mention of ‘food’ makes him wax eloquent!
He
responded: Ok; I will be there soon; just leaving
the shop.
So it seems if I want him to talk, I gotta feed
him! 😆
He remembered everything but the
blow dryer, and I have not remembered it any time since then, either. Mañana.
In addition to the macaroni/vegetable/steak
casserole, Larry brought yogurt and Bai tea.
It was nice to sit down, relax, and eat for a few minutes before getting
busy again.
By 1:00 in the morning, the kitchen and
dining room were done, except for the refrigerator. I dusted, polished, and shined up all the
woodwork and cupboards, inside and out, and scrambled up onto the counters in
order to clean off the tops of the cupboards and to dust the elaborate edging
all around it. That took a
while; it wasn’t just dusty; it was greasy, too. The oven and stovetop and microwave are now sparkling
so smartly, I think you should be able to see the glow from way over there (wherever
‘there’ is).
Larry got the repaired wall in the garage drywalled,
and then he uprooted the two decorative windmills, one in the front yard and
one in the back, loaded them into his pickup, and brought them home.
Loren’s office was one of three ‘bedrooms’ on the main
floor, and it’s next to those steps – and they had a big part of the wall open
to the stairs and the living room. We may have the drywaller return and
fill that in, as it certainly decreases the value of the home.
Below is the half-flight of stairs that lead up from the
front door to the main floor. If you try
walking down those V-shaped things in the middle, especially if you’re carrying
something and can’t see exactly where you’re stepping, you’re likely to put
your foot in midair and suddenly go down them all at once in one looong step,
with an ignominious sprawled landing at the bottom.
When people were helping us cart things out of the house, I
took note when they were heading for those stairs with big boxes and furniture,
and told them, “Stay to the outer edge of those steps!” and “Don’t go down the
middle!”
Several of the kids reciprocated, and every time they saw me
heading toward the stairs, one of them was bound to say, “Stay to the outer
edge of those steps!” and “Don’t go down the middle!” 😄
If I made any loud banging or crashing noises, someone was
sure to yell from whatever far room he or she happened to be in, “Did you go
down the middle???!!!”
Back in Olde England, people would build the stairs in their
houses – often tall, skinny houses, to save on property tax – with odd landings
and turns and jigs, and with the steps at all different heights and widths and
lengths, in order to foil burglars. One of the old hymn writers (Isaac
Watts, I believe) speaks of sleeping in a 5th-floor room in London
in the early 1700s and hearing, more than once, booted feet coming stealthily
up the stairs... higher and higher and higher --- and then there was a misstep,
a scuffling, and a tumble back down half a flight of steps or so, whereupon the
would-be burglar invariably decided it was best to flee the scene.
Late Friday morning, it was 45°, bright and
sunny; but the wind was gusting at 45-50 mph, and we were issued a Fire Weather
Warning. There have been a lot of
prairie fires around the area, which is quite unusual for our part of the state,
especially at this time of year. There
was one just a block or so from Loren’s house a week ago. Fortunately, they got it out before it damaged
any houses.
I gathered up cleaning supplies that
were strewn about, gave the gas fireplace on the main floor a cursory dusting, –
and there they were at the front door, accompanied by parents, a sister, and
Robert and Margaret.
Not long after they all left, I found a
bottle of stainless steel misting spray especially for the front of the
refrigerator. 🙄
It shined that thing beautifully.
But I’ll betcha it wouldn’t
have, had I not cleaned it so thoroughly beforehand.
Meanwhile, my New
York Beauty quilt was on
display at the AQS quilt show in Branson, Missouri. It didn’t win
anything; it just hung there enjoyin’ the sights, evidently. But look at
these beautiful quilts: Branson
Winners
Larry left Friday afternoon to go retrieve a pickup he
purchased somewhere around St. Louis. He
started off on his BMW motorcycle, but the shifter broke when he got to
Schuyler. He fixed it... tried it... and
it broke again.
Then he realized that the odd tool in one of the
motorcycle’s ‘trunks’ was for just such an occurrence as this. With that tool, he was able to ‘rig’ the
shifter so that it worked long enough to get him back home again.
Instead of the motorcycle, he drove the BMW, rented a U-Haul
flatbed trailer when he got to where the pickup was, and pulled the BMW home on
the trailer behind the pickup.
The trouble with the motorcycle made him quite a lot later
than he’d intended, though. He stopped
during the night to sleep a little while in the pickup. The cold woke him back up again a couple of
hours later. He had an electric blanket
along, and had plugged it into the 12V socket; but had then opened the pickup
door and not thought about the accessories turning off when he did that.
He got home Saturday morning a little after 11:00 a.m. and
headed straight for his recliner.
Meanwhile, I cut my hair, dried it, gave it a bit of a curl,
and then got ready to go see Loren. I
put things away and straightened things around the house until 3:00, when I woke
Larry to tell him I was going to Omaha.
He got up, saying he would come, too.
I didn’t argue; I hadn’t really wanted to go by myself.
While he got ready, I filled the birdfeeders. Unbeknownst to me, there was a big glob of
grease on the bottom of one of the bags of Nyjer seed. When I lifted it to pour it into the feeder,
I got it on my hand and my skirt. It was
that thick, stinkin’ red grease – like the stuff Larry would’ve used on his tractor. (Nevertheless, he acts amazed and wonders how
in the world such a thing as grease got in the house. How, indeed.)
It took a whole lot of fierce scrubbing with Mrs. Meyer’s
Basil hand soap and a good dose of Dr. Teal’s Shea Butter hand cream to get
that smell off of my hands. I changed
skirts, doused the unfortunate one with Resolve Stain Remover, and let it cool
its heels inside the washer until I had time to start a load of clothes. And then I had to climb in and out of the
Mercedes, a not-very-low-to-the-ground GL450 SUV, in a straight skirt instead
of a flared one. This would not be an
issue if I were a scant two or three inches taller. Siggghhhh...
I took Loren a big album chockful of postcards from
Colorado. He was delighted, and started telling us all about the times he
had been to places in almost every one of the postcards – and he was
remembering correctly, too.
We were in the sitting area/ lounge where there’s a
big-screen TV, and it was playing the Three Stooges, which kept catching
Loren’s (and Larry’s) attention. They
thought it was hilarious, of course. I think it’s the height of
stupidity.
Larry told Loren that he and Kenny used to watch the Stooges
when they were little, when they lived in Trinidad, Colorado.
“It made him the man he is today,” I added, and Loren burst
out laughing.
It is not good to turn on shows like that for dementia
patients. Actually, that dumb stuff is not beneficial for anybody,
really; but it’s particularly bad for dementia patients. The fact is, TV
is not good for most of them, ever. There
are extensive studies that show this, and personal caregivers know it,
too. (It shouldn’t take ‘extensive studies’ for anybody to know this; a
good dose of common sense and honesty ought to do the trick.) But nursing
homes use TVs as babysitters; I understand that. Dementia patients often
have a hard time telling the difference between truth and fiction, reality and
make-believe. And it agitates them when what they see on the screen isn’t
jiving with what’s going on around them.
Loren sometimes talks about the people there (or himself)
having ‘fistfights’. I’d thought he was
having dreams; but now I’m wondering if it was something he saw on TV.
If they must have the TV on, why don’t they play National
Geographic videos, or scenic drives, or suchlike? Even the Little Rascals would be better than
The Three Stooges.
Oh, well. I’m not
going to complain about it – at least, not to anybody at the nursing home. I intend to be one who shows appreciation for
all the nurses and workers there, not one who criticizes everything under the
sun. Their jobs are not easy, and yet
every one of them seems cheery and helpful and kind.
While Larry and Loren sat in the sitting room/lounge
chatting and looking at the postcards, I went into the adjacent dining room and
played the piano. It’s a shiny black
Yamaha baby grand, in perfect tuning, and with a lovely touch to it. It was positioned just around the corner and
out of sight from Larry and Loren. But
Larry said that as soon as I started playing, Loren looked up and exclaimed,
“That’s Sarah Lynn playing!!!” He
smiled, listened for a while longer, then said, “I don’t get to hear that kind
of music anymore.”
That makes me feel bad.
I shall try to arrive at a time when it’s okay to play that piano.
A thin, stooped old
man with a very large beard got up from his chair in the lounge and came to the
open French doors of the dining room. He
was scowling ferociously at me and making downward motions with his hands,
meaning he wanted me to stop playing.
I gave him a big grin and a wave – and kept playing.
He hadn’t done that when someone was in there playing just
before me! I believe he recognized some
of those old hymns I was playing – and didn’t like it one little bit.
A few minutes later, a nurse, in an effort to pacify him, I
suppose, came and shut and locked the French doors between lounge and dining
room.
I finished the song I was playing and exited. No sense in playing, if Loren couldn’t hear
me – though I did rethink that notion when I encountered an elderly lady
in a wheelchair who had positioned herself just outside the window next to the
grand piano, the better to hear the music.
She smiled at me, raised her eyebrows, and gave a little bob of her head
toward the piano, and then pulled a sad face.
She hadn’t wanted me to stop!
“I have to go pretty soon, but I’ll be back!” I told her,
and she smiled and nodded.
As I walked through the lounge back to Larry and Loren, the
old man glared at me. I stared him
down. He squirmed and looked the other
way, sullen and surly and glowering.
A few minutes later, a woman shuffled slowly over to one of
the two sets of doors into the dining room and gave the handle a try.
The old man said loudly, “DON’T DO THAT! DON’T DO THAT! THOSE DOORS ARE LOCKED!”
She ignored him and shuffled toward the other doors, though
she did give him a leery, sidewise glance as she went past him.
She tried the other doors, to no avail.
The old goat yelled (though his yell wasn’t much louder than
his usual talking voice), “DON’T DO THAT!!!”
Loren said to me, “See?
Women like her do stuff like that that they aren’t supposed to do, and
that’s what gets him all riled up!”
I grinned at him and informed him, “That old man is a whole
lot badder than she is.”
“What?” asked Loren (probably on account of the
nongrammatical word).
I repeated my statement, and added, “He’s the one
with the bad attitude, not her.” I
gestured unobtrusively toward the woman, who had sat down in a chair in a far
corner. “And look, now he made her feel
bad. She didn’t know she was
doing anything wrong.”
Loren thought about that for a couple of seconds, then
nodded in agreement. “Yes, he doesn’t
really treat people right.”
There. Got that sorted
out.
The man then mumble-griped about something else, and a nurse
said to him, “Don’t get so angry!”
He went back to watching the Stooges.
Don’t try to convince me that that helped his general
attitude at all, watching those idiots jab each other in the eyes. Ugh.
I left the postcard album there for Loren to look at, and
said I’d bring a different one and trade him the next time we came. I
wrote his name, along with my name and phone number, inside the cover.
Hope it’s still around when we return next week! But if not... postcards can be replaced. I probably wouldn’t, though; that’s a big
album, with hundreds of postcards in it, and they cost a whole lot more now
than they did back when I got them in 1995.
Sometimes Loren seems so normal that, after we go, I feel
really bad for leaving him there, and for putting him in the home in the first
place. But I’d just spent the entire 1 ½-hour drive there going through pictures
from the Moultrie game cam that we had at the front of Loren’s house, saving
the pictures I wanted to keep and discarding the rest. I saw pictures of Larry, Bobby, and Teddy
going there every day since December, staying with him practically around the
clock. Here’s Robert, the day he came to
help me take Loren to Urgent Care and then to the Emergency Room in David City,
when he had Covid. That’s me, pulling
into the driveway in the BMW. It snowed
hard that night, and we drove home in several inches of snow.
Next, I saw the pictures of Loren walking down his driveway to go to church, dressed only in his suit, no coat, hat, or gloves, on a 20° day, December 29th. It was 4:31 p.m. (all that data is recorded right at the bottom of each picture). The service doesn’t start until 7:30 p.m.
Loren had a lot of odd explanations about
what he was doing that day, and what wound up happening. The last story
he told Larry was that he needed to go get the church opened up for everyone
and be in the office before the service began – as though he thought he was the
pastor. After that were the pictures of
Hannah, Joanna, Judy, Robert, and Teddy coming to help us clear things out of
the house.
Here’s Larry scooping snow from Loren’s drive on the first
day of January – and the temperature, as you can see, was 0°. Now look again, and see if you can see Loren
there on the porch. He’d decided to come
out and help Larry – and he’d only put a suede vest on over a long-sleeved
cotton shirt, and he had cotton Dockers pants on.
Larry told him it was much too cold for him to be outside,
and that he’d be done shoveling the snow soon.
Only then did Loren seem to notice the temperature and agree that he
should probably go back inside and warm up.
Looking at these pictures, I am again struck with great
thankfulness that Loren is in a home where he is well cared for, and where he
can’t wander off and bring himself to harm.
After leaving the nursing home, we stopped at Lowe’s Home
Improvement Center and got everything on my list that we needed for Loren’s
house, except for a microwave handle. We
got LED lights with special ends so that they can be put into the old
fluorescent light fixture. We got Rust Remover, dishwasher cleaner, a
glass lamp shade for a bathroom light fixture (it doesn’t match perfectly;
we’ll need to get a couple more like it), cupboard clips for holding up the
shelves, and a shower curtain rod for the bathroom.
We also bought a new kitchen sink faucet since ours was
leaking like a sieve, and a dry erase marker, which is supposed to get
permanent marker off of such things as hard plastic. Loren wrote on
things – all sorts of things – with permanent markers. On a nice
fire-proof safety box, he wrote on one side of the lid, ‘Loren’s passport’ and
made an arrow toward the front of that side of the box. On the other
side, he wrote, ‘Norma’s passport’, with an arrow toward that side of
the box. We’d like to use the box, if we
can get the marker off.
We ate at La Mesa Mexican Restaurant again.
Yummy, they
really have good food there. I tried the
pozole soup, which is made with corn hominy, pork, cabbage, and radish. To tell you the truth, I expected not to like
it much. But I loved it. Mmmmm, good, good.
Since I ordered a small cup of the soup, I thought I needed
something else. Why I ever think that is
beyond me.
I also asked for a Torta Ahogada, which is a Mexican
specialty sandwich filled with grilled steak, beans, onions, avocado, lettuce,
tomato, jalapeños, and sour cream, and smothered in salsa. It is served in a warm Mexican bread roll.
And it’s huge. No, it’s humongous.
But it certainly made a good meal the next day when we got
home from our evening church service!
Early Sunday morning, Larry decided it was a good time to
put the new flusher thingamarolphgidget into the downstairs toilet. 🙄
Yes, it very badly needed it, as it kept up a constant spewing of water
inside the tank. But, still.
Amazingly enough, we still managed to get to church with
time to spare.
It was a good thing we’d gotten the new kitchen faucet the
night before, because by Sunday morning, the old faucet was leaking like crazy,
pouring water out all around the base and down into the cupboard under the sink
every time I turned it on. We had to
stop using it, and only use the faucet in the laundry room. Unhandy, to say the least. Plus, we kept forgetting that we shouldn’t
use it.
So after we ate lunch that afternoon, Larry installed the new faucet.
Of course, this meant
that there were pots and pans all over the floor. Furthermore, the inside of the cupboard was a
colossal mess and needed a thorough cleaning.
But I was too tired to care. It
was time for a Sunday afternoon nap.
After the evening church service,
we went to Loren’s house to put out the garbage. Larry intended to bring
home some things he wanted to keep, and then move shelving toward the center of
the garage, because Robert would be painting the walls today.
I used the markers we got
on the 10”-wide wallpaper trim just above the wainscoting and chair rail, where
painters’ tape had removed some of the coloring. I didn’t use much of
the dyes at all, so I’ll give those marker sets to a couple of the
grandchildren for their birthdays, along with something on which to use said
markers.
I put some cleaning
tablets in the dishwasher and ran it through a cycle. It cleaned the
washer well, all but a wide streak of rust on one side. So before we
left, I put a bottle of dishwasher cleaner that’s supposed to remove rust into
the silverware rack and then started it on the hottest cycle.
“Let’s hope the house
doesn’t burn down while there’s nobody there to monitor it,” I said to Larry.
I finished scrubbing the
whirlpool tub in the big bathroom and the shower in the little bathroom. There
seemed to be a few strands of hair in the shower drain, so I went and got some
needle-nosed pliers and tried to extract them.
They hung on tight.
I went and got a Phillips
screwdriver and took the drain cover out.
!!!
I think I found someone’s
lost toupee!!!! 😧😬😵💫🤪😱😨😯😝😜
I took a picture of the model and serial number inside the
microwave so I could order the right handle, and got that done today. They no longer make that microwave, which was
manufactured in 1994; but I found a ‘replacement handle’ at Wal-Mart for only
$8.67, with free shipping. The handle
will be here April 6th.
The hardest part is now
done; it shouldn’t take long to do the rest – except for all the
chandeliers. When we were clearing things out at the beginning of this
marathon, I found some bottles of ‘chandelier cleaner’. Teddy looked them
up on his phone and discovered that they were selling on eBay for a pretty
penny; so I gave them to him to sell along with the pile of other things he was
taking to sell. Why did I do that?! Now I need chandelier
cleaner. 🙄
We didn’t get home ’til nearly 1:30
a.m. – and nobody had cleaned out the cupboard, scrubbed it, washed all the
pots and pans, and put them back. I’m
beginning to think the Shoemaker’s Elves were just somebody’s wild imagination. Those elves have certainly never shown up
when I have needed them!
So... today I got busy. First, I started a big load of towels and dishcloths washing. This,
because some stupid mice were rowdying about in the very large drawers in the
laundry room. They’d even been partying
with sunflower seeds in there!
While the washing machine swished and
churned, I pulled the rest of the stuff out of the cupboard under the sink,
scrubbed the cupboard, and washed first yesterday’s dishes and then the pots
and pans. I filled three bags with pans,
cookie sheets, large measuring cups, etc., that I no longer wanted, and put them
into the Mercedes.
Every time the washing machine or the dryer played their
pretty little tunes, I went and got dry things from the dryer, replaced them
with wet things, started another load in the washing machine, and folded and
sorted the dry things. I threw the
greased skirt into one of the loads, and it came out perfect, utterly
greaseless.
At 6:30 p.m., I wrote to Larry, “Could you bring home supper
tonight, so we don’t get dishes dirty again?
I don’t want any more dishes to wash!”
He called to ask what I wanted. I said, “Surprise me.”
He did so, and pleasantly. He went to Hy-Vee and got rotisserie chicken,
which I’ve been wanting ever since that Sunday afternoon when we brought Loren
home from Edgewood. We picked up
rotisserie chicken at Wal-Mart on our way to the nursing home – and I held it
on my lap and smelled it all the way there, and then all the way to Loren’s
house. However, Larry stayed with Loren while
I went home that afternoon to get ready for church, so I didn’t get any. waa waa waa.
This chicken was pretty good, but someone got a
little carried away with one or more of the spices – garlic, and maybe
oregano? I have never been particularly
fond of oregano. We peeled the skin off,
and it was okay, especially that part of the meat that was farther from the
skin. Larry also got me some coleslaw,
and it was scrumptious. In fact, it was
better-than-KFC scrumptious! That’s
scrumptious.
He got some sort of macaroni/vegetable dish, but I
didn’t have any of that. We finished
with Oui key lime yogurt, and we had cranberry-grape juice to drink.
It was around 8:00 p.m. when I finally emptied the second
big drawer full of towels and cloths into the washing machine. Those drawers really are big! – it took four
loads to get everything in them washed, and I have one of the biggest washing
machines one can buy. I used some liquid
lavender potpourri that I’d found at Loren’s house, tucked in a box waaay back
under the stairs, to wipe out the drawers.
I use all sorts of things for tasks other than that for
which they were intended. The liquid
potpourri cleaned well, dried quickly, and made the drawers smell
wonderful.
As planned, Robert painted the interior of Loren’s
garage today. Larry went there after
supper to get the shelves that were out on the driveway; he put them in our
garage. He also unloaded all the stuff
out of the Mercedes that we brought home last night, too – all sorts of cleaning
agents, oils, and additives, and ... I have no idea what all. There are many identical bottles and jugs,
and most have been opened and partially used.
Whyyyy??? I don’t get it. That’s really not like Loren. He has always carefully used up things
entirely before starting on a new one – from chapstick to distilled water to
windshield-wiper fluid. Things we have
seen and found at his house make us suspect he was showing symptoms of dementia
far earlier than we knew.
 |
Hester, Joseph, Victoria, Caleb,
and Lydia fishing at Walnut Creek State Recreation Area, July 2002
It is now a quarter ’til midnight, and all the
towels and dishcloths are washed, folded, and put away. There are four bags stuffed with towels and dishcloths
and potholders for the Goodwill out in the Mercedes, and about three full bags
in the trash. How did all that stuff fit
in those two big drawers?! – the drawers are full, even without all that
excess! I left a small spot in each
drawer to set a mousetrap. Do not let me
forget to check those things each and every day! And spring them when I’m going to be
gone. Better a mouse track than a
forgotten dead mouse! 😛😜😝😯😧😨😬😱🤪😵💫🥴
And on that charming note, I shall bid you adieu.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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