Journal: Hail & Biplanes & More Scrubbing

 

Last Tuesday, I dropped off some things at the Goodwill, then went on to Loren’s house to do some cleaning and to await the arrival of the plumber later that afternoon.  He was supposed to come at 2:00 p.m.  When he hadn’t shown up by 2:25, I called the business.  The lady couldn’t find the appointment in the book or on the computer; then she finally found a jotted note somewhere.  Good thing I called.

Robert had painted the garage the previous day.  He came again at 3:00 to finish painting around windows and doors and suchlike.

The plumbers finally arrived at about 3:30 p.m.

Plumbers are not known for cleanliness, at least not in my experience, they’re not.  And when there’s a spraying noise and one of them says, “Oops,” you really should run for the towels.  Quick.

Anyway, they (a large older man who was even deafer than Larry and a young man who tried to be personable where the old guy was, uh, gnarly [though he did improve when I learned how loudly to talk in order to make him hear me]) got the small bathroom toilet fixed.  I asked them to look at the other two toilets, just in case.  The others were a different kind than the one they repaired.  They were fine, the plumbers said.  But I did have to clean up the already-cleaned main bathroom, after they were done with it.  Their feet and hands were dirty, and while ‘clean’ doesn’t ever transfer itself to dirty things, it’s a well-known fact that ‘dirty’ always transfers itself to clean things.

So the plumbers departed, not a whit cleaner than they’d been when they arrived; but the main bathroom was a good deal less clean than it had been.  🥴😜

I wonder why the young man doesn’t answer when I ask a question that the older man doesn’t hear (and he obviously knows the answer, judging from the way his mouth opens and shuts, and he transfers weight nervously from one foot to the other)?  Further, I wonder why the young man doesn’t tell the older man what I said when the older man evidently doesn’t hear me?  Maybe the old duffer ka-sploops the young whippersnapper with the plunger if he’s impertinent enough to butt in!

Anyway, everything works now.  And the main bathroom is clean again.

All day, we’d been getting warnings about possible bad weather, including golfball-sized hail, later that afternoon and into the evening.  When dark clouds began building in the southwest, Robert suggested moving the Mercedes from the driveway into the garage.  Problem:  the garage had stuff in it.

I went to look at the radar on my computer – and while I waited for the page to sloooowly load, the clouds came faster... and faster... and faster... the wind got windier... and it began to rain.  I gave up on AccuWeather and dashed back down to the garage.

Then together we moved, scooted, and slid all that stuff to the side, until there was room for the Benz (which, I might say, looks considerably bigger inside a garage than it does on a wide driveway). 

Robert was driving his crewcab pickup; it wouldn’t look all that good with hail dents in it, either!  So he quickly finished the painting, put things away, and headed to his home, which is six miles west of Loren’s house.

He’d only been home a few minutes when the hail hit. 

We didn’t get any hailstones large enough to harm anything, but it was loud, especially in a house where all the furniture has been removed and there’s only carpet in the hallway and one bedroom.  It echoed in there.  😳

I took a video:  Hail and Tchaikovsky

It was lightninginginging and thundering like anything.  I hoped the electricity didn’t go out, as I had the dishwasher running with a bottle of cleaner in the silverware basket.

One time years ago, one of the girls pushed the Start button on our dishwasher at the very same instant as there was a tremendous CRACK of thunder. 

“Oh!” I cried, “What on earth did you do to the dishwasher?!!!”

It was hilarious; you should’ve seen her face.  All stunned and amazed and wondering how in the world she could’ve caused such a ka-BOOM as that.  Of course, the other kids burst out laughing, and the child soon understood that her mother was pulling her leg.

With the important detail of a video of the hail taken care of, I sent Larry a text:  “I am at Loren’s house, and I have no food!  waa waa waa”

He soon responded, “Well, maybe we can do something about that.”

And he did.  On his way there after getting off work, he stopped by Arby’s and got me a very nice salad, and a fish sandwich for himself.

Three or four thoughtful souls have inquired into whether Loren might like an iPod, a tablet, a Kindle, or suchlike.

Thanks to all who have offered, but Loren does not use electronic devices.  His landline phone and his slider cell phone were both getting steadily more difficult for him to use. 

He never could learn to use a computer, or a tablet, or an iPhone, or even an iPod.  I tried to help him learn the computer after Janice passed away in 2014, but ... well, ... uh ... it was like trying to teach a pig to sing:  it annoys the pig, and it wastes your time.  hahaha

He never really wanted to learn these things; but, looking back, I’m thinking that he was even then showing the first symptoms of dementia.

I once offered to download a whole lot of his favorite music on the radio/player in his pickup.  I tried to tell him it would be as easy as turning the knob to ‘On’, and it would play.  He nearly had a meltdown.  I think he thought his pickup would disintegrate, fall apart at the seams, or maybe turn into an evil robot and take him where he didn’t want to go.  🥴 

As our little granddaughter Violet would’ve said, “It was wy-ode.”

Wednesday morning, I looked out the window at the bird feeders – and there was a baby house finch sitting at a sunflower-seed feeder beside his father, cheep-cheeping and flailing his wings as he begged for food!  Every year, I’m surprised by how early the babies show up, when I hadn’t even noticed the finches choosing mates and building nests.  And I wonder at their resiliency, surviving through the harch early spring weather.

I spent three hours at Loren’s house that afternoon dusting the six-paneled doors and closet shelves, sweeping and mopping tiled and wood floors, and scrubbing the sink and counter and polishing the chrome fixtures in the small bathroom off the master bedroom.  And then it was time to come home and get ready for our evening church service.  The upstairs was almost all cleaned, except for part of that small bathroom, and the chandeliers.

It was 34°, but with the wind blowing steadily at 28 mph, with gusts past 40 mph, the ‘real-feel’ temp was only 21°.  It might be ‘Spring’, but I wore a tweed jacket and suede skirt ensemble!

A missionary whom our church supports, Tom Montgomery, was there that night.  He showed us slides and told of his work in Mexico City.

Thursday was a cold but sunny day.  At noon it was only 33°, and there was a steady wind of 21 mph with gusts up to 30-35 mph, creating a windchill of 19°. 

It had been Maria’s 28^th birthday a couple of days earlier.  Since we hadn’t seen her after church the previous night, I asked Caleb to stop by Loren’s house and pick up her present.  We gave her fleece slippers, a small ceramic planter painted in pastels, a microfiber cloth, and a beaded flexiclip and Rose perfume from Lilla Rose.

Caleb texted me at 6:00:  “I’m not going to be back to town for 30 minutes.  Will you still be there?”

“Yep,” I responded, “I plan to be here until long after the sun goes down.  I have bananas, coffee, and pistachios!  What more could I possibly need?  Plus, someone uploaded a whole gob (i.e., heaps and piles) of Old Fashioned Revival Hour Quartet music on YouTube.  I’ve got entertainment!”

Here’s a video I took of the partly-clean house:  Cleaning Loren’s House

If you look carefully, you can see my silhouette in the shower door as I walk toward it.  I have on suede slippers with Sherpa lining, along with them thar cute li’l ‘slouch socks’ that are all colorful and ripply at the ankle, and in that silhouette, I look exactly like a Clydesdale.

At one point in the video, I zoom in on my little red Doss speaker, which happens to be playing a song by the Old Fashioned Revival Hour Quartet right that moment, “Jesus is near to comfort and cheer, just when I need Him most!”

I later posted the video on Facebook.  Would you believe, they muted the audio, saying it was ‘copyrighted material from The Lion King’?!  Huh?  What on earth!

Just When I Need Him Most was written in 1907 and has been in the public domain for many years!  I threw a tantrum and demanded they cut it out, cease and desist, right now.

The Facebook robot promptly (and calmly, aggravatingly enough) reinstated the music, and presto ka-bingo, everything was back in working order.

Good grief, that’s crazy.  The Lion King, for pity’s sake.

The carpet for the living room, stairs, hallway, and back bedroom (aka my ‘headquarters’, where my computer is playing away [and the sound is issuing forth from that cute little Bluetooth speaker that I can carry with me around the house], and where all the cleaning supplies are standing at attention on that shelf) hasn’t come yet, but will be here soon.  The flooring in the kitchen and dining room is new.  The oak flooring that was there and that’s also in the living room is 28 years old, and all faded out where the sun hit it.  It wasn’t a very high quality of flooring, quite thin, and it wouldn’t have been worth it to refinish it.

That evening, I wrote and asked Dorcas if the smoke from the fires near Pigeon Forge was bothering them.

“Yeah, a little bit,” she answered.  “The wind is settling down, though, so it’s not as bad as it was.  Last night we could really smell the smoke.”

She told me that the fire department had lost five fire vehicles, and two firefighters had been injured.  The fires started from power lines that had been downed by the wind.

Dorcas sent pictures of Brooklyn and Trevor.  It isn’t hard to see that Baby Brooklyn thinks the sun rises and sets in her big brother.  😊

We ate at Loren’s house again that evening, using the one piece of furniture left upstairs – a big computer desk – as a table.  I had taken soup, cottage cheese, Mozzarella and Pepper Jack cheese, bananas, juice, and turnovers there.  Nothing terribly fancy, but filling and good – and, best of all, it only took a couple of minutes to prepare.

We got home a little after midnight.  It had been a long day, longer for Larry than for me, since he’d been up since before 6 a.m., and worked about 13 hours before coming to Loren’s house.  But the upstairs was done, except for the chandeliers, the downstairs bathroom was practically glistening, and all that was left down there were a few doors that needed to be dusted (more of those six-panel doors, with lots of fancy grooves that are all full of dust and dirt), the tile floor, and the fireplace.  

I think the fireplace is probably Larry’s job.  Do I look like a chimney sweep to you???

Larry hasn’t been able to do a whole lot with the stuff in the garages, because of his long hours at work.

When I got home, I tossed all the used cleaning rags and towels into the washing machine, along with my skirt and a favorite brown velour shirt, which I was afraid was ruined.  It had spots on it that I feared were from a cleaning agent containing bleach.

The next morning, I hurried to put those things into the dryer; I would need to take them with me when I went back to Loren’s house.  I was relieved to see that the brown velour shirt looked just like new again.  I got it cheap on eBay (about $9, I think), but it’s a 50 or 60-dollar shirt, and really soft and comfortable.

I put a load of Larry’s work clothes into the washer.  I suppose I should remember to put them into the dryer?  Larry would appreciate it, I’m a-thinkin’.  😉

It was 59°, bright and sunny.

I didn’t get the chandeliers done that day, but I did get 10,705 steps in, according to my VeryFitPro watch.  At 10,000 steps, it vibrates a few times, and ‘awards’ me a silver cup.  I feel so... accomplished.  And important.

The tile floors were glistening, and the six-panel doors and the louvered door on the laundry room were all glowing.  And the whole house smells good. 

Total deep-cleaning takes a lot of time!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been having troubles with my feet cramping.  It happens especially on Sunday nights.  I suppose it’s because I’ve worn heels – low heels, mind you; I no longer wear 3- and 4-inch spikes – for 7 or 8 hours, and then I put on walking shoes (nice ones that should be good for my feet) in order to go to Loren’s house and put out the garbage and do a few random things; but shoes with arch support invariably have that support in totally the wrong place, and that makes matters worse than ever.  Last week, I put on some cheap little moccasins that had completely flat soles, thin as cardboard, and managed to escape with no foot cramps, barely.  I can always feel it starting to come on.  Sometimes I can avert it; sometimes I have no chance to avoid it, because I have to finish whatever it is I’m doing.

I usually go barefoot or wear soft, thick socks; but Friday since I was doing a whole lot of sweeping and mopping, I was switching back and forth from Nike tennis shoes to some nice suede slippers with Sherpa interiors.  And both pairs of shoes had the arch support in the wrong places.  Aarrgghh.

We got sandwiches at Subway that night.  Larry got twelve-inchers, since it’s a much better deal.  We ate half of them, and saved the rest for our late-Sunday-night supper.

Once again, it was around midnight when we quit and went home.  I soon retired to my recliner and tucked heating pads behind back and neck.  Ahhhhh...

We got to the nursing home to see Loren at about 6:00 p.m. Saturday.  He wasn’t in the front lobby where we often see him, so we headed down the hallway toward his room.  But soon we heard him call, “Larry!” from the lobby behind us.  He was walking with a tall woman with nearly black longish hair who used to walk with him and his friend Pam now and then.  We haven’t seen Pam for a couple of weeks.

Loren, who seemed rather ‘keyed up’, said with a laugh, “You’ve landed on uneven ground!” – and then he proceeded to tell us that four men at separate times had in the last few minutes been trying to have ‘fistfights’ with him.  “At least they haven’t ganged up on me,” he said, grinning and shaking his head wryly.  “They jumped me separately, and I was able to take them, since they only came at me one at a time.”

I headed off toward his room at a fast clip, showing him the album I’d brought and telling him, “I brought you some pictures to look at!”

He laughed, “Yeah, maybe that’ll work, to distract me!”

Hmmm.  He might have dementia, but he’s not stupid.

I asked (fishing for something to talk about, since I already knew the answer), “Did you already have supper?”

“No, I haven’t!” said Loren.  “They’re running late today!” 

Actually, they were doubtless long done, and the dining room was already all cleaned up.  The doors were still open, and I could’ve gone in and played the piano; but three people in wheelchairs were in there, sound asleep, heads lolling forward.  If I should launch into, oh, say, Battle Hymn of the Republic, I’d probably cause involuntary good posture for a minute or two.

We walked on past, turned the corner, and went down another hallway to Loren’s room.

His door was locked, and Loren said he’d have to ‘go downstairs to the office and ask for a key’.  (There is no ‘downstairs’, and no one is going to be doling out any keys to him.)

He told us to wait, while he and Tall Woman went for the keys.

I said, “We’ll come, too,” and off we went.  We headed down a hallway where we hadn’t been before, going past the physical therapy room, where they have all sorts of exercise machines.  Quite a number of people were in there, along with a few nurses; but I didn’t want to interrupt any of them.  The patients doubtless needed those nurses with them.

A nurse soon spotted us and came to see if we needed anything.  “We brought Loren a new album,” I said, showing her, “and want to trade it with the one we brought him last week – but his door is locked.”

She headed back to Loren’s door with us, getting her keys out.  She walked beside me, ahead of Loren and Larry, and seemed worried that I was concerned about the locked door.  She explained, “It cuts down on our residents ‘losing’ things, and helps us monitor everyone better.” 

I nodded and said, “Yes, it’s okay; I understand.  We know you all have a big job here, and it can be hard to keep everything going smoothly.  We very much appreciate what you do.”

So she relaxed and quit acting nervous.

She also told me that the tall woman’s name was Roslyn, and her husband had just been there, and he does not like her being friendly with Loren.  Maybe this is one of the persons who was ‘trying to have a fistfight’ with Loren? 

Who knows. 

Who knows if anyone was ‘trying to have a fistfight’ with anybody.

I told the nurse we could go to one of the sitting rooms or lounges to look at the album and visit, but she seemed quite determined to have us go into Loren’s room, assuring me over and over that this would be fine, and that Roslyn did not need to come in with us.

She unlocked the door, opened it – and Loren and Roslyn headed in. 

Roslyn likes to use long words – but can’t really put them into sentences.  She just randomly utters a big word, and then smiles triumphantly at us.  Since the words never seem to have anything particularly relevant about them, I can rarely later remember what she said.  But one was, “Unfathomable!”

Give me credit for not saying the first thing that popped into my head (I never have a shortage of things popping into my head).  I wanted to say, “Boy, I’ll say!”  I didn’t say it.  But I thought it, all right.

Instead, I only smiled at the lady.  She smiled back.

The nurse stopped Roslyn, telling her, “Let’s stay out; Loren and his family want to visit in private.”

Roslyn didn’t put up a fuss at all, and they moved off while we went inside.

The room smells considerably better than it did at first, thankfully.  The air purifier is no longer in there.

Larry sat in the chair we’d brought Loren, while Loren and I sat on the bed (on which was draped one of the bright striped blankets I’d taken him a while back; at least it’s not lost), and we looked through the album, which was from late 1997.  He recognized most of the people in it, though he doesn’t remember names very well.  He often forgot that it was an old album, so I kept pointing out the dates on the photos.  I named the children in the pictures, telling him to whom they are now married (and often the picture of the person they’ve married showed up on the same or the adjacent page), and how many children they have now.  He is properly amazed, and wonders how this can be, when they are so young. 

I explained, “These pictures are 24 ½ years old.”

“Oh, yes!” he laughed; “I keep forgetting.”

He remembered Jolene, and knew she plays piano for the church.  “She can really play!” he said.

There were several pages of postcards at the front of the album.  A handful of them used to be Mama’s, including one showing the inside of the Mormon Tabernacle and all those enormous pipes for their big organ.  

I pointed it out, and told him about the time when I was 11 or 12 and traveling with Daddy and Mama through Utah.  (“Yes, I remember!” said Loren.  He probably remembers me telling the story before.)  We pulled off the Interstate, drove into Salt Lake City, went all the way around the temple, and stopped in front to listen to the choir, who happened to be practicing right then.  Maybe they had speakers on the outside of the building, so we could hear it?  It really was quite clear. 

Loren nodded, “I remember that!  Yes, they have speakers!”  Then he frowned thoughtfully.  “I was with you, wasn’t I?”

“Not that time,” I told him.  “I traveled with Daddy and Mama all by myself; the rest of you were all grown up and married.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he agreed.

He told us he had been there ‘at this place’ for a year now, then seemed puzzled, and asked if that was right. 

“It’s been a couple of months,” I told him, always wondering just how much of these sorts of facts to mention.  I have never been able to tell if he understands he’s in a nursing home.  I’m certainly not going to break the news to him, if indeed he doesn’t know it.

(“Maybe he thinks he’s in that ‘insane asylum’ he accused me of wanting to put him in!” I said later to Larry.  “Yes,” Larry agreed, “every time he tries having a conversation with someone, he thinks that!” hee hee  He really can converse better than anyone else I’ve seen [or heard] there.  His stories sound entirely plausible, even when they’re totally fabricated.)

I asked if he’d ever found his little red metal biplane. 

“I found one of them,” he said, pointing back toward one of his dressers.

Well, whataya know! – he was right, there it was, sitting right there in the middle of his messy dresser, big as you please.  I’ll bet one of the nurses noticed that it had his name on the bottom of it in permanent marker, and put it back in his room for him.

He never used to have anything messy, but he no longer knows where things go, or puts things away very well.  He does worry about misplacing or losing things more than he used to; last week, he wanted to keep his fleece-lined plaid shirt-jacket close by when we were in the sitting lounge, so he wouldn’t forget it.  He’s probably ‘lost’ or misplaced it before, and then needed it, as he runs cold.  We made sure he had it in hand when we left.

The man with whom he shares a room still has all his cars and planes and suchlike on his shelves, and a lot of very nice pictures on the wall and on his dressers.  Maybe they’re all glued down!  😊  (There’s a thought; we could glue Loren’s things down – or at least we could, to the drawered end table that belongs to him.)

His glasses have been missing since the first or second week.  I wonder if we should get him a cheap pair of reading glasses?  He usually needs his glasses to read, unless the print is fairly large.

We visited for about an hour, then headed out.  Walking past one of the sets of patio doors leading into an inner courtyard, I asked, “Do you ever go out there?”

“Oh, yes,” said Loren, “we do, when it’s nice out.  It’s a little chilly today, though.”  (And it was – only in the 50s.)  “But the doors are double-locked,” he added.  “You get one lock open, and the other one clicks shut.”

Huh.  😏😶

Loren looked at his watch, which may or may not be running.  It’s never on the correct time; I think he resets it regularly.  He started doing that a few months ago.  Sometimes he’d have a watch on each wrist, each set at different times.  “I need to find someone and ask when they’re going to feed me!” he said.

As we approached the front lobby, Loren pointed out Roslyn up ahead in a chair beside the front desk.

“See that lady sleeping in that chair?” he asked.  “That’s Norma!”

I probably should have said, “No, her name is Roslyn,” but I didn’t.  If it happens again, I’ll tell him the correct name; it might help, for a little while. 

As we stood at the desk waiting for them to unlock the door for us, a nurse was trying to coax an elderly lady into taking or handing over... something.  I couldn’t see past the curved counter to tell what it was.  Whatever it was, the old lady was havin’ nunuvit. 

The nurse attempted a peaceful negotiation.  “Here, you can have this paper, and I’ll take this,” said the nurse, who was considerably taller than the smallish lady.

“NO!!!” said the li’l old lady, and commenced to pummeling the nurse’s arms with both fists.

“Look, look!” said Loren, pointing.  “See, that’s what I was telling you about!  That happens all the time around here.”

Yeah, I imagine it does. 

The nurse quickly extracted herself (I don’t know if she got whatever it was she wanted from the lady or not) and came to push the door-release button. 

She smiled at us.  “Well, that went well,” she said cheerily.

We grinned at her.  Yesirree, they have a hard job – and any we have witnessed trying to cope with such situations do it with grace and good spirits.  I meant it when I told the other nurse that we appreciate what they do.

The green light over the door came on; we headed toward it, telling Loren goodbye.  He walked a bit behind us, saying goodbye – and the nurse called, “You have to stay here, Loren!”

I don’t think he was planning to come with us; just walking along, telling us goodbye; but maybe he’s tried to escape other times, beside that time Kelvin told us about.

He turned back toward the desk quickly, all amazed and trying to explain what he was doing. 

“Goodbye!” I said, butting in.

He smiled and said “goodbye” somewhat distractedly, and we fled – but I’ll just betcha he was going to continue with his defense, if I know anything about Loren.

Here’s one of the pictures that’s in the album I left at the nursing home for Loren.  He really laughed over it, and he knew it was Victoria, too.

We went to Lowe’s Home Improvement Center then to get a few things for Loren’s house:  a couple more glass light shades for the small bathroom, a light diffuser panel for the LED fixture in the kitchen, an electrical box cover, and a couple of aluminum sink plugs to cover holes in my sink where drinking-water faucets used to be.

By then it was after 7:30, and we were hungry.  We decided to go to Cracker Barrel.  It was after 8 by the time we got there.

Although there were empty tables in the main dining room, and an adjacent dining room was plumb empty, we were told there would be a 25-minute wait.

We wandered through the store, looking at things while we waited for them to call our name.  It was no more than ten minutes before they did so.

Hopes (and hunger) high, we followed the host to a table and seated ourselves.

Then we sat and waited.  And waited.  And waited.

We waited with all our might and main, but nothing happened.  No one came to ask if we wanted something to drink, or to give us menus, or silverware and napkins.  Waiters and waitresses scurried about all around us, but no one slowed at our table or glanced our way. 

Finally we weren’t just hungry, we were dying of thirst!

I tried to coax Larry into going to tell someone we had gotten overlooked in the melee.

He finally did so, shortly before 9:00 p.m.  When he got to the desk where the host usually stands, no one was there.  While he waited for him to return to his post, a waitress came to our table, apologizing for the wait, telling me our intended server, a young man, had gotten ‘preoccupied’.  She took my order, and said the coffee, tea, and water would be coming right away.

The coffee, tea, and water must’ve been on a slow boat from China.

At a quarter after 9, I got up and went to find a waitress.  There was one in another area of the restaurant, wiping off tables.  I told her we had been there about an hour, and had not been served.  She apologized, and hurried off to do something about it.

The drinks arrived five or ten minutes later, when we were seriously contemplating departing.  They looked good (fruit iced tea, coffee, water), we were dying of thirst – and we knew we would have a hard time finding another place to eat, by this time.

Ten minutes later, I said, “Let’s go,” picked up my purse, started to get up – and nearly ran into the waitress bringing our food.

Either it was scrumptious, or we were hungry enough to be not-so-discerning.  By the time we finished eating, it was a couple of minutes after their 10:00 p.m. closing time.

I wonder what, exactly, that server had gotten ‘preoccupied’ with, and why did his preoccupation affect only us?  Because of that delay, we got home quite late, right around midnight.

The missionary from Mexico City preached for both services Sunday.  He will be heading back home in a week or so.  It’s a dangerous drive, down through Mexico.  Crime is awful there.  It makes Chicago look like a safe place. 

I’m thankful for where I live.

Another picture from the 1997 album:  my sister Lura Kay holding her little granddaughter Sarah Kay.  It was Christmas time – 24 ½ years ago.

After church last night, we came home and ate a late supper, then went out to Loren’s to put the trash out. 

I saw the International Space Station!  I think.  We were heading out our back door at about 10:20 p.m. when I stopped on our deck and looked up at the stars.  They’re really bright out here, because there are hardly any lights nearby.  One of those ‘stars’ was a bit reddish, and moving slowly across the night sky in a southeasterly direction.  I looked it up, and, sure enough, it could very well have been the ISS.  Tracking Map

While we were at Loren’s house, I sprayed down a white freestanding cabinet with lemon Lysol cleaner and wiped it inside and out.  The ‘stains’ inside it came out, and it looks nice.  It’s a little dim in the garage, so I don’t know if I did as good of a job as I thought I did.  Hope so.  😊

I sent a note to Hannah, who thought she might like to have the cabinet in her laundry room:  “You’ll want to have someone pick it up before it gets dirty again!  I put a bottle of Cascade dishwasher detergent in it for you.  The shelving units inside it are not attached, so it’ll need to be handled with care – probably best to remove them when transporting it.”

She just answered me to say that they had measured it tonight to see if it would fit.  It will, and they will collect it soon.

We put the new glass light shades into the bathroom fixture, and I swept the tile floor in the basement where the white cabinet had been sitting before Caleb helped Larry put it out in the garage Saturday.  Larry put a new handle on the microwave (I was fortunate to find a replacement handle online for that old – 1994 – microwave) and a new vent in the bathroom ceiling, and I put a new light switch cover on a switch in the laundry room.  The light panel diffuser for the kitchen, which was supposedly a ‘common size’ (24” x 48”), didn’t fit; it was about 8” too wide.

“See?” I said to Larry.  “I told you it’s good to measure things first!”  (I am never averse to ‘I told you so’s, as long as they’re coming from me, and not directed toward me.)

Next time I go there, I’ll clean chandeliers (yes, yes, I know I’ve been threatening to do that for a week or more), and sweep and dust the laundry room.  There’s a deep, freestanding sink in there.  I thought it was quite nice; but I took a good look at it, and it’s a mess.  Hope I can get it clean.

We’re getting close to the finish line!

This was our Christmas picture, 1997.  Back row: Joseph, 12; Dorcas, 15; Keith, 17; Hannah, 16; Teddy; 14; middle row: Caleb, 4; Hester, 8; Lydia, 6; front: Victoria, 1 ½.

This afternoon I called Capital One, because we got notification of a couple of fraudulent charges that were denied on my Cabela’s credit card.  I found one more (for the small amount of $8.95) while I was talking to the man on the phone, and this one actually went through.  The man canceled it and credited my account.  He also canceled my card, and will be sending me a new one in a few days.

This has happened several times now with Larry’s and my Cabela's cards, but they have always caught the fraudulent charges and denied them, except for the abovementioned small one.

Oh!  There’s a squirrel on the front porch, with a large walnut in his mouth.  He’s hunting for the best way to jump down to the ground... and now he finally took an easy leap onto the lilac bush, scampered down to the flowerbed, and found an acceptable spot to bury his treasure.  It’s so cute, the way they patta-pat-pat the dirt down snug over whatever they’ve just buried.

There’s a white-crowned sparrow in the bush, too, singing away.  The juncos are competing with him, song-wise.  It’s 56°, and there’s not a cloud in the sky.

And now the LifeFlight helicopter flew over, low, heading toward the hospital.

Here are Victoria and Hannah.  I made Victoria’s dress with leftovers from Hannah’s.  Victoria was somewhere around a year and a half when she would pat first on her sister, then on herself, and say in delight, “Match.  Match!”

The oven is beeping! – gotta get the banana nut muffins out.  And with that, supper is done.  We’re having chicken breast filets, scalloped potatoes, green beans, applesauce, and cran-raspberry juice, with the muffins for dessert.

Time to eat!

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