Journal: Are We There Yet?

As usual, I spent every possible minute last week scanning photos.  I wonder what the total is now?  Hmmm... >>... clicking ‘Properties’ ...<<  How ’bout that.  I’ve gone past the 34,000 mark – there are 34,005 photos scanned.

Here is Caleb in one of the schoolrooms of our old school.  He thought the big stuffed lion on that filing cabinet was so funny, and wanted me to come and take his picture in that room.

Below is Maria.  These pictures were taken on the same day in the spring of 2000.

One day last week, I used my French oven to slow-bake a couple of thick T-bone steaks Teddy and Amy gave us.  I used a Traeger Beef Rub on them, and added seasoned baby potatoes from Schwan’s to the pot.  Those steaks wound up melt-in-your-mouth tender.  

I made Jalapeño biscuits to go with them, using a box mix from Cabela’s, to which one adds milk and shredded cheddar cheese.  They were good, but whoooeeee, were they ever hot.  Good thing I didn’t get shredded Pepper Jack cheese, as I was tempted to do!  I love Pepper Jack cheese, but that would’ve been too, too much.

Last week when we gave Loren the big National Geographic Rare Photos book, he opened it and read the inscription in the front of the book:  “To Loren on his 84^th birthday, August 9, 2022.  With love, Larry and Sarah Lynn.”

“Am I 84?!” he asked, surprised.  He laughed and shook his head.  “I’ve been telling everyone I was 90!”

I, in an attempt to show him he was indeed 84, said, “Well, you were born in 1938, and now it’s 1922, so you’re 84.”

He’d be negative 16, if I had those years right.  🙄

“2022,” Larry corrected me.

Loren thought this was all hilarious – him thinking he was 90, me thinking it was 1922, and Larry being the one to get it right.  Ditzy Mitzi would’ve been mighty smug, had she heard me make such a blunder as that.

Jeremy and Lydia and their family are on vacation.  While they’re gone, Larry has been borrowing Jeremy’s tree-mek (grapple-saw) truck to take down some trees that have been dying or losing branches.  The Black locust tree on the east has been threatening to drop branches (or the whole tree) on the house, but so far the winds have been from the northwest, and the big branches that have broken landed to the southeast – not far enough away for comfort, though.

When Aaron was a little guy of about 3, he called that tree “Grandma’s June Bug tree”.  😄

Larry borrowed Jeremy’s woodchipper, too, to grind up small branches and all the yard waste I’ve been piling up. 

Jeremy’s tree-mek truck.  Photo taken July 4, 2022.

Wednesday afternoon, I was in the kitchen, listening to the noises of the truck and the big saw, feeling somewhat concerned over Larry’s safety; and then there was a CRRRRACK, and the top part of the Black locust tree went brushing and skidding down along the living room window, and after that I was all concerned over my own safety.

Larry was just getting used to the grapple on that saw, learning where to grab the tree and how much to take with one cut.  Too much, and the branch might tilt and swing where you don’t want it to go.

But it wasn’t long before the tree was down, and the only other one of similar size was the sugar maple, and it was farther from the house.  The others were not nearly as big. 

Larry told me that there is a bar all along the outer edge of the chipper that one can hit if one needs to, and it will immediately turn the chipper off.  So, feeling somewhat reassured, I went back upstairs to continue with the photo-scanning.

In scanning through news headlines one morning, I read this:  Roof permits skyrocket, in Beatrice.

I read that headline, saw the thumbnail of a nice house with odd configurations up on the roof,  and thought, Huh?  Who or what are they going to shoot down with their skyrocket?!

I clicked on the link and discovered that the ‘odd configurations’ were stacks of shingles.  The article says, “The impact of an early June severe storm this summer is showing up in an exploding number of permits taken out for roof replacement in Beatrice.”

Oh.  I thought the headline meant that the contours of their roof would somehow allow them to install a skyrocket on it.

Yeah, I know.  I’m not normal.  Some people see optical illusions.  I read optical illusions.

That storm they are talking about dropped hail up to the size of softballs, and did an awful lot of damage to property and to animals, too.

I’m watching a couple of bunnies out in our front yard running headlong around a tree – and then one reverses course, and they meet up nose to nose on the other side of the tree, and one jumps 20 feet in the air out of sheer amazement and startle, while the other runs lickety-split underneath the flying bunny. 

The local bunny population has had life quite a lot easier since Teensy departed for The Happy Mousing (Bunnying?) Grounds.

Thursday morning, I got up an hour before my alarm went off (yeah, I often still set an alarm; don’t want to waste time!) – because I had started dreaming about giant spiders in the living room of our house on 42^nd Avenue.  The kids (at the age they were in the last photo album I scanned) were helping me chase it down – but suddenly the huge thing turned on Joseph, and he decided to play with it!! 

I jarred awake – and decided to get up, posthaste.  I often go back to sleep and pick a dream right up where I left it.  No, thanks.  I shall get up.  😦😧

Larry took the afternoon off again in order to work on the yard and the trees.  That day, he took down the sugar maple, a whole lot of volunteer elms and mulberry trees, and cleaned up more of the yard waste.  I’m sorry about the sugar maple, but the branches kept breaking, making it dangerous.  I planted that tree the first spring we were out here after finding it as a tiny sprig with two little leaves in the middle of a bunch of irises I had dug up at the house in town.  It was a seedling from my sister Lura Kay’s sugar maple next door.  It grew to be about 60 feet tall.  I think.  Maybe.  Not that I’m any good at estimating tree height.  The Black locust was even taller, but it wasn’t very pretty – kind of like a leafy beanpole.  The sugar maple, on the other hand, was quite lovely, other than the spots where the branches had broken.  A couple of long-dead branches were still stuck up there in the tree, making it even more hazardous every time there was a strong wind.

In removing that tree, Larry took out about three big squirrel nests (there’s one in this picture):  

No squirrels were in them; they had all skedaddled for safer territory.

When I was little, my mother taught me the difference between black-capped chickadees and nuthatches:  “The chickadees are little motorcycle riders – see their helmets?”  

“And the red-breasted nuthatches are little bandits:  look at their masks!” 

And then we went to the mountains, and along came a mountain chickadee, complete with a little black mask:  

It wasn’t long before I saw a white breasted nuthatch, and it didn’t have a mask:  

Plumb confusing, to 7-year-old me!

So Mama taught me to listen to the songs and noises they make:  chickadees always ‘tell’ you what they are when you get too close, with their scolding ‘chick-a-dee-dee-dees’, and nuthatches keep up a steady, metallic ‘ank-ank-ank’ as they spiral their way down tree trunks headfirst.  Chickadees, while they do often hang upside down while hunting insects and seeds, don’t do that headfirst spiraling like the nuthatches. 

I barely got that all down pat before learning that there are Chestnut-backed chickadees, found on the west coast from mid-California all the way up to Juneau, Alaska, Boreal chickadees, Carolina chickadees, and gray-headed chickadees.  If the gray-headed deedle-dees (as Keith called them when he was 3 or 4) will stay politely in Scandinavia where they belong, we won’t get them all mixed up with the look-alike Boreal chickadees, which can be found all over the northern United States, Canada, the Northwest Territories, and all the way up into Alaska.

And now I have learned that there are Mexican chickadees, too.  At least they sport tall hairdos, so we should be able to keep them straight.

In addition to the red- and white-breasted nuthatch, there are – get this – 17 more kinds of nuthatches!  Wow, I didn’t know that.  There is a brown-headed nuthatch that sounds a lot like a squeaky toy.  Brown-headed nuthatch sounds

I’ve always thought God surely had a delightful time creating all the birds.

Here are Margaret and Robert (my sister’s third son) shortly before they were married.  The photo was taken in April of 1993; they were married two months later.  Now Robert is our pastor.

Saturday, I went to visit Loren.  I went by myself, taking a few byways rather than going from Fremont and then southeast to North Omaha.  Instead, I went east from Fremont to Arlington, and didn’t turn south until I was straight north of the nursing home.  I prefer wooded hills and rivers and rolling cornfields to the total flatness all around Fremont, or the busy, multi-lane highways of West Omaha.

I gave Loren a Reminisce magazine and the Messenger newspaper, and showed him pictures of various relatives on Instagram, which he always enjoys.  His friend Roslyn was there looking at the pictures, too.  I pointed out one of Loren’s great-nephews and said, “Don’t you think he looks more like his Great-Grandpa Kumm, the older he gets?”

Loren started to nod, and then Roslyn reached over, tapped on the picture (probably adding and subtracting ‘Likes’ on the post multiple times), and said, “Yes!  I’ve been telling you the exact same thing!”  (She doesn’t know the child from Adam.)

I pulled my phone back before she dialed the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces by mistake, went on to a picture of the aforementioned child’s brother, showed it to Loren, and said, “And his brother looks like their other grandpa, his Great-Grandpa Fricke!”

Loren laughed and started to nod (he does remember these people) – and again Roslyn tapped on the picture and said, “Yes!!  I’ve been saying that all along!  Remember how I told you that, last time?” she asked Loren.

I scrolled on to another picture, where the whole family was standing in front of the motel where they were vacationing in Iowa. 

Roslyn thumped the phone.  “This is in Omaha, and right back here on the other side is the house we’re building.”  She nodded in agreement with her own statement.  “You can’t see it yet, but when you look back here...” she gestured toward the back side of the phone.

Teensy used to think that, when he’d watch videos of squirrels.  One would go flying out of view, stage right, and Teensy would crane his neck to see where it had gone.  Surely that squirrel was right back there, on the other side of the screen!

“Omaha?” asked Loren.  “Isn’t it...” he turned and looked at me.

“Iowa,” I said, smiling at them.  “They’d gone to the Iowa State Fair.”

“Yes,” nodded Roslyn.  “Omaha!”  She tapped my phone again.  It didn’t help matters any that Loren, who knows to hold a smartphone carefully by the edges, kept holding it over to her, so she could see it better.

Odd things began happening on the screen.  I retrieved the phone before we accidentally called Emmanuel Nwude, the renowned Nigerian prince.  Uh, scammer.  The notorious Nigerian scammer.

After tucking the phone back into my purse, I handed Loren the Reminisce magazine and started (or tried to start) a new topic of conversation.

Roslyn pointed at the picture on the cover.  It was a boy, baseball bat in hand,  standing at home plate waiting for the pitch.  “That’s his brother,” she announced.

Loren looked at the picture.  “Is it?” he asked, a bit puzzled.  “Whose brother?”

Roslyn gazed at the picture.  “It’s quite common,” she said.  “When they put up the fence, these brothers knew that they would have to move the flagship in order to delete the rudder.  It’s progressive.”

Loren looked blankly down at the magazine.  I wondered if he knows Roslyn doesn’t make sense, or if he thinks, I sure wish I knew what she’s talking about!

Soon it was time for them to head for the dining room to eat supper, so I bid them adieu and departed.

When I got home, I put Black Angus burgers on the broiler.  In 20 minutes, I turned them over and put chunks of onions and green and red peppers on them.  Five minutes later, I sprinkled shredded cheddar cheese on top and toasted the whole wheat buns.  By the time I put butter and Miracle Whip on the buns, the burgers were done.  I added sliced tomatoes, mustard, and a couple of dill pickle ovals.  

Mmmmm... Those were good enough to be Dagwood burgers!

When they were almost done, I sent a text to Larry, who was on the far south side of the property taking down trees and feeding jetsam and flotsam into the chipper:  “The cheeseburgers are done.”

Ten minutes later, I sent another text:  “The cheeseburgers really are done.”

Ten minutes after that, I wrote, “The cheeseburgers are cold.”

He finally answered me:  “Thanks”

“For what?” I asked at the same time he added, “But it is not dark yet.”

He didn’t want to quit while there was still daylight, since that was the last day he’d be able to use the truck and chipper for a while.  So he went on working until dark, and then had a cold cheeseburger, which he proclaimed very good, regardless of its temperature or lack thereof.

Teddy brought two jars of milk, fresh from his cow.  Yummy.  He uses jars like these:

Late that night, right when I was about to fall asleep, I heard small feet racketing about in the ceiling somewhere.

Maybe this is the ‘safer territory’ to which those homeless squirrels skedaddled?

I plodded my way upstairs and set off an odor bomb in a cubbyhole.

Within five minutes, all was silent between the floor joists.  Squirrels (or whatever they were) evidently are not particularly fond of Hawaiian Breezes.

I finally went to sleep some time after 3:30 a.m.  My alarm went off at 6:45 a.m.  🥴

Last night we attended the wedding of Kurt’s younger brother Jared and Victoria’s good friend Robin.  Kurt and Victoria were attendants, and Carolyn and Violet were flowergirls.

Poor little Violet, 3, was very sad to see her Uncle Jared and her friend Robin drive away on their honeymoon after the reception.  Victoria sent me some pictures of Violet starting to cry as Jared’s car pulled away and drove into the night.

“Did she think they were leaving forever, I wonder?” I asked Victoria.  “Does she know they’ll be back before she knows it, and everything will be pretty much the same as always?  Maybe she saw other people crying, and imagines all sorts of bad things?  Little ones often don’t understand the difference between tears of sorrow and tears of joy.”

When I was little, I remember a handful of small children who got funerals and weddings mixed up.  My nephew Kelvin was about three years old when he said to me, “Frooonels are sad, but they’re happy, too, ’cause we get to eat lunch.”

Victoria answered, “I don’t quite know what she thought!  Today she said that she was sad the wedding was over, and she didn’t want them to go ‘on honeymoon’.  Jared and Robin called this morning and reassured her.  I think she’s fine now.  She says if they send her pictures, it will make her happier and it will make her not miss them anymore.” 

I sent Victoria a couple of pictures to show the girls:  “Tell Violet Grandpa and Grandma Jackson had a honeymoon in Colorado and Wyoming, in Yellowstone.  We had a lot of fun.  Here is Grandpa Jackson when he was 18, and that’s my little Renault Le Car.  

“I loved that car!  We were at a cabin in Idaho Springs; that would’ve been the Tuesday morning after our wedding, so July 17, 1978.  And here’s Grandma Jackson, a loooong time before she was a grandma.”

Meanwhile, Willie cut his first tooth today, without any fanfare or angst.  He’s such a good baby, happy and jolly and cuddly.

I should really wash some dishes.  But as long as I stay facing due east, with said dishes in the sink immediately behind me to the west, I can’t see them.  😇 

And now I shall leave you, with the words of Vice President Kamala Harris ringing in our ears:

“Today, we now know, that in this moment, we have arrived at a time that is now.  Together, we have reached this moment, in a way that is unified, and is more now, than it was before.”  

This she said, to a standing ovation from people who surely must have been ordered to stand and clap and cheer – or get fired.  Because, otherwise, ... why?!!

But wait!  There’s more:

“So equity, as a concept, says, ‘Recognize that everyone has the same capacity, but in order for them to have equal opportunity to reach that capacity, what we must pay attention to is this issue of equity, if we are to expect and allow people to compete on equal footing.’”

I typed that directly from a speech she gave, and I listened to the statement one more time, just to be sure I got it right.

She was once put forth as being ‘extremely intelligent’.  But if what she said makes sense, and you will note, I said ‘if’, then she is a Marxist.

But we knew that.

Yes, we did.

But we’re not quite done yet.  In closing:

“Wherever you go, there you are, when you get there, after going there.  So, come together in unity and go to there, wherever there is.”

Byeeee, I’m off to, uh, there!  Wherever ‘there’ is! 

Don’t worry, I’ll get there.  I shall arrive at a time that is now.  Or then.  Whenever.  Unified and equitable!  Opportunistically capacitatious! 

(Stop it, Microsoft.  How dare you underline a perfectly good word with a wavy red line.  I have just as much capacity as the next guy to make up words!)

 

,,,>^..^<,,,           Sarah Am I There Yet Lynn           ,,,>^..^<,,,