Journal: Birthdays, Birthdays, & Labor Day

 

Last Monday, I ordered gifts for three little granddaughters who had upcoming birthdays.  Two would not arrive in time.  So much for Amazon Prime.  At least I had a few other things to give the little girls until the rest of their gifts come.

Tuesday, I sent this recently-scanned picture to Keith.  He would’ve been four or five months old here.

“Too bad I didn’t have a very good camera!” I commented. 

He was so funny.  He’d stare at me all sober like he is in this picture, while I peeked over and around the camera, trying to get him to smile – and as soon as the flash would go off, he’d laugh and wave his arms and legs.

That afternoon, I went to visit my sister.  I gave her a fresh-baked banana-nut muffin and a piece of sheet music copied from the old hymnbook Hester and Andrew gave me for Mother’s Day; and she gave me a few things that our mother had embroidered, some patterns, some crochet books, buttons, and suchlike.  

She’s not very strong these days, and sometimes has so much pain in her back she has difficulty walking.  She keeps a walker and a cane handy, just in case.  She lives in a lovely home right next door to her daughter-in-law Christine’s house, just across the street from Robert’s and Susan’s houses, and not far from Kelvin’s house. 

Home again, I went back to scanning pictures, most of which were taken in Autumn of 1987.  I turned the page in the album and came upon some of our family, taken by a photographer for Olan Mills.  We met the traveling photographer at a motel for the photo shoot.  When we went back to pick up the photos, I noted that our shots were tilted, every single one of them.  It was particularly noticeable in the 16x20.  (I straightened the one with just the children in PaintShop Pro after I scanned it.)

We walked around the corner into the other room to make our choices and pay for the purchase, and saw a whole lot of other people’s photos spread out on the beds – and every last one of them was tilted, just like ours were.  That man must’ve set up his tripod, failed to level it, and never once ever checked to see if it was straight through all those photo sessions, which went on for several days in a row.

Furthermore, he did not at all try to make the children smile.  Why, he didn’t even try to make the adults smile.  Maybe children before us were squalling and bawling, and his only goal was to shuffle us through with all possible haste, before ours had a meltdown, too?  (They wouldn’t have.)

So there we are, some looking peeved, some shellshocked, and others as though they think the photographer is a total ignoramus.

Plenty aggravatin’ when it happened, 35 years ago; we paid good money for that photo shoot!  But now when I look at these photos, it makes me laugh.

Here’s what those same five kiddos usually looked like:  

It was a quarter ’til midnight before Larry got home that night.  He’d been at the garage in Genoa where he sometimes works on his elderly friend Joe’s vehicles, and other times on his own things.  But he needed to gather up his pickup that we got in Texas back in early 2020 and all the parts for it and bring everything home, as someone is going to rent that part of the building.  It’s just as well, because the driving to and fro took a good 40 minutes, and it was usually in the evenings after he got off work that Larry would go there and work two or three hours.  That’s too many hours, and he gets too tired, doing that.

Wednesday, I came upon this picture that my mother took when we were visiting my Uncle Howard (Mama’s youngest brother), Aunt Evelyn, and my cousin Jeanine.  They lived in North Dakota.  Daddy and I are standing in the center of the picture – but do you see anything unusual about me? 

Larry’s sister Rhonda, who had traveled with us, had positioned herself precisely behind me, so as to hardly show up in the shot.  🤣

We didn’t notice she had done that until we got the pictures back.  And then we thought she had ‘hidden’ herself in that photo because she thought, I’m not one of the family! – I don’t belong! — but in my scanning of old photos, I have found her doing the very same thing in photos of her own family.  😂 

Here’s a picture of Lyle, Norma, Kenny, and Larry – but the legs and feet immediately behind Larry are not Norma’s, as you might think, but Rhonda’s!  

She’s hiding right smack-dab behind Larry.  I have no idea why Norma didn’t notice.  But then, my mother didn’t notice, when she was taking that picture; and my mother always noticed everything!  Well, clearly not everything.

Rhonda was such a tease, ready to pull whatever shenanigan happened to pop into her head.  I sent her the North Dakota picture with the above commentary, and she responded, “Ha!  I still do that today.”

Below is a picture of me with my dog Sparkle, Rhonda with Uncle Howard and Aunt Evelyn’s sweet old kitty that liked to purr and pump her paws on Sparkle’s fur, and Jeanine with her dog Blossom Belle Brisbane.  (She still names her personal dogs like that.  She raises Labs.)

Thursday, my Newfoundland coffee mug arrived.  The scene on it was painted by Newfoundland artist Kimberly Ropson.  A friend posted the picture on my MeWe Quilt Talk group.  I looked up the artist, found her website, and discovered that I could buy a coffee mug with that very painting on it.  So that’s exactly what I did.

That afternoon, Hannah sent a picture of her new Australian shepherd, Willow, who will be a year old on October 6.  Aussies are such pretty dogs, and so bright.

We were invited to a birthday party for Carolyn that evening.  Her 5^th birthday was the next day, September 2^nd.  I went downstairs to my gift-wrapping room to wrap her presents.  First, a large, stuffed, very-real-looking black cat – so real-looking, it gave me a start when I turned around and discovered it sitting on the marble table, looking straight at me with its golden marble eyes, even though I had put it there, my very own self.  Second, a stuffed, cutely-dressed (and mostly decorative) bunny made by Janice several years ago.  The bunny has a little straw hat with a tiny bird’s nest on one brim, and she’s holding a bag of bird seed.  On her apron it says, ‘Befriend your feathered friends’.  Third, a large set of Crayola markers. 

The book that went with the cat had not yet arrived, nor has the sweater I ordered.

A lot of people from both sides of the family were at Kurt and Victoria’s house that evening.  Their poor kitty Luna had hurt his left rear foot shortly before we got there, and was making that growly noise that kitties make when they’re in pain.  But he’s a sweet thing who nevertheless allowed me to carefully pet his head.  He wasn’t putting weight on that foot at all.  Victoria wondered if he had broken it, but after I said our cats had acted like that after getting bitten, she remembered that her cats Luna and Yuki had gotten into a worse fuss than usual earlier that evening, complete with growling and yowling.  They normally get along fine.  Maybe birthday preparations get them under tension?  😾😼  Cats’ wounds can get infected so very quickly; that was probably what the trouble was.

He was walking a little bit better by the next morning, but they took him to the vet.  Nothing was broken or out of place, so it almost certainly was a bite, though the vet didn’t find it.  They got some anti-inflammatory medication and brought him home in the afternoon, with their wallets $75 the worse for wear.

Pssst, Ms. Vet Lady, you have to look under the fur for bites, you do, you do!  Our veterinarian generally does a little fur-shaving at the site of the tenderness, so she knows exactly what the problem is.  I appreciate animal doctors who are thorough, and don’t just guess at things!

Anyway, by Friday night, Luna was running and trotting again, and putting weight on his foot.  So he’s all right.

It was just as well that Luna was at the vet that afternoon, though, as it kept him and his sore paw out of the danger imposed by eleven children conducting Excitements and Enthusiasms at Carolyn’s birthday party.

Yuki, the more timid of the two cats, took himself to safety.  Victoria later found him in the basement rafters.  Can you see him up there?  

When all danger had passed, he deigned to come down and rejoin his family, minus Luna.  And then he found the stuffed black cat on the couch.

“I wonder if he’s particularly confused because the black cat has replaced Luna this afternoon,” wrote Victoria.

Friday night, we were invited to Eva’s birthday party.  She will be 2 tomorrow, Tuesday, September 6^th.  We gave her a soft stuffed horse and a book about horses to go with it, a very small cat book, and a dusty blue heart necklace from Avon.  The smocked dress will be here in a few days, hopefully.

Carolyn’s cat book arrived, but I forgot to take it to Eva’s birthday party (Kurt and Victoria and their family were there).  As soon as we walked in the door, I saw that Carolyn had brought along her black stuffed cat, and I remembered the book.  🙄

Ah, well; I would give it to her on Sunday.

Eva pulled her horse out of the gift bag, grinned, hugged it, and then yelled, “Neeeiiigghhhh!!!”  😂

Here I am holding Baby Willie.  He’s six months old now, and has sprouted two little teeth.

That night, I had no sooner gotten myself all comfortably snugged into my recliner (no easy feat, what with heating pad, fleece blanket, neck roll, gel seat cushion, laptop ‘desk’, laptop itself, coffee mug, earbuds, lip balm, eyedrops, and Kleenexes), when I heard animals in the eaves and corner of the kitchen ceiling rafters.  Aarrgghh!

This time, for once, I knew what they were, because I could hear them.  It was a family of raccoons, and the young ones were gallumping about, chirring and fussing and playing with each other.  A whole gob of plaster went tumbling down inside the wall, and one of the members of the family was chewing away on something in the wall behind the toaster.  That particular wall is shared with the attached garage.

Soon it sounded like they’d gotten themselves into the garage rafters, then the outside eaves, and then I’m pretty sure they were scrambling, slithering, and sliding down the log siding on the front of the house.

Larry went to see if he could find the place where they are getting in.  He discovered two areas where they (or, more likely, squirrels) had chewed holes big enough to allow entry into the rafters and under-eave cubbyholes.  He will repair them as soon as a) he has a chance, and b) he knows there is no wildlife inside that might get trapped.

In the meantime, I hope they don’t chew their way through an interior wall and come right on into the kitchen for English tea and scones.

They’re so cute, but they sure can wreak havoc on a house.  And they can be fierce if they feel cornered – even those adorable, roly-poly babies.

Life is interesting, out here in the country!

I didn’t go see Loren on Saturday; instead, we both went to visit him today, since Larry had Labor Day off.  So I spent Saturday scanning pictures, while Larry mowed the lawn and worked on his scissor lift and a few other things.  It was just as well we didn’t go.  My eyes were causing all sorts of troubles, as they always do if I have to go somewhere every day for several days in a row.  They’re usually fairly okay at home, most of the time.  Not Saturday.  I hoped they would improve when they finally got the notice from my brain that they didn’t have to go anywhere.  I’m getting closer and closer to trying to find a reputable eye doctor to put some Botox injections in the small muscles and nerve areas around my eyes.  The thought makes me shudder, though.

If I wind up looking like a movie star, just remember this:  I did it for medical purposes.  ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

Here is Teddy in a suit I made from one of my father’s suits.  It no longer fit my father, so he gave it to me, hoping I could cut it apart and make a little suit for one of the boys.  It was early 1987, so Teddy was 3 ½.

And now, just look at these serious, staid, and dignified teenagers.

Yep, that’s me on the left, and Rhonda on the right.

There were two more pictures, but we cut the strip in half, and Rhonda took the other two.  We had just had our pictures taken together at a studio in an Omaha mall, probably Westroads.  Upon exiting the studio, we walked down the concourse, spotted the coin-operated photo booth – and popped right in.  It was 1977.  I was 16; Rhonda was 17.

For supper Saturday evening, we had baked cod, clam chowder, and broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.  I put the bowl of chowder into the microwave, turned it on ---- and 30 seconds later, KABLOOEY!  It blew up.

Good thing I had put a fairly heavy saucer over that bowl; most of the chowder was corralled.

We had Pita crackers to go with it.  Mmmmm.

I hadn’t fixed very large portions, so after supper we splurged at Dairy Queen.  Larry got a Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard, and I got a banana split.  We drove around Wagner Lakes while we ate them.  It was already dark by then, but many of those big, pretty houses have outdoor lighting, so we could still admire them and see their reflections in the water.

Wagner Lakes used to be a messy area where people parked their little old dilapidated campers in the weeds alongside dirt or gravel roads, and went to play on the weekends.  Not anymore!  It’s gone all upscale.

When I quit scanning that night, there was a total of 34,500 photos scanned – not as many as usual for the week.  Too many Very Important Places to Go and Things to Do.

Here I am at twelve months.  

The next day, amazingly enough, I remembered to take Carolyn’s book to church, and gave it to her before Sunday School.

We went to Hy-Vee after church last night and got a cartload of groceries.  The receipt was not nearly long enough for as high of a tally as we wound up with.  🥴🧐😑😕

I’d been needing to get groceries for a while, and wishing I didn’t have to ‘waste’ my time doing so.  I wondered what maids, servants, or hired help who would go for the groceries in days gone by used to be called, tried asking Google – and was offered “The Bizarre Story of Piggly Wiggly.”  Huh.

The Aurora Borealis, aka the Northern Lights, were seen a couple of nights ago out in the Sandhills north of Ellsworth, Nebraska.  We rarely see this sight so far south.  (Picture is from a Facebook weather page.)

This morning the occupational therapist who helps care for patients at the nursing homes in Omaha texted to tell me that she was there seeing Loren. 

“He has no shoes,” she said.  “Staff said they have been lost for about a week now, and no one can find them.  🙃

“Would there be any way you could bring him shoes whenever you have time.  I didn’t know if the staff at prairie meadows updated you about the shoe situation.

“Thanks!”

‘About a week.’  Ha!

I responded, “He lost both pairs of good leather shoes and his suede and sherpa slippers the week after we took him there, back at the first part of February.  He turned up with some sort of soft canvas-type shoes and said he found them outside while he was mowing.  Last month, I saw some slippers identical to his on the feet of another patient in a picture on Facebook.  😂 His glasses, too, have been missing since February, and they were brand new.  The staff let me hunt for them in a box of glasses (the lady who helped me look obviously believes all glasses are scratch-proof, haha), but they weren’t there.  I got him reading glasses, and those stayed around for a month or two, but I couldn’t find them last week when I was there.  I bought a 3-pack, so I will take another pair today; we’re just about ready to head toward Omaha now.  I wrote his name on the edge of the lens with a sharp-tipped permanent marker.  (He has had, at times, someone else’s glasses in his room. 😏)  His shoes, too, have his name on them with a permanent marker.  I’ll look in the boxes of his things and see if there’s another pair of shoes in there.  I have asked about his shoes, but no one can find them.  It’s been 7 months since the two pairs of leather shoes vanished.”

There.  As I have often said, I do not want to complain about things that happen at the nursing home, because a) I know the staff works hard to care for the patients, and b) I am thankful that things are so much better with Loren being at the home, not just for him, but for me and my whole family, too.  But... if they’re going to tell big, fat fibs, well, then!  I will tell it the way it is.

“Ohhh, my,” responded the lady.  “Yes, the staff were not very helpful with me regarding the shoes.  The next person from our company that sees Loren this week is going to also bring him some socks with grippers on the bottom, just in case the shoes vanish again... 😅 Thank you for your help!”

Meanwhile, I had trotted downstairs and rummaged through the boxes of clothing we had kept for Loren.  I then answered the therapist, “I found the one last pair of shoes we saved when we cleaned out his house.  They’re another nice pair of leather shoes.  I’ll write his name on them again... not that it’ll do much good!  He hasn’t lost quite so many things since he got a private room; so we’re glad for that.

“I never wanted to complain, since I know Loren helps himself to this and that, too!  😂  I know the staff sometimes has more than they can say grace over, and I’m just so very thankful he’s where people take care of him.  Sometimes I look back at my journals from the last two years, and think, ‘Wow, those times were really tough, and I mustn’t forget to be thankful for where Loren is now, and that he seems happy and content, every time we see him.’

“Shoeless, but happy.  LOL”

The lady replied, “Hahaha yes, he is always in a great mood, and great to work with.  Hopefully not shoeless for long lol”

I was glad to hear that he seems happy to her, too.

I had hoped to start for Omaha early, so we could have a good part of the day to explore a State Park somewhere; but Larry needed to work on his flatbed trailer in the morning, because he’s heading for Kansas early tomorrow to pick up a mower and a scissor lift.

“We’ll leave at 1:00 p.m.,” he informed me last night.

We left at 2:55 p.m.  🙄

We got to Omaha at about 4:30 p.m.  Loren and his friend Roslyn were in a pretty lunchroom/activity room at the end of a long hall that Larry and I had not been in before.  We gave him the shoes, and asked him to try them on to see if they fit all right.

He smiled, fiddled with the shoelaces, and did nothing more, reminding me of when he was recovering from Covid.  He’d hardly talked, and couldn’t think how to do much of anything.

“Can you help him put them on?” I requested of Larry, untying the shoelaces, which had already been tied. 

Loren often used to slip out of his shoes without untying the laces, keeping them tied loosely enough that he could get them back on again without untying and retying.

Larry picked up a shoe and said to Loren, “I can help you put this on.”

Loren smiled at him and stayed right where he was, scooted up to the table.  He did retie the other shoe, though.

Larry tried again.  “If you’ll scoot your chair back, I’ll help you with this shoe.”

Loren smiled at him and played with the shoelaces.

Larry finally stopped making suggestions, and just gave orders.  Politely.  “Okay, scoot your chair back, turn this way, and put your foot out.”

Loren complied.

I untied the second shoe again while Larry tied the first.  Loren reached for shoe #2, probably with the purpose of retying it.  I handed it to Larry.

Loren scooted his chair back up to the table.

This was as bad as when Larry tried to get him to get dressed and put on his coat, hat, and gloves when he needed to take him to the doctor for the monoclonal antibody treatment, the morning after he was diagnosed with Covid!

Larry again told Loren to scoot his chair back and put out his other foot so he could put the second shoe on.  Loren eventually did so.

By this time, the nurses were collecting everyone to go to the dining room for supper. 

“Let’s walk to the dining room,” I said, getting up.  Larry, Loren, and Roslyn followed suit.  “Stay beside Loren in case those shoes trip him up,” I cautioned Larry.  “He hasn’t been used to that kind of shoe for several months.”

Loren did comment on the shoes being heavy (they are, that’s true); but he walked just fine in them.  Residents were gathered in the wide hallway outside the dining room doors.  When one of the nurses unlocked the door, people began walking in.  Some propelled themselves in their wheelchairs; others were dependent on the nurses to push them inside.

Loren and Roslyn hurried right off without us, not giving us another glance.  We took the opportunity to put the new pair of reading glasses in his room, along with a Messenger newspaper; then decided to leave so as not to distract him from eating.  He has gotten a bit too thin since being sick. 

I found a pair of glasses on one of Loren’s dressers – and they were not his. 

Upon leaving Omaha, we turned to the north and headed toward Ponca State Park.  I wish we could’ve gotten there sooner; the sun was already well on its way down when we arrived.  But we found a pretty picnic table on a hill amongst the tall, tall trees, ate supper there, and then walked out on the wood-planked observation deck high above the Missouri River.

As we drove around through the park, we saw raccoons and deer.  A nightbird was singing, and katydids, crickets, and cicadas made a choir of commotion.  Then the treefrogs joined in, and what a cacophony there was!

I drove half of the way home, as Larry was getting tired.  We stopped at Johnson Park in Norfolk, because I was all sat out, and needed to walk.  Johnson Park is the oldest park in the city, and they are fixing it all up, channeling part of the North Fork of the Elkhorn River through the park in a series of rapids.  They’ll be able to slow down the flow for families with children to play in, or speed it up for kayak competitions.

A ten-minute walk through the park, and I was back in working order.  We stopped at the truck stop on the south side of town.  Once again, Larry had forgotten his small travel pillow, and I was wearing my jacket, and wasn’t generous enough (or warm enough) to let him wad it up and use it as a pillow.

He didn’t want to get one of those donut neck pillows they have at truck stops, because the silly things cost $20 there.  But I found the perfect pillow.

It was the right size, soft and spongy, half the price of the donut pillow... and it was a big strawberry with a happy face embroidered on it.  Since Larry had washed his hair right before we left home, done nothing to get it dirty, and hadn’t plastered it with Greasy Kid Stuff or the like, I suggested he get that pillow, use it until we got home, and then we could give it to Violet for her birthday next month.

He got it.  It was a 45-minute drive home, and that was the end of Labor Day.

Today I ordered a strawberry purse to match that pillow.  The kitty book I ordered for Violet came today; it will go with another of those realistic-looking stuffed cats.  I have a little navy sweater for her, too.  So that will be enough for Violet.  😊

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