Journal: Old Pictures, Old Stories, & A New One or Two

 

Last Tuesday, I sent this comic to the girls, telling them, “This is how you all learned!”

Right after my parents got me my first piano (an old upright that used to be a player), I played something, then asked, “Was that a church song?”

Hester responded, “😅😅😅 That sounds like something Keira would say!!”

I was in first grade when my parents got me that first piano.  I came home from school at lunchtime.  It was two or three blocks from West Park Elementary to my house.  I went running in the door, calling, “Why is there a big truck -----” and stopped short when I encountered two strange men in our living room, positioning a piano against the far wall.

I don’t have a picture of it, but it looked a lot like this one.  Why don’t I have a picture of it?!

I backed against the closet doors on the opposite side of the room and tried to blend into the woodwork.  I was shy!

One of the men spoiled the surprise (I wonder if my mother was disappointed?) and made my eyes get very big by smiling directly at me and saying as they departed, “I hope you enjoy your new piano!”

When they were gone, my parents confirmed that, yes indeedy, that was my piano.

I stood and looked at it.

“Do you want to play it?” asked Daddy.

I needed no further invitation.  I seated myself, placed my hands on the keys, and, in the key of E – that’s the key of four sharps – I proceeded to play the old hymn, Something for Jesus, playing simple chords with my left hand and two notes, soprano and alto, with my right hand.

Daddy and Mama were amazed.  “Where did you learn to play the piano?!” asked Daddy.

I was just as amazed that they hadn’t known I could.  I’d been thumping away on my little toy grand piano for years, after all!  ’Course, the thing didn’t have any black keys (I hummed them, when I needed them), and when the wooden hammers hit the metal pipes, it sounded so tinny, I imagine they did their best to block the sound from their conscious thoughts, rather than trying to determine if an actual song might be issuing forth.

They probably bought the old upright as a defensive measure from that awful cacophony!

My sister had recently moved her spinet from our house into the mobile home she and her husband had purchased.  I had loved sitting on the bench beside her while she played, and I’m sure I learned a bit just watching her hands and listening to the pretty music.  

She’d let me play it sometimes – but nobody noticed I was actually playing real, honest-to-goodness songs on that piano, either.

That afternoon, Hannah sent me pictures of Carolyn that Victoria had sent her.  Hannah had given Carolyn a Lilla Rose hair clip for her birthday.  There was also an audio clip of Carolyn saying, “Aunt Hannah, I willy like the clip, and I’m wea’ing it today!  (a little laugh, as she talks)  It’s willy cozy in my hay-uh!  (another little laugh)  Bye!”

I went to one of my niece’s houses that afternoon to help her with her computer.  The hard drive was full, and she needed to move things to an external hard drive; but, unknown to her, what was causing the biggest trouble was a problematic mouse.  She uses Publisher to create and print the Charles Spurgeon pamphlets with which she stocks a literature rack in our church’s vestibule, and Publisher didn’t seem to be working correctly.  But as soon as we plugged in another mouse, everything was back to working normally. 

I downloaded WizTree, a disk space analyzer, to find out what all was using space on the hard drive, and where it was located.  I started all the folders of pictures and videos copying onto the external hard drive; when that is complete, she will be able to copy them onto a second external hard drive and then delete them from her computer.

My niece has done quite a bit of studying of homeopathic treatments, and she gave me some things that she hoped might help with the Blepharospasm. 

I am generally skeptical of some of this stuff, but I am certainly willing to give it a try for a couple of months.  It won’t hurt me, and if it should allow me to avoid Botox injections, I would be very grateful.

On the way to her house, as I prepared to make a right turn from the bypass onto 48^th Avenue, going a little over 50 mph and slowing a bit for the corner, a local Discoverers’ school bus – a big fancy one like a huge RV, painted elaborately – pulled out from the stop sign on the north side of the road and went blundering straight in front of me.  Had I not hit the brakes, I would have run right into him.  I like to keep going until the last minute, when idiots do such things, just to make them notice me (though he already had, and pulled right onto the highway on purpose).  The driver had the audacity to put up his hand at me like a stop sign.  I stared at him, and coasted nice and close.  Moron driver.  He endangers all the school children whom he ferries about in that thing, driving like that.  It wasn’t as if there was so much traffic he hadn’t a prayer of getting across, without making like a bully and ignoring all traffic rules!  There was actually little traffic that day.

Wouldn’t it be fun to install a giant ka-bopper on the front of one’s car, like they had in the baggage claims department of the old Let’s Explore the Airport with Buzzy game, way back when?  “Ka-boi-oi-oingng!”  

We could bop drivers right back where they belong.  Or land them in a ditch where they could no longer put the rest of us in harm’s way.

At 20 ’til 3 in the morning, Larry called.  He was in Garden City, Kansas.  He’d left early that morning to go pick up a mower and a scissor lift he had bought online.  Everything was loaded on his trailer and he was ready to head for home, but first he needed to sleep.  He said he was six hours from home.

As usual, it had taken longer to get there and load than he had expected.  And no, experience will never revise his optimistic notion of how quickly he can drive to a location, load various large, possibly inanimate objects, contend with things that don’t work or run, and then drive back home again.  Even if not one single thing goes wrong, it will always take longer than Larry thinks it will.

Wednesday morning on the radio, I heard a reporter interviewing a woman in California, where it’s very hot, there are big wildfires, homes are in danger, and there is a possibility of rolling blackouts.  So she says, says she, “Well, umm, we’re just, um, you know, like, trying to, umm, stay cool.”

It’s, umm, too late, lady.

Here’s Kurt with Baby Willie.  Our sons-in-law are all such good fathers.  We are very thankful.

At 1:00 p.m., suddenly concerned because I had not heard from Larry, I texted him, “Where are you?”

He answered promptly, “About to pull into the driveway.” 

And for once, that’s exactly and precisely what he was about to do.

He took a shower and went to work.  He got home at about 6:30 p.m. and decided he’d better stay home from church that evening, as he’d never be able to stay awake through the service.

Thursday morning I began hearing on the radio that the Royal Family was all congregating at Queen Elizabeth II’s estate at Balmoral Castle in Scotland; and then the news broke that she had passed away.  Our local radio station gave a nice tribute to her, telling of her father George VI becoming king, passing away at only 56 years of age, making her the queen at age 25.  They played an October 1940 recording of Princess Elizabeth at age 14 broadcasting a message to evacuees on the radio programme Children’s Hour, urging them to have courage.

It was all quite touching, really. 

And then I got a notice for this news article:  ‘Queen Elizabeth II, an Advocate for Climate Action, Dies at 96’.

News reporters are, often and in general, a stupid lot, aren’t they?  As if that was the Queen’s most important endeavor. 

The Queen herself would prefer to be remembered for, among other things, her charitable work.  Queen Elizabeth was credited with being one of the greatest supporters of charity work in the world.  She personally supported more than 600 charities in Britain.  The royal family as a whole officially (and quietly) supports nearly 3,000 charities around the world.  The Queen was responsible at least in part for raising an amazing £1.4 billion (close to $2 billion).  Queen Elizabeth made it a special focus of her life to help reduce poverty.  Read more here.

Ever since I ordered a couple of different kinds of homeopathic eyedrops last Tuesday, I’ve been seeing online ads here and there proclaiming, “Find a TED specialist fast! – Control your Thyroid Eye Disease!” 

😂🧐🤣😎😅🤓😄😵‍💫👀

I leave most everything I do online synced and traceable, just for the fun of it.  Every now and then, I get an offer for something I had no idea existed, but discover I really, really need! 😄

I do use Adblock Plus, which eliminates most ads, including pop-ups; but embedded ads can still be seen on various webpages.

One of the albums I have been scanning recently has photos from 1986 and 1987.  But in the middle of it, I discovered several pages full of old pictures of me.  I was born in October of 1960.

As you can see in this picture, I liked to conduct beauty salons.  If you make the page or photo larger, you will see that each and every doll presents with her particular brand of Bad Hair.  That was thanks to me and a large pair of scissors I pressed into service for the job.

Speaking of fixing hair, I sent this photo to Hannah, writing, “Okay, so we know you fixed your hair and Dorcas’ hair; but did you also fix the hair of the unknown girl on the left when nobody was looking?”  (This, because she was known for fixing not only her sisters’ hair, but also the hair of friends and family.)  😄

The picture was taken at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

Friday afternoon, Victoria sent pictures of Willie and Oliver.  The two babies, who are 7 months old now, are side by side on the couch, looking at each other quite as if they're wondering, 'What makes you tick?'

I wrote back, “See, one should always add captions to one’s photos.  Like this—”

“Been couch potatoin’ long?”

And the next one, wherein Baby Willie is pressing his tiny plump fist up against his own little cheek, and Oliver has his thumb in his mouth, but is clearly grinning behind it, and all twinkly-eyed:

Willie:  “He slugged me right here!”

Oliver:  “Chuckle”

Saturday, Hester sent this picture, writing, “I used a pancake recipe from the Green Tree Inn cookbook you gave us for our anniversary.  😋😋😋  They were so good!!”

Everything was damp outside, because a gentle rain had fallen a good part of the night.  It reminded me of these photos of Hester and Lydia with their umbrellas.  It was autumn of 1993, so Hester was 4 and Lydia was 2.

Last Monday as Larry and I drove through Ponca State Park, we took note of the many trees that were leaning, some over the road, some over picnic areas, and some looking quite precarious.  In fact, I have pictures of fallen trees and large, broken branches in some of the gullies and arroyos alongside the roadways and lanes. 

We have had some exciting(?!) times out in the mountains, when twice trees fell just behind us as we drove along.  Once it was a leaning aspen on Cottonwood Pass, a gravel and dirt road that reaches 12,126 feet in elevation.  We topped a hill in our Suburban, pulling a large popup camper, headed down into a small valley – and saw that tree, bending low over the road. 

We stopped and looked at it.

It had been raining, and the ground was saturated with water.  That tree didn’t appear very trustworthy.  We looked at the ground around the base of it, waited a few seconds, and decided to go for it.  (We sure didn’t want to back SUV and camper down the mountain, after all!)

But I strongly felt that the tree was lower over the road by the time we had nearly passed under it than it had been when we started going under it.  I leaned forward and watched it in the rearview mirror.  We headed back up a hill on the other side of the shallow valley, topped it, and started back down, going slowly, because the road had gone from gravel to dirt, and the reddish-colored clay was as slippery as a greased eel, even though we were in four-wheel-drive.

Seconds before we headed down the next hill, that tree tilted a little farther, swayed – and then vanished from sight.  It had fallen.

Another time, we were driving the six-door pickup, and it had a ‘kidnapper’ on it – a soft of ‘half-topper’ behind the cab that provided another two or three seats for the kids.  We had just come around a hairpin curve on Independence Pass east of Aspen.  There were strong storms in the area.  A mighty updraft hit suddenly, and we looked up toward the road we’d just been on in time to see eight to ten tall pines go down, right onto the roadway.  😯

Here I am playing tug-of-war with an unknown little dog.  I was two.  

In this picture, Lura Kay is holding me.  I’m wearing a little sailor coat that she sewed for me.

In the next shot, I’m holding Jeremy’s and Maria’s grandmother’s puppy.  I was about 5.

Saturday afternoon, Victoria sent a picture of Baby Willie, dressed in a yellow button-down cardigan that she had knitted for him.  A brown vest with beige and rust figured stripes is over the cardigan, and he has a little beige knit cap on.  He's also wearing a tiny pair of blue jeans, rolled up at the ankles.  😍

Our girls knit and crochet so beautifully, it makes me think I should learn to do it.  ((... pause ...))  Or maybe I should just pay them to knit and crochet whatever it is I want knitted and crocheted.

In the picture below, I was one year old.  It was October of 1961.

After my story about Loren’s missing shoes last week, a cousin of mine mentioned Skechers.  I decided to look for some for Loren, since those leather shoes we took him were quite heavy, and I am afraid they will trip him.  Also, he seemed to not understand about tying them – and it now occurs to me that he’s not supposed to lean down to do such a thing, after that partial hip replacement.  (Fortunately, he doesn’t usually untie his shoes; he just slips them off.)

I looked on eBay and found these:

They’re ‘preowned’, so I got them for $22.50, including shipping.  If they fit and he likes them, I can get him a nicer pair. 

I sent this picture to Keith, writing, “Here you are with your new bike in the summer of 1987.”

“I will never forget Daddy bringing that bike home,” he wrote back.  “I was elated.  It was a BMX Dorado.”

He would’ve been 7 ½.

Our supper that night was baked wild-caught Alaska salmon with lots of butter and lemon pepper; lettuce salad with bacon bits, red, yellow, and orange pepper strips, vine-ripened tomatoes, and Ritz crackers; cranberry juice; lemon-on-the-bottom Oui yogurt; Tiramisu coffee; and a blueberry turnover.

This is me at age one in front of our fake fireplace.  They built it like a real one, then sealed it shut and put a regular ol’ light bulb inside the fake logs.  Why?!

Dorcas’ baby Brooklyn is nine months old now.  She has two little teeth, just like baby Willie does.

Missionaries who are planning to go to Japan, Joe and Sierah Pliska and their eight-month-old little girl Sophia, visited our church yesterday.  Joe showed us a video during the morning Sunday School hour and preached a sermon from Psalm 67 last night.

The maroon soft-knit sweater-coat I ordered for Carolyn and the little knit dress and sweater outfit I ordered for Eva finally came, so last night after church, we put the packages in Victoria’s and Maria’s vehicles.

We had a quick supper of Campbell’s beef and vegetable soup, Wasa multigrain crispbread (just munch on a cardboard box if you want to know what these crackers taste like) (actually, they’re not bad – for a cardboard box), cottage cheese, Oui yogurt, Cran-Blackberry juice, and Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler ice cream.

Here I am at about a year and a half; somebody had put those tiny little pink rubber curlers in my hair.  

Below is my Kindergarten picture, taken about a month before my fifth birthday.

This morning, I got a note from the Occupational Therapist who visits Loren at the nursing home:

“Hi Sarah, this is Heather, OT seeing Loren.  Just wanted to let you know his therapy ends on Friday.  Our office will email you a form to e-sign, it’s required for Medicare, just stating what day the therapy will be over.  Thanks!  He has done great with OT!  Let me know if you have any questions.”

He really has recovered from the hip fracture quite well, much better than I feared.  The stomach bug he had a couple of weeks ago took him down a lot, though.

 Victoria sent pictures of Carolyn in the sweater-coat we gave her.  She had layered it over a navy striped knit dress, with a narrow gold belt fastened over the sweater.  Her suede burgundy Mary Jane shoes matched the sweater.

“It’s great for chilly mornings!” wrote Victoria, “so soft and snuggly.”  And indeed it was chilly – somewhere around 50°, I think.

This afternoon, I sent this picture of Kurt to Victoria.  I had taken it July 5, 1999, at our July-Fourth picnic (a day late, since the 5^th fell on a Sunday).  Kurt would have been two years old. 

“Tell Kurt I said it’s always good to have one’s mother screw one’s head back on periodically,” I wrote.  😅

The last load of clothes is dry, folded, and put away, except for the bathroom rugs, which are lopped over the back deck rail. 

Okay, so the label on this Monster Energy Drink Larry brought home for me (which I only drink about once a month or less, and don’t particularly like) tells me that there are two servings in it.  It further states that there 10 calories in one serving.  In the next column, however, it informs me that there are 15 calories per container.

All righty, then, I wish to drink the half that only contains five calories, instead of the half that contains ten calories.  How shall I do that, hmmm?

Somebody in the Nutrition Fact Labeling Department at the Monster Energy Company needs to take a course in General Mathematics, they do.

Tomorrow, I must sew a hanging sleeve onto the Atlantic Beach Path quilt and get it mailed to Boise Basin Quilters in Idaho for the upcoming quilt show.  If I don’t have enough fabric for the job, I’ll need to make a trip to Hobby Lobby.

Thursday, I leave for the AQS Quilt Show in Des Moines – with or without Larry; he doesn’t know yet if he can come.  I plan to stop in Omaha to visit Loren either on my way to Des Moines, or on my way home Saturday, depending on what time of day I leave home.

And now, I’d better hit the feathers.

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