Late last Monday night, Larry came home from working on the
Duramax pickup in Genoa – with a broken valve stem in his hand. He had the head back on, was torquing it to
125 lbs. – and his wrench was pressing on the valve stem, unbeknownst to
him.
The stem broke. He
had to take the head back off to remove the valve. He ordered a new one the next day; it would
take a couple of days to arrive. Right
when he was feeling all encouraged that he was finally, finally getting
close to done. 🥴
It was 45° here Tuesday afternoon; but in Falls City, down
in the southeast corner of Nebraska, 192 miles to our southeast, it was 89°.
And it was 7 below 0 in Qikiqtaaluk. I knew you’d want to know.
Meanwhile, out in Harrison, Nebraska, 396 miles to our
northwest, they were in blizzard conditions, with 20” of snow on the ground and
more expected, as it was still coming down hard and fast. 30 miles to the west, Lusk, Wyoming, had 30”
of snow, with snow still falling.
Earlier,
Larry took the Mercedes to the tire shop in town to have new tires put on the
rear. And just in the nick of time, too!
– look at these things. Yikes.
When
he came home for lunch, bringing the newly-shod Benz, he carried my Avanté
longarm machine out and strapped it in good and tight. After he headed back to work, I got ready to
take the Avanté to Nebraska Quilt Company in Fremont for some long-needed
repair and maintenance.
New
tires on (check)... coffee in hand (check)... camera bag packed (check)... red
trucks ordered up (check)... change out of craft glasses (check) (double check!
– this, I forget until I’m halfway down our hill, and wonder, Why is
everything blurry??) ... purse on arm (check)... key fob on purse strap
ring (check)... make sure coffee is in holder! Very Important!) (check)... and off I went.
A little thangamarolphgidget (scientific terminology) inside the Avanté head
at the top of the hopping foot needs to be replaced. It broke about three years ago, and Larry
repaired it as best he could, since it was an expensive little part, and they
didn’t have one in stock in Fremont and would’ve had to order one from the
factory in Salt Lake City. I was in the
middle of a quilt, too. (Of course.) It’s held up, but it’s not quite as perfectly
synchronized as it should be, and there’s a little bit of drag on the quilts,
making it a little harder to push the machine than it used to be. And that’s sad, because that was one of the
things I loved about it – the way it moved so smoothly. Time to get that fixed. Also, some of the functions on the rear LED
screen don’t work, and I want a few more lights under the handle. I asked for it to be totally cleaned (and
oiled, if necessary) while they were at it, too.
It will be 3 or 4 weeks before I get it back. That’s okay; I have lots of quilts to make. I wonder how many I can get put together
before the machine is done?
I wandered around that big store looking at all the
pretties for a few minutes. Since the
new owners bought the place, they have begun selling Berninas there! There’s a Bernina longarm, right in one of the
front windows. Ooooo, what a machine. (And what a price tag. 😮 )
The tech, Scott, stopped what he was doing to check in
my machine. What he was doing was giving
a woman a lesson on one of the machines.
He was very patient.
((...pause...))
And he needed to be. 😵💫
After leaving Fremont, I went on to Bellevue to visit
Loren. Even though it was awfully windy, the Mercedes drove much better. There were no vibrations at 75 mph as there
had been, either.
While
visiting with Loren, the ‘transitional specialist’ came in to have him sign
papers regarding his dismissal and move back to Prairie Meadows, despite the
fact that every page they pull up on their laptops shows me as having
Power of Attorney for Loren.
How
is it that people who continuously work with patients with dementia absolutely
do not understand that the patient has no idea about these things, and cannot
and should not make such decisions??? Why do they not know that dementia patients do
not sign papers for themselves; the person with Power of Attorney does it for
them??? Good grief. Sometimes these people say things that are
just bound to worry or upset the patients. I wanted to pull a roll of painters’ tape from
my purse and cover the girl’s mouth with it. (Yes, ‘girl’. I think she was 12. Well, maybe 13.) (Oh, all right... probably 22 – but with the
understanding of a 5-year-old, at least in regard to dementia patients.) She did let me sign, instead of having
Loren do it, when I told her I had Power of Attorney. And Loren acted relieved to have me taking
care of it.
But
that wasn’t the end of it. The woman
also told him he was ‘going home’ – and he thought she meant, back to Columbus.
When he was in his home in Columbus, he
thought his home was elsewhere. Now that
he’s not home, he believes his home is in Columbus.
“Home??”
he asked, sitting right up straight and paying attention.
This
‘specialist’ (without a speck of common sense, but a ‘specialist’, nonetheless)
nodded and opened her mouth to say it again, but I hastily interrupted. “She means, back to Prairie Meadows, where
you live,” I told Loren. “That’ll be so
nice, to be back there again. It’s such
a nice place.”
He
thought about it a moment, then smiled at me and nodded. “Yes, it is.”
I
backed behind Loren’s chair so he couldn’t see me, made a small grimace at the
woman, and gave a little shake of my head.
She
looked at me blankly.
Give
me a gold star. I didn’t snarl. I didn’t even roll my eyes.
I cannot understand
people — no, that’s not true. Yes, I can
understand people. They lack compassion,
and many times they are not too bright, which compounds the problem. They have neither compassion for the patient,
nor for the family who loves that patient. They should not be in that career, or any type
of job where they can potentially harm others – especially the more vulnerable
individuals. Compassion is not something
learned by education. A person with no
compassion needs a change of heart! Of
course, people can learn more effective ways of putting things, of speaking to
others; but you can’t drill loving behavior into someone who does not love.
I
emailed the Power of Attorney papers to the woman after I returned home.
Loren
was getting uncomfortable in his chair, and said he needed to get up and walk
around for a bit – but then had a very hard time trying to get up. I brought his walker closer, so he had
something to hold, and then held it steady for him. When he stepped into the hallway, the alarm
over his door went off. Nurses came to turn
off the alarm and to ask where he was going.
I
never see anyone walking the halls by themselves there at Hillcrest Nursing
Home. It seems like they pretty much try to keep
people in their rooms, probably especially since a few of the residents tested
positive for covid the previous week.
An
older man came along, a nurse nearby. He
stopped to talk with us, introducing himself as ‘Ron’. He was obviously suffering from dementia,
too; but he was also obviously a gentleman.
He spoke of being in the Airforce for 40 years before he retired.
“Did
you work in that big building?” Loren asked, gesturing toward a window. When the man, after peering out the window at
a wing of the nursing home, said he had, Loren happily informed him that he had
worked in the very same building. (He
hadn’t, of course; he worked for the Chamber of Commerce, and then for NFIB [National
Federation of Independent Business]).
Ron
was pleased and intrigued that Loren ‘knew’ him, but he frowned intently,
trying to place Loren. “I don’t remember
seeing you there,” he said.
“That’s
because I worked there after you retired,” Loren explained (though Loren is
probably 5-10 years older than Ron). “They
told me all about you!”
Ron
smiled, pleased. He tried to relate a
few of his duties, but none of it made much sense. Poor man; I think he realized he wasn’t able
to tell it properly. This didn’t bother Loren
in the slightest, though. He listened
with great interest, and inserted a few illogical responses.
“I
have to keep track,” said Ron, “so that people don’t put items out there in
the...” he gestured down the hall.
Loren
leaned around the corner of his doorway, and pushed his walker a little farther
so he could see where the man was pointing.
“Yes, that’s good,” he responded.
“If
you don’t,” continued Ron, “they’ll just keep it up!” He shook his head. “People these days are something else.”
Loren
nodded in agreement. “Isn’t that the
truth.”
I
doubt if either of them knew what the other was talking about, but they
certainly had a good idea about what they themselves were thinking. I think.
Maybe.
“We’ll
have to have lunch together and compare notes!” Ron told Loren.
“Yes,
we can do that!” Loren agreed.
Ron
bid us adieu and proceeded on down the hallway.
The nurse, who’d been standing nearby throughout the conversation,
ordered him to come back the other direction.
Ron turned around promptly, again told us he was glad to have visited
with us, and congenially followed the bossy nurse back toward his room.
Loren
beamed at me. “He was really glad to see
me, wasn’t he?!”
He
had grown tired of standing, so he went to sit on his bed – and had a difficult
time sitting down. His knees were
hurting, he told me, as he rubbed them. It’s
probably from lack of exercise, and then the strain on them in standing up and
sitting down.
He
asked for his wheelchair to be brought closer, so I did, and he moved from the
bed to the wheelchair. There was a gel
pad on it, doubtless to help with the pressure wound.
There
were beautiful pictures from a screensaver on his TV screen. He thought I had taken the pictures,
regardless of whether they were from Colorado, Maine, or Africa. I pointed out the locations in the captions,
and the photographers’ names. He nodded
– and immediately asked, “When did you go to Africa?”
He then asked me how Janice was doing. That’s a first. He usually remembers she passed away, and
even knows the year. For a split second,
I debated what to say – then told him, as I always have about any of our family
and friends who have died, “She passed away in 2014.” He looked puzzled, so I added, “It’s 2023
now; so it will soon be 9 years ago.”
He nodded, then turned to me (he was
walking with his walker in his room –) ........... and asked, “Was I told??”
I said, “Yes,” and he accepted that with no
question.
He commented on how quickly time passes. A few minutes later he asked, “When did you
say Mama passed away?”
I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think he
forgot it had been Janice we had previously been discussing.
I told him, “December 12, 2003. A little over 19 years ago.” Then I added, “Daddy passed away in September
of 1992 – over 30 years ago.”
He was surprised about that.
“Lydia was only 14 months old when Daddy
died,” I said, “and she doesn’t remember him – but she did remember the
silly songs he used to sing to her, and she even taught some of them to her own
kids – such as, ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently down the drain; Merrily,
merrily, merrily, merrily; life is but a pain!’”
Loren laughed; he well remembered Daddy
singing that.
I told him how Hester used to stick her
tiny finger through the rattan back on Daddy’s chair, until she touched him.
“Hey!” he’d exclaim, leaping up.
She’d squeal and run for the little room
off the kitchen, with Daddy hot on her tail, pretending he couldn’t catch up,
of course. We worried he’d have a heart
attack, playing so vigorously with her!
Loren was soon laughing over the old
stories.
It was getting late by
the time I was driving home, and I was hungry.
I stopped at Sapp Bros. Truck Stop in Fremont and bought a couple of
bean and meat burritos and one bacon-wrapped pork-on-a-stick (because they only
had one left). I ate only half of the
bacon-wrapped pork and saved the other half for Larry; but he had a sore in his
mouth and after one bite he gave the rest back to me.
The burrito was stuffed
so full, it was hard to eat while driving; but I got it done. A little messy, but I got it done! And I only dripped beans and meat on the
plastic bag; not a drop on myself.
I got home a little after
9:00 p.m.
I’m such a flibberty-gidget! Wednesday, I was happily going through some
bits and pieces of fabric my daughter-in-law Amy had found at secondhand stores
and given me – and pulled out what I thought were only blocks in
pink, black, and white – but it was actually an entire quilt top, all
put together! Amy had given me fuchsia
backing for it, too. I delightedly rushed
to turn on my steam station to prepare the quilt for loading on my frame – and
suddenly and belatedly remembered, Oh. Yes. Quite
so. (in a Winnie-the-Pooh tone) The Avanté is at Nebraska
Quilt Company awaiting its turn to be serviced. 🙄
I turned the steam station back off and began
folding the quilt top – and discovered that the edges of that
flimsy were all turned under about 3/8” and top-stitched! Grum grum
grum grum grum grum grum... Did
someone think that’s how you make a summer quilt? – you just put together a
quilt top, and then turn under the edges, without bothering to add any sort of
backing?? I wonder what they thought
would happen to all those ¼” raw seams when they washed it?!
Setting it aside, I instead looked for the
blocks I’d planned to put together next all along: parts of a quilt Amy’s step-grandmother Elaine
had started, before becoming too ill and infirm to finish it. Amy offered to pay me to finish it for her,
but I don’t accept pay from my children for such things. Besides, her grandmother is my friend. So this is next on the agenda.
Elaine started putting this quilt together
shortly after she and Amy’s grandfather were married in 1982. The first blocks are notably better done than
the latter ones, when her health, and probably her eyesight, too, was failing.
It’s called ‘Biblical Blocks’. The center medallion, measuring about 40” x
40”, is a
large ‘Tree of Life’ pattern. In spots,
it was sewn by hand onto the wider blue border, and excess fabric is drifting
around on the back side. Extra lengths
on the side borders are still dangling. However, most of the blocks are put
together quite well, with diagonals going along neatly, and points in all their
glory winding up perfectly at the side seams. The smaller blocks, minus the green background,
measure 9” x 9”.
Amy found these quilt parts in her
grandparents’ house when she was helping clean it a couple of years ago.
Thursday, I did a bit of
housework, and then started a load of laundry.
I glanced out my kitchen window as I passed – and there was a
golden-crowned kinglet right out there on a lilac branch! They’re so cute, and such tiny little things,
barely bigger than a wren. This is only the second time I have ever seen
one, though I have heard them a time or two, but couldn’t spot them in the
trees. He was hopping quickly about from
branch to branch, with his little tail pumping, and his bright crown appearing,
dimming, and reappearing as he raised and lowered those feathers on his wee
head.
That day, I got the bottom row of blocks
put on the Biblical Blocks quilt, and several borders.
On
Friday, Loren was returned to Prairie Meadows Assisted Living (I have to quit
calling it a nursing home, or the social service person at Methodist Hospital
will treat me like I only have a small bit of brain stem still functioning)
from Hillcrest Nursing Home Rehab Center where he’s been. I’m glad he’s back at
Prairie Meadows; they understand so much better how to handle patients with
dementia. The other idgets thought they
should discuss insurance, money matters, transportation, etc., with him, no
matter how I told them otherwise. 🙄 From
things they said, I’ve concluded that that was why he was upset at the
hospital, thinking they wanted him to buy a home, the wheelchair, the walker,
and the bed. Idiots, these edjeecated
souls. Nice, and trying to do the proper
thing, but idiots, nonetheless!
That morning, Amy sent pictures of Elsie with their
Anatolian shepherd puppies.
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It was Josiah’s 13th birthday that day. I took him some gifts: a wooden Mayflower ship with canvas sails, three
rolls of pennies, a pewter lighthouse on a slice of geode, and a small silver tie
tack with an eagle on it and the reference ‘Isaiah 40:31’ inscribed on the
bottom edge. That’s the verse with
the words, “...they shall mount up with wings as eagles.”
While I was there, several of the children brought puppies
for me to see and pet. Grant found a
couple of eggs in a nest.
Amy gave me a little bag with more fabric. It’s Moda, which is a topnotch line of
quilting fabric, and it has poinsettias printed on it.
She
told me a little more about the Biblical Blocks quilt:
A
couple of years ago when her grandparents’ health was failing, some members of
the family went there to help clean the house. They cleared out a lot of things that were mildewed after water got into the house.
This quilt and the matching fabric did
not have visible mold on it, but smelled quite mildewy. Amy gathered up all the coordinating pieces, took
them home, and washed everything on ‘delicates’ cycle on her machine.
She
told me this at the time she gave it to me, and told me not to take it, if I
could still smell it, or if it bothered me. She could no longer smell it, but she knows my
family teases me and tells me I have a ‘rabbit-tracker nose’. There is, in fact, a vague odor to it, but the
good-smelling detergent Amy used eliminated enough of it that it really doesn’t
bother me, and since I got it out of the bin it was in and it’s been airing out
for several days, it’s definitely better than it was.
A week
or two after the family had everything cleaned up for the grandparents, Elaine
started asking about a ‘lighthouse quilt’. Nobody knew anything about a ‘lighthouse quilt’
– but Amy wondered if she could be talking about this one, since Amy did
know there were sailboats printed on one of the sashings.
Well, the
outer border is a 4 or 5” lighthouse print! Amy was surprised and glad when I told her
that. And to think I had planned to finish
the quilt with only one border in a sailboat print. But a lady on my quilting group told me the
name of the pattern, and when I looked it up online, I found pictures showing
the quilt with its several borders. I
then realized that other strips of fabric in the bin were already cut for those
borders.
Amy
also told me that she had given me the pattern book for this quilt. I’d totally forgotten that. When I got home, I walked over to the
bookcase that’s in my quilting room, considered where I might put that booklet
– and reached right out and pulled it from the case. How ’bout that. A little late, since I had the quilt together
already; but at least now I will know the names of each of the blocks.
Elaine
had written notes in the booklet as she put the quilt together. She evidently did not approve of the block
named ‘Devil’s Claw’, for she had scribbled it out and penned in ‘Windmill’
instead. Can’t say I blame her. 😄
The Biblical Blocks pattern has twenty
9-inch blocks to choose from, though the quilt uses only 16. Elaine had made all twenty. One of the four leftover blocks measured 10”, one
measured 8”, and the other two were close to 9”. I put sashing around the 8” block, trimmed the
10” one (it will lose tips of its points when I sew it, but... oh, well), and
then added another width of border to the 6” border, so that I could place
these four extra blocks in the corners.
I’m pleased enough with how it’s turning
out that I wish I would’ve tried hard to repair the bad miter on the sashing
around the central Tree of Life block. I’m going to have
problems with the quilting when I get to that area of the quilt on the left,
around that inner blue sashing and corner (it’s worse than it looks, believe
me). I have a gallon of starch; reckon
that’ll be enough?
But... ♪ ♫ “I can quilt that out!” ♫ ♪ Right?? There’s supposed to be appliqués in the cream-colored
border. Instead, maybe I’ll use some
variegated thread in my longarm and just do some fancy feathering or something.
I don’t want to take the time a whole
lot of appliquéing would entail.
By Friday night, the Biblical Blocks quilt was
all put together and ready to be quilted. It measures 97.5” x 97.5”. I cut the binding and sewed it together,
too. Now let’s hope I get
my Avanté back sooner, rather than later!
Joseph’s fabric arrived that day; here is
the center panel. It belatedly occurred
to me that I would not be able finish his quilt in time for his birthday
on the 24th, either --------- because I have no quilting
machine. 🫤 I got these pieces of navy, maroon, and the coordinating
Army print to go with the panel.
Next, I sewed together enough leftover scraps of batting for
the pink, black, and white quilt.
Saturday, Kurt
and Victoria, along with Carolyn, Violet, and Willie, came visiting, bearing
homemade donuts and a ‘health cake’ – it looked and tasted a lot like carrot
cake with cream cheese frosting, but had only maple syrup for sweetener, no
gluten, and the frosting was made of crushed cashews and lemon juice and ?? ...
something else. Since they were driving
a pickup, Larry and Kurt hauled out the heavy hope chest Kurt made for Victoria
when they were dating, back in 2016. We now
have an empty spot in our living room!
I gave Carolyn and Violet, ages 5 and 4, brochures
about the Sandhill cranes we saw a couple of weeks ago, and told them stories
about the big birds. Willie, 1, is
saying ‘Grandma’. Well, it sounds more
like ‘Grum’, haha, but I say it’s ‘Grandma’. 😉
He beams, exclaims, “Grum!” and holds out his arms to me. That’s as ‘Grandma’ as it needs to be for
anyone to know exactly what he’s saying, right?? 💞
Later that afternoon and
evening, I removed the topstitching (which was done at 20 stitches per inch, I
do believe) from the edges out of the pink, black, and white quilt top. I cut the binding and backing, pieced
everything together, and pressed it. It’s
ready to be quilted.
The quilt pattern is
similar to a Double Pinwheel, but this one has a couple of full-sized black blades
and a couple of half-sized black blades in each block, and the sashing makes
diagonal zigzags. I can’t find a similar
pattern, and I haven’t come up with a name for it, either, other than ‘Pink,
Black, and White Quilt’.
A little before 10:00 that evening, there was a noise at the
north window. I looked up from my sewing
machine – and there was a little dark-eyed junco clutching onto the
screen! He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t
get in, or where he should go from there.
He hopped back and forth at the bottom of the window... flew to the top
glass... slid down to the middle sash... bonked into the screen...
This sometimes happens with migrating songbirds that are
normally flying quite high, heading north during the night. They might come down for a drink or a little
rest, and then a lighted window or the lights of a town confuse them. Poor little thing, he exhausted himself at
that window. I think he finally flew to
a nearby Douglas fir, where he hopefully sheltered the rest of the night. Migrating isn’t for sissies!
Larry was in Genoa,
working on the Duramax – and I totally forgot to eat supper until 10:30 p.m.,
not being hungry on account of eating that slice of cake from Victoria.
I didn’t eat much,
because in not too very many hours, it would be time for our Easter Sunrise
Service at 7:00 a.m., with breakfast
in the Fellowship Hall at 8:00 a.m.
I love the beautiful old Easter hymns, so majestic and
lively. Yes, my Savior rose from the
tomb, and He lives!
Our main service was at 11:00. The brass played a medley; it was so
beautiful – best they’ve ever done, I think.
’Course, the medley consisted of some of my favorite songs, so it could
be that my opinion is a wee bit skewed. 😉 Our evening service was at 5:30, an
hour earlier than usual, as we had a luncheon after the service.
Last night, I added a bunch of clothing pictures to my
Clothes Rack blog. These are clothes I
made from the time I started sewing, after Loren gave me a Singer when I was 7. I’m drawing the photos from those pictures I
scanned the last couple of years. I’ve
made it to Album #2. That means there
are a few more to go, hmmm? You can see
the recent uploads here.
This is Daddy and me at the park in Ft. Morgan, Colorado, feeding the ducks and the geese.
Janice made me the red
polka-dot dress, and it was a much-loved favorite of mine. One day not
long thereafter, Loren, who was selling sewing machines at the time, brought
home a Singer sewing machine just for me. He taught me how to thread it,
how to clean and oil it – and he rummaged up a piece of leftover red polka-dot
fabric and helped me make a triangular headscarf, lined with blue silky
stuff. He showed me how to sew blue grosgrain ribbons on the corners for
the ties.
You cannot imagine how
delighted I was. My sewing career was off and running! It was 1968,
and I was 7.
Here’s Victoria wearing that same red scarf, a
good 35 years later:
Early this afternoon, I had a chat with Levi,
who’s 12. He wrote, “Hi,” to which I
promptly responded, “Hi, yourself!”
“Are your ears still
ringing?” he asked. “From the horns?”
“Haha,” I answered. “That music was right down my alley. Or ‘right up my street’, as they say in
Ireland.”
He’s so funny. In speaking of a spirited repeat the
instruments did at the end of their repertoire, he called it an ‘outro’. Do you know any 12-year-olds who speak
of ‘outros’ as casually as they speak of, oh, say, toast for breakfast? Do you yourself know the definition of
‘outro’?? Here it is: “In music, the conclusion is the ending of a
composition and may take the form of a coda or outro.”
So now you know, if you
didn’t already.
Levi told me that his ears
are ringing. “My left is ringing, in
particular. Aaron is on my left side,
and French horns point to the right.”
“Yikes!” I said. “And I suppose it would be somewhat
counterproductive to wear earplugs...”
“We observe our
fortissimos!” he remarked.
“And crescendos!” I
added.
Then I sent him this
picture, saying, “I like music that hits you like this:”
“What about that music do
you like?” Levi inquired. “The cleaning
up of lightbulbs afterward?” hee hee
He told me that there are
42 horn players now.
“We’ll have to place y’all
out in the parking lot and just open the church windows, if this keeps up!” I
responded. “And those upper windows will
have to be opened Charles H. Spurgeon-style.”
Then, “Do you know the story?” I asked him.
He did not, so I told it:
Spurgeon wanted more air
flow in his sanctuary there at the London Metropolitan Tabernacle, where he
preached from the mid to late 1800s. The
deacons said no, as the high windows, which could be reached only from the
loft, were permanently shut somehow, and wouldn’t open.
{“🔨?” inquired Levi.}
I continued the story, by
way of answer:
One warm summer Sunday,
people arrived to find a lovely breeze blowing through the Tabernacle.
The windows waaaay up
there were broken!! They were wide open.
Charles Spurgeon said he
admitted to nothing, but he hoped nobody compared the paint on the windowsills to
the paint flecks on the end of his cane.
Afterwards, the windows
were repaired – and put in so that they could be opened and closed from the
floor.
Levi ended the
conversation by informing me, “I believe I ate too much yesterday.” And he proceeded to send a goofy double-exposure
of himself that he had processed in some ‘clown-mirror’ photo editor.
I retorted, “As my Aunt
Geraldine would’ve said, ‘Oh, merciful days in heaven!’ And me, I say, ‘Good grief!’” Then, “Well, I’m off to refill the bird
feeders! Byeeee.... I love you, and your
music, and ever’thang!”
I hope you believe me
when I say that Levi, uh... does not look like that.
It’s 75° this afternoon, and the next three
days will be even warmer: 85° Tuesday,
87° Wednesday, and 88° Thursday. Seems
like it’s about time for me to start working on my flower gardens (though it can
and does still frost here, up until Mother's Day or thereabouts). We have been issued a Red Flag Fire Weather
Warning – meaning critical fire weather conditions are occurring.
Yesterday a wildfire jumped the Missouri
River from Iowa to Nebraska! I’ve never
heard of such a thing happening around these parts before. This morning the fire was 0% contained. This afternoon it is 70% - 90% contained.
I’ve filled all the bird feeders, ordered
more bird seed and other groceries (groceries for us, that is, not the
birds), and ordered birthday gifts for Keira, who will be 5 on April 16th.
An order of Bai Nariño Peach tea just
arrived from Amazon. Mmmm... it’s good
stuff.
The birds are singing away. I hear English sparrows, cardinals, red-winged
blackbirds, goldfinches, and house finches at the moment, though a glance out
the window shows me considerably more species than that.
I miss my quilting friend, Mary, who
passed away last month. I miss her
saying she is ‘cutting out quilt kits for next winter, when I won’t be able to
get out’; although she always managed to ‘get out’ after all, whether there was
bad weather or not, and I held my breath for her until I knew she was safely
back home again. I think of her saying
she needed to ‘sew up a bunch of quilts’ – i.e., ‘quilt them’; and I’m sorry
she never got the quilting machine she wished she could have.
I laugh when I remember how resistant she
was in switching from our Yahoo Quilt-Talk group to our MeWe group, saying she
just couldn’t ‘full with (fool with) websites that turned you into a piece of
toast’ (her automatically-generated icon), haha. Dear Mary. Several of us worked hard to convince her MeWe
wouldn’t be difficult, she would enjoy it, and we would miss her awfully if she
didn’t make the move. I was glad when
her son helped her get signed in, and soon she was enjoying our group again in
spite of herself.
I recall her telling us about a bad cart
she got at the store – she always called them ‘buggies’, just like any good
Newfoundlander would do – only she accidentally spelt it ‘bunny’, and then
later noticed and laughed at herself, saying, “It jumped around enough it might
as well have been a bunny.” She cleaned
her house so well and so often, despite only having one leg, I felt like I was
living in a pigsty by comparison. Sometimes
she wrote that she cleaned ‘threw out the house’, which always brought me up
short: she threw out the house?!
I enjoyed her so!
We were discussing dogs on our Quilt-Talk
group this afternoon. (It’s called
Quilt-Talk for a reason, you see!)
Specifically, Shi-hoo-uh-hoo-uhs (using American phonix to say that 😄).
When Larry was a little boy, he was at
his aunt and uncle’s house – and they had Chihuahuas. They were usually fine with Larry and his
siblings and cousins. This particular
day, Larry offered one of them a carrot.
The dog sniffed the carrot – and then,
entirely without warning, it flew up and bit his nose good and proper! Made it bleed quite badly, but Larry says, “That
wasn’t the worst part. The worst part
was that little demon dog’s breath!!!”
haha
I hear a robin singing its evening song. And now there’s a starling out on the lilac
bush, warbling away. Sometimes it
imitates the cardinals we can hear in nearby trees. Sometimes it sounds like a squeaky door. Sometimes it makes low-pitched gurgles like
the blue jays do. In between these
sonatas, it flies off to find more bits and pieces for the nest it must be making
in the dormer eave, where one – probably the same one – has built nests for
several years in a row. After successfully
placing each twig or leaf or piece of fluff, it alights back on that uppermost
lilac branch, and gives a triumphant little soliloquy.
I then told the Quilt Talk group a Pekingese story:
Several friends of ours had Pekingese, years ago. The dogs were all related – possibly from the
same litter – and they were all equally bad-tempered. (Our friends were related, too, and equally
bad at training dogs. And kids, but we
won’t talk about that right now. 😉) Anyway, I was four years old, but every time
we went to any of those people’s homes, I begged my mother to pick me up,
because those dogs were indeed ankle-biters, and they’d draw blood!
I finally got old enough to take care of the problem myself.
Larry and I were 17 and dating, and we were invited to one
of those people’s houses. Their Pekingese,
an offspring of their first one, liked to camp out under the couch, sneak
forward, and chomp down on the tendons on the backs of people legs.
I, knowing this, chose to sit on ---- the couch, of course!
I positioned my ankles just far enough beyond the bottom
edge of the couch and sat just far enough forward that I would have a clear
view of that ugly rumpled face emerging from under said couch, teeth extended
for a bite of my innocent, hapless ankle.
I knew what I was planning to do – and I didn’t care if
these people were supposed to be our friends. I didn’t let my dog gnaw on
the ankles of my friends, now did I?!!
I didn’t have long to wait.
Out came Rumpelstiltskin, moving fast, angling for my left
ankle.
I was faster.
I stomped on his head with my right foot, while
simultaneously yelling, “Bad dog!”
No, I didn’t stomp hard enough to maim the mutt, though,
believe me, I wouldn’t have been too awfully remorseful if I had’ve.
He yiped and yipped and yelped (more out of surprise than
injury) and scooted himself back under the couch, posthaste.
His owners simultaneously yiped, too, and jumped out of
their skins while they were at it.
Never once again did that nasty critter ever try
to bite me, and he seriously curtailed his biting of other friends
of mine – especially if I was with them.
(Even his owners were cautious around me, thereafter.)
Years later, one of my children asked me why Pekingese have
rumpled faces. I, having not recovered
from my BATP (Bad Attitude Toward Pekingese), explained, “It’s because they
went around biting people, and people didn’t like it, and ran their faces into
walls. Eventually, the pups were just
born that way already, so people didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
That child of mine gave it a moment of consideration before
saying somewhat reproachfully, “Mama.” 🤣
Now, I hasten to assure you that I do absolutely realize
that even a breed known for nastiness can produce a sweet one time and again –
IF it is raised by loving owners who take the time to teach and train it. Those who will not do that should not
have any breed of dog (or any other animal, for that matter).
{And if you don’t care for 17-year-old me, you won’t much
care for 62-year-old me, either; ’cuz, I’m a-warnin’ you, I’d do the same thing
today, were my ankles in danger from Chingpoo or his ilk.} {Yep, that was his name. My friends and I adjusted his name periodically
to suit our various and varied fancies.}
And now it is
bedtime. Tomorrow I shall quilt... something. Or at least start putting together a quilt top.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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