Monday, the 13th, was Teddy’s 18th birthday. Joseph didn’t have to work, so I sent him to get Teddy’s Thomas Kinkade puzzle I’d had framed; it was to be Teddy’s present from us. Joseph, and Caleb, too, were gone a good long time, then came home ‑‑without the picture. He hadn’t found the frame shop (although he did find McDonald’s). I looked it up in the phone book, called to be sure they were still at the same address, and sent him back--right to the spot I’d told him to go. Victoria went with him, that time. He found it, just one block from McDonald’s.
Dorcas bought a little wall shelf, then painted a lighthouse, complete with rocks and waves, on the shelf’s curved back. We also gave Teddy a little sailboat with a double sail, resting on a ‘wave’, a large ‘rock’ ahead of it--and the entire thing is made of seashells. Behind the boat is a small wooden ‘light-house’, and in the middle of the lighthouse is a thermometer. It is exactly the right size to go on the shelf Dorcas painted. I put a handful of my favorite seashells on the shelf, too--seashells I got at the Pacific Ocean when I was ten years old.
That evening, Teddy went off to the hospital to see Mama (she specifically asked for him to come, because she had a gift for him), and then he went to Amy’s house for supper. I went to visit Mama shortly after he did, and she told me the story she’d told Teddy:
When she was a very small girl, her father, my Grandpa Winings, gave her a little bag of pumpkin seeds to plant. He wanted them planted between the rows of corn, three or four seeds to a hill. Now, the corn was planted so that no matter whether one looked at it from north to south, or from east to west, there were perfectly straight rows. Grandpa was well known for that. Well, Mama went along planting seeds nicely for a while, but directly she tired of that and began putting bigger and bigger handfuls of seeds into the hills.
Of course, seed planting is one case where the following Bible verse invariably comes true: ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’
And it did.
Lucky for Mama, her father must have seen the humor in it, and, after informing my mother that he had discovered exactly what she had done and how, he let the matter drop. She was mortified, and never pulled a shenanigan like that again. As she put it, “Those were the first and last wild oats I ever sowed!”
She’s gained a pound--she now weighs 69 pounds. At her lowest, she only weighed 64.
Amy gave Teddy a remote-controlled Ford Explorer whose motor starts...it drives along and stops when it bumps into something. If someone picks it up, its alarm goes off. She also gave him a big Hershey’s Kiss man who juggles Hershey’s Kisses.
We went to the Loup Canal right by Loup Park and the Walk Bridge to go fishing that night. The fish at Loup Canal ate a couple of our minnows, and that was all. Larry, at the water’s edge, right where the water flows the fastest and has the fiercest undertow, had his flashlight and other paraphernalia resting on a concrete barrier. He turned around to get another minnow--and the handle of his fishing pole knocked the flashlight off the barrier and into the water. That’s when he discovered: his Coleman flashlight floats! He used his fishing pole to snag it and hoist it back out of the water.
Sooo...guess that means we did catch something.
Several of the children fished from the Walk Bridge, where there is an area built onto it especially for that purpose. It was pitch black out there, and we were glad we had the lantern. I took a few pictures, both with my Minolta and with the camcorder. I used the light on the camcorder, which brought a gazillion bugs flying around my face, whapping into my cheeks and nose, while I was trying to take pictures.
Lydia, Caleb, Victoria, and I walked...and walked...and walked...and walked...to the restrooms (outhouses, that is) at Loup Park. It was a looong way. They are up on a hill, and there is a big step to get up into them. Caleb, on his way out, forgot about that step. He opened the door--and tumbled right out, landing with his shin on a large rock and putting quite a shiner on the poor leg.
On our way back to the canal, a bright flashlight suddenly popped out from behind some bushes. But I wasn’t startled; I’d been halfway expecting Joseph to pull something like that. Caleb collected all sorts of treasures that he gave to me: a black-eyed Susan, a maple leaf, a small pink rock... A lightning bug rode home with us, keeping the littles entertained all the way as he traveled about on the ceiling, the sun visors, the backs of the seats, the windows, the steering wheel, and even the back of Larry’s head, the latter eliciting giggles from Caleb, and admonishings from Victoria for Larry not to smish the poor thing. (He didn’t.)
Joseph smashed his toe--the one with the ingrown toenail--with a sledge hammer. He limped around the rest of the day; but by the next morning, the poor toe was better.
We had some rain the first part of the week, which was welcomed by all around the area--but for Larry, work was already slow enough. Larry has been building new cradles for some new forms David bought. I didn’t realize that Larry, with the help of a friend, built the first cradles David had, some twelve years ago. He’s been coming home looking like he used to look when he worked at his shop: bright red face, arms, and chest from welding (it burns right through shirts), and paint on his hands.
The last part of the week, the days were extra nice--74-78° or so. The kids played outside, of course. They are counting the days till school starts again, all in a paradox over whether or not they are glad or sad about it. Actually, I think they do look forward to it. And, as I do every year, I am feeling ever so thankful for our wonderful church school, and all of our hard-working teachers, who are all close friends of mine. The teachers have been sending out lists of school supplies, and the children have been amassing their things, and determining what they will need to buy.
Victoria is getting more adept at riding her bike. One day she was going altogether too fast (normal, for her), misgauged, missed a turn, and wound up bouncing off a curb. Managing only just barely to stay upright, she turned around and pedaled up to the porch, where I was standing.
“Did you see me?” she panted, beaming at me in exhilaration. “Now I know how to ride right off curbs!”
Wednesday afternoon, Caleb and I went to see Mama. She was still in the dining room; but she was done eating. The nurse came to wheel her back to her room; we stood by waiting...and as the nurse passed us with Mama, there by the nurse’s station, Mama smiled at us and said, “I’ll lead the way!” which made all the nurses laugh.
About the time I was beginning to think that perhaps I might possibly be able to find the bottom of the pile of clothes I was sorting, Teddy put a humungous heap of shirts atop the mound, too. A good many of them were white shirts--nice ones--that he said were stained and should be thrown in the garbage. I sprayed Spray ’N Wash on them, bleached them, and would you ever believe, they are spotless white shirts again, shirts Joseph will be able to wear.
There is a difference between stained shirts and simple dirty shirts, Teddy. Wash your shirts once in a while, instead of hanging them back up in your closet, and they won’t get so ‘stained’!
Well, I mustn’t blame it all on Teddy; some of them were Keith’s...so they’ve been in that closet for over two years! Yikes.
Wednesday evening, I had to go home from church early with Caleb, because he had an asthma attack. He started coughing; Larry sent him out for a drink; he came back and went on coughing. So I took him home, gave him his inhaler and albuterol syrup, and he laid down for a while.
My dryer has been making a grating noise and not turning freely for the last couple of weeks, so I called Sears. They promised to have the repairman call at 9:00 sharp Thursday morning. He called at 7:30 a.m. I was sound asleep, and the first ring blended in nicely with a dream I was having, involving conflagrations of colossal magnitude, complete with fire trucks of every shape and size. The plot was thickening (along with the smoke); the drama was mounting (along with the flames); --and then the phone rang again. I abruptly awoke.
Nasty ol’ phone! Now I will never learn the rest of the story! For all I know, the skyrise burnt to the ground, and the fire trucks all caught fire, too. Bother.
By the time I got to the phone, Sears’ repairman was leaving a message and his cell phone number, which got me nowhere, since the recalcitrant fellow refused to answer it. All morning, we scurried around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to clean the house before he got here. It was 1:30 when he arrived, and I’d just put a load of clothes into the dryer. I threw them into the clothes basket, got detergent and bleach out of his way, and went back to sorting clothes.
It turns out the drum and various other pieces on my dryer are badly damaged--from sand.
Teddy! Where is he??! How ’bout let’s pour sand into his bed, his sock drawer, his boots, and his pickup seats, shall we?
He’s probably the biggest culprit. I know he brought home half the sand pit bottom one time when he went swimming. But Larry and Joseph have brought in their fair share, too, I suppose. They all hide it in the pockets and hems, and I, an innocent, unsuspecting person, throw the jeans into the washing machine without thinking to use a commercial-strength vacuum on them first. And no self-respecting housewife would stick her hand into those pockets.
We now have a new rule, effective right this very minute, around this joint: jeans with sand on them get washed outside with the hose, no matter whether or not the owner is inside them, and no matter whether or not the temperature is above freezing. If they refuse to do so, I shall wash that person myself, no matter whether or not he is actually wearing said sandy jeans.
I thought Maytag was supposed to be tougher than Kenmore???!!!
The man ordered the new parts, and will put them in next Thursday. In the meantime, it is okay that I go on using the dryer, thank goodness.
Some people at the end of the block have been preparing to move a house. The truck is here, the house has been moved onto it, and tomorrow morning the house will head off to its new location. The littles think this is all High Excitement; they have never before seen a house pick up stakes and trot off down the street.
I put my pictures into albums and took them to show Mama.
Larry didn’t come home until after 8:00 p.m., because after work he’d gone fishing with Keith at Kluever Lake. He caught several big fish. Sooo...that means...it must be the rest of the family causing the ongoing jinx at the fishing holes, and not Larry, himself!
He got his board for scaling fish...found my fillet knife in the drawer (a major feat in itself)--and Victoria, having an entertaining time watching Socks watch the live fish in the big bucket, gasped, “Oh, what’s he going to do?!!”
“He’s going to peel them, so we can eat them,” I told her. “Fish don’t taste good with the husks still on them.”
She stared at me for a minute, then wrinkled her nose. “That’s not right,” she decided, “We don’t talk about fish like we talk about bananas and corncobs!”
Larry took his turn at answering her. “I’m going to tip and tail them.”
Victoria was skeptical. “I think that sounds like green beans,” she said.
Joseph burst out laughing. “He’s going to scale them, or clean them.”
“Oh,” responded Victoria, evidently feeling as though she had finally gotten a proper spin on things.
But just look in Webster’s New World Dictionary: one of the synonyms for ‘scale’ is ‘peel’. So there!
When Larry finally finished cleaning the fish (he got waylaid by the recliner a couple of times), it didn’t look like nearly so much fish as I was hoping there would be. But when I broiled them for supper the next day, there was enough for all of us, and, having marinated in salt water in the refrigerator all night, they were scrumptious. That is, if you like fish they were scrumptious.
The children at the daycare where Dorcas works love to look at the pictures she carries in her wallet, particularly the ones of baby Aaron, especially since Hannah brought him in one day to show him to everyone.
“Where’s the baby?” asked two-year-old Samantha one day, looking up at Dorcas expectantly.
“He’s at his house,” answered Dorcas a bit absent-mindedly.
“No!” exclaimed Samantha, and pointed with vigor at Dorcas’ purse. “In there!”
“Oh!” said Dorcas, laughing, and got out her pictures.
Friday, Caleb, Victoria, and I walked to my blind friend Penny’s house just down the street. She was just back from visiting her family in Chicago, and she’d brought with her three small round tables that used to be in her childhood home, and had for a long time been in her brother’s basement. He, remembering her fondness for them, had given the tables to her. They each have three laminated wooden legs, and the tops are flat red, and they stack. Penny was wondering exactly what she would do with these little tables, and where she would put them, because, as they were, they didn’t match her living room, which now sports a new burgundy sofa and chair set.
Some of the laminated wood had peeled off the legs, and I offered to spray them with the stuff I used on Hester and Lydia’s drawers, which happened to be the right color. Then I suggested that the tops be covered with contact paper to coordinate with her living room--and soon I was carrying two of them home with me while Caleb carried the third, and Victoria tried to carry her head in a place safe from the legs of the table Caleb was toting.
Hester helped me take their under-the-bed drawer frame out onto the back driveway, and I took the tables. I cleaned the frame, then sprayed both frame and tables with that spray that soaks into the wood, stains it, and topcoats it, all at once.
Caleb, Victoria, and I then went to Wal-Mart and got some pretty contact paper, ivory with mauve flowers. After the little tables dried, I brought them back into the house, cut the contact paper, and put it on. Well, rather, I laid the contact paper upside down on the floor, and then turned the tables upside down onto the paper so that the paper stuck to the tables. Somehow or another, I also stuck handfuls of dried bread crumbs to the paper, too. Or at least that was what it looked like. Aarrgghh!
After pulling up the contact paper, plucking off the crumbs or dirt or lint or whatever it was, and smoothing out the bubbles, I embarked on the job of tucking it under, which is an entirely tedious task when done around a circular configuration. Instead of making regular, smooth, little pleats all the way around, I wadded and rumpled and lumped and clumped and gobbed the hapless stuff with all my might and main. The paper proceeded to pop up fast and furious behind me as I went along. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I called Penny and asked if she had such a thing as super glue about her...she had, but it refused to show its face; so I went to AceIsThePlace and bought some Duco The Most Popular Multi-Purpose Household Glue Great On China Glass Plastic Wood Metal & Crafts Spread Thin Clamp Until Set Let Dry Good Also On Phenolic Plastics Danger Extremely Flammable Vapors Harmful Avoid Breathing Keep Cap On Tight Cement.
Now, that’s good cement.
But...avoid breathing! How would I ever get the contact paper glued to the edges of all three tables without breathing?! And...keep cap on tight! How would I ever get the cement out of the tube without taking off the cap?!
I went home, got the tables in position, took Duco out of his package, and set my breathing rate to ‘Pause’. Then, totally disregarding the instructions, I opened the lid and glued like mad.
And I’m still here to tell about it. Silly Devcon Consumer Products people. Some of them are based in Riviera Beach, Florida; and some are in Davers, Massachusetts. Which group do you suppose wrote the instructions? Probably the ones from Riviera Beach, what do you think? People who live near shark- and alligator-infested waters are prone to becoming a wee bit paranoid, aye?
In the meanwhile, Bobby and Hannah and baby Aaron had come visiting, bringing with them a video made of old movie reels of Mr. Wright’s (Bobby’s late grandfather). Among the various movies were our very own wedding, along with Kenny and Annette’s (Larry’s brother and his wife), and several other friends who were married near that time. There was Bobby at one of his early birthdays, and there was my parents’ Golden Anniversary. I enjoy looking at old family videos.
That afternoon we heard on the scanner that a child had been bitten by a dog. When I went to the hospital to see Mama, lo and behold, there was the child. His father was holding him, and his cheek was all red and scraped and swollen, and the parents were indeed indignant.
The child, a cute blond-haired boy who looked to be about three years old, announced to the public at large, “Bad dog!”
Fortunately, he will soon be fine; he will not have any scars.
So often, people get themselves a cute puppy and haven’t the faintest clue how to train it--or that they even should train it--to be a good pet. Worse, some people have children, and haven’t the faintest clue how to teach them--or that they even should teach them--how to behave, and how to treat animals with gentleness and kindness. Makes for a nasty combination, doesn’t it?
Saturday afternoon we went to Maskenthine Lake--all of us but Teddy, who goes to choir practice each Saturday at 6:30. At a convenience store in town, whom should we see but a certain stuffed shirt with whom we had the misfortune of being acquainted. He was ever so friendly. Of course he was; he’s riding high (or perhaps he was merely walking tall, on account of his high-heeled cowboy boots) because he’s just pulled off a coup de maitre (or at least he counts it as such). And that is: he’s bought himself an ‘acreage’, as he calls it.
He’s wanted an Out-West ranch for years, and he has never minded whom he stepped on to get what he wanted. He had on his trademark cowboy hat--as much to cover his balding head as to make him a cowboy (which may not be possible, in any event).
His ‘acreage’ consists of forty acres. Since an average ranch Out West covers about 10,000 acres, Mr. Shirt R. Stuffed has hisself a nice little 2/50 of a ranch. Why, I reckon he’ll be able to keep about 1.8 head of cattle on that there spread, depending on the height of the prairie grasses, the number of prairie dogs sharing the land with him, and whether or not wolves have been reintroduced thereabouts. Four-fifths of a cow is somewhat of an oddity, but perhaps he could advertise and sell tickets for the viewing of such a creature.
Let’s see, ranches need names, do they not? I think he should allow public input as to the christening of this here grange. “Four Percent.” Or maybe, “El Dude Olé!” (Sort of like a potato olé, only dudier.) Wheeee! This is fun!
Ah, well...truth to tell, I don’t begrudge Señor Stuffed Shirt his ‘acreage’. (But I would like to help him name his ranch.)
We ordered a pizza and bought a bottle of juice for everyone, then went to the city park till the pizza was done. Dorcas took some videos of the kids cavorting about on the toys while Larry and I played Frisbee. Caleb tried jumping down a set of steps above a curving slide, tripped on the last step, landed on his stomach, and went headfirst down the slide after a loud, surprised exclamation. It did hurt his side a little; but it looked so funny, and hearing him describe it was even funnier. Furthermore, he didn’t do it just once; he did it twice!
Soon we went back to pick up the pizza, which we took to Maskenthine Lake. It is full of campers. Uh, that is, the campground is full of campers; the lake itself is full of water. The pizza didn’t arrive whole at Maskenthine, however; quite a few pieces got eaten on the way. I would like to know: when one uses one’s napkins as saucers for a very gooey piece of pizza, what does one do, then, when one needs a napkin on which to wipe one’s gooey hands? To judge by looking at Caleb, one wipes them down the front of one’s shirt.
When the pizza was all down the respective hatches (an exercise that took very little time at all), we went fishing. (Well; I went shooting. Shooting pictures, that is.) Larry caught a bluegill, and Hester caught a bass; but they were too small to keep.
Friday night a white Suburban belonging to Teddy’s boss was stolen. It was found Saturday night by the trestle over the Loup River, parked amongst poison ivy and poison oak. It was not damaged--until the police, wanting to check the VIN but not wanting to get in the poison vegetation, jumped up and walked right across the hood!!! So the hood has deep dents in it and will have to be replaced.
Brains, ossifers. Brains.
Wonder how many white Suburbans had been stolen that day around these parts, so that getting that VIN number right that exact moment was of such vital necessity?
Larry cut Teddy’s hair after we got home. Joseph needed it, too; but he was snoring in bed by the time Larry finished with Teddy. So this morning we issued him a dog tag and took him to church.
Work is starting to pick up again; Larry got more hours in this week.
My whole summer--spent cleaning the basement. Bah. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind cleaning; it’s just that I have other plans, too!! I want to learn how to write when I grow up. Maybe even take pictures. And then I will march into some magazine editor’s office, slap down an article and pictures, and say, “Hi! You need me, and I’m finally done cleaning the basement and therefore available.”
The little town of Jackson, Nebraska, population 250, located about fifteen miles southeast of Ponca State Park, where we camped last Friday night, was nearly wiped off the face of the earth by a tornado Friday afternoon.
After church this morning, we were eating dinner...Socks was playing with something in the corner...all of a sudden, Hester hopped up and looked hard at the corner to see what that cat was having so much fun with.
“Oh, brother,” she said, rolling her eyes.
She reached down, picked up a garter snake, and carried it outside. The cat must have brought the snake in early this morning, because he’s been inside the house ever since. I suppose he thought he needed a toy while we were all gone to church?
Aaauuuggghhh. How do you teach a cat to leave the wildlife outside???
Today the town is dedicating a memorial to a local man, Andrew Jackson Higgins, now deceased, who designed a landing craft that was widely used in World War II. A replica has been built at Pawnee Park, and during ceremonies and parades this afternoon, there was a flyby of several types of vintage aircraft. Some big planes flew into the airport this morning as we were getting ready to go to church, passing directly over our house on their way. We watched them take off from the airport a while ago, and then we drove to Pawnee Park to watch the fly-by. One little plane executed a few barrel rolls, and they all circled over Columbus for a while before heading back to airport. We drove back to the airport and watched them land.
Victoria wants to know if they will give little kids rides, if the little kid promises to sit real still and not bother the man who’s ‘driving’. Caleb thinks they would, but you might have to pay them a dollar. Maybe even two.
, in the very northeast corner of the state.