I spent two hard days writing Dusty Old Things and in my rush to get it done and published there may be one or two errors in the story - but I know y’all don’t hold those against me and often times never even notice them.
For instance…
The only difference between wander and wonder is a single vowel. When we read, we don’t read the individual letters so even though I intended the word to be wander, I wrote wonder and of course, when I proofread it, I read it the way I intended to write it.
Funny the difference a vowel can make.
Besides a few spelling errors, which I can usually spot the next day with fresh eyes, I sometimes see things I would have written a little different if I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get it out, but those are little things and don’t matter all that much.
But — and there’s always a but — in my rush to wrap things up on Thursday night, I wrote this: With a Kozee jar the lid doubles as a serving dish. The one I was showing her was priced at ten dollars, but I only paid between one and three dollars for all of mine.
Now, you can read that to mean that I only paid three dollars for all the Kozee jars I own, which is somewhere between three and fifty —
Yeah.
I don’t know how many I own.
— When in reality I meant it to read that I had paid between one and three dollars for each of my Kozee jars.
Funny the difference a word can make.
Oh. And Mike had the internet card at the time I was finishing up the story and even though I made a mental note to check the spelling of Kozee, I forgot.
Kozee, is how I would pronounce it but it is spelled Koeze.
Also, did you notice that in my story, when I was talking about Mike’s well bucket, that even though I hadn’t taken a picture of it until later, I placed it in the story where I was writing about it. Then, when I was talking about a potato masher like my mother used to have, I made you wait until the very end to see a picture of it? Did you notice that?
My beautiful cousin Lorraine did.
Peggy,
I was reading your letter and the part about looking for a potato masher [piqued] my interest. I was wondering what it would look like and what was so special about it. The first one you showed was different and I had never seen one like it. When I got to the pic of the “one” you had been searching for, I had to laugh. It just so happens that I have one in my kitchen drawer. I don’t know how long I’ve had it but it’s the only potato masher that I have. It was my mother’s and I don’t know how long she had it. It’s possible she got it at a yard sale or the antique store in town. I have a feeling it reminded her of a potato masher she had used when she was growing up and maybe even one that her mother used. Isn’t that an interesting coincidence!
Lorraine, I’m guessing our mother’s mother used a masher like this one too! And for all of you who have never used a masher like this…call Kevin. Our son is the designated mashed-potato-bringer for all family functions and has used all kinds of potato mashers through the years and he will tell you how much better this design is than any other masher he’s ever used.
You guys may or may not know this, but for Connor, my youngest reader, I sometimes like to explain a word he may not have seen before.
Conner, do you see that word in brackets in the note my cousin sent to me? Piqued? You may have guessed what it means by the way it’s used; it means to cause a feeling of interest, curiosity, or excitement in somebody. Well, that’s one of it’s meanings and it’s what the word means here.
Can you guess how it’s pronounced? I still sometimes want to pronounce it piked because of the q in there but it’s pronounced peaked.
Isn’t that a fabulous word!
After two hard days of writing, I had other things to do! I didn’t even make my bed - and I always make my bed! But as soon as I was up in the morning, had the dogs walked, got breakfast out of the way — it doesn’t take long to pour a bowl of cereal — fed the cats and made a cup o’joe, I settled in front of my computer and didn’t budge again until I ran out of coffee, or had to pee—whichever came first.
I had a self-imposed deadline to finish the story by Thursday night. I had to get caught up on my other chores on Friday and I needed to visit my old people, Miss Helen and Mr. B.
“Peg, that isn’t nice to call them old people,” you admonish.
Yeah? Well guess what?
They are both in their nineties, which is old in anyone’s book - including their own! — and they both know that I say it with love.
Saturday morning (the 12th) was our St. Patrick’s Day Parade and a pancake flip -a fund raiser- for the Lion’s Club. That means that Mike and I got to spend time with Andrew while his mom and dad worked the pancake flip. And not only did we watch Andrew, the five of us had breakfast at the Lion’s Club too!
“Five?” you wonder.
That’s right. Mike, me, Andrew, Cork and Pam. That’s five.
As the Lion’s Club came into view, Andrew pointed and exclaimed, “That’s my daddy’s Lion’s Club!” He tickles me.
Breakfast was good. They had pancakes, ham, sausage, biscuits and gravy, coffee, juice and milk. Afterward, Cork and Pam struck out on their own to do some shopping while Mike and I brought Andrew back here, to our grouse. We would keep him until it was time for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, then Kandyce would come and get Andrew so he could ride in the parade with them.
That was the plan.
Mike was busy so Andrew and I hung out together. The first thing he wanted to do was go in the RV.
We went in the RV.
Then Andrew wanted to play with my Nook. “Mimi turn light on for me, please?” Andrew asked.
“You know how to turn it on,” I told him.
He stood there looking at me, arms crossed across his little body. He looked to the back of the RV and although he did know how to turn on the light in the bedroom - it was dark between here and there!
“Mimi go with me?”
“Okay, I’ll go with you,” and together we went to the back of the RV, Andrew felt the wall for the switch and smiled so big when he flipped the light on! Then Molly came shooting out of the bedroom and Andrew saw her.
“MY MOLLY!” he exclaimed.
“Yes it was your Molly,” I confirmed.
Andrew went around the bed and climbed the dog ramp, holding onto the window frame for support, and got up onto the bed. I think climbing the ramp is half the appeal of getting my Nook from my bedside stand. Getting down from the bed is easier than getting up on it. You clutch the Nook to your chest with one hand, sit on the ramp and slide down on your bottom. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!
I turned the light off and we went back to the front. Andrew was going to climb into the drivers seat when he spots Molly. “MY MOLLY!”
“Is your Molly under there?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said and went to where the flashlights hang on the wall, reached one down, turned it on, and spotlighted Molly for me. “See!”
“I see her,” I told him and snapped a picture.
Andrew turned the flashlight off and put it back. He’s such a good little boy. Then he flipped through the three home screens on my Nook looking for the one I set up for him.
“Andrew, I got you a new game. Let me show you.” Reluctantly Andrew let me show him. Tally Tots and Pudding Monsters are his favorite games and that’s what he wanted to play. I opened Zuzu’s Bananas and he breezed through the first screen.
It amazes me that he can look at a game he has never seen before and figure out how to play it. This game teaches things like swiping and tapping and matching and every time you figure out a screen, you get a banana.
“You got a banana!” I exclaimed making a big deal about it as a banana and stars appeared on the screen and music played, then the banana shrank and filled a spot at the bottom of the screen.
Andrew cleared another screen, “I got another banana!” he exclaimed.
“Yes you did! I’m so proud of you!” I gushed.
And on he played. After he collected five bananas he got a banana dance, and I made a big deal about that too. “Banana dance!” And I chair danced to the music. Andrew watched the bananas dance across the screen then a new game started. He sat and happily played, declaring, “I got a banana!” after each win, and “Banana dance!” when he got one of those. Then after half an hour he had enough. He turned off the Nook and set it aside.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“You wanna go outside and find Pop-pop?”
“Yes,” he answered and headed for his shoes and sweater. We dressed and went out and found Pop-pop talking with the face painting guy who was setting up in our parking lot for the parade.
“You want to get your face painted?” Greg, the face painter, asked.
“No,” Andrew stated flatly. He didn’t even have to think about it. We stood and watched but Andrew wasn’t going to have anything to do with it, then we wandered away to play on the bleachers. Running back and forth to the sound of his footfalls on aluminum and jumping off the end is one of his favorite games.
Then Andrew got up on the stage and I got this shot of him peeking around the post at me. I love this photo of him!
The weather was cool and we had sprinkles, but currently it wasn’t doing anything. Nonetheless Andrew and I grew chilly and went back inside.
Andrew took off his sweater and shoes and headed for his toy box. He had a couple of animals up on the table and was playing when Pam came in.
“Hello!” she called as she came in.
“Look Andrew,” I said. “It’s Aunt Pam!”
Andrew, up until this point, hadn’t wanted much to do with Pam, which is normal. He had only met her a few hours before. Pam didn’t push too hard, she took her time. “Hi Andrew,” she said in a pleasant sing-songy voice. Then she dug around in his toy box and started handing him his little animals and Andrew lined them all up on the table.
Then, as Pam and I chatted, Andrew started to pull the pigs out of lineup, then he picked up a cow and started to rearrange all of his little animals. He tickled me when he picked up a little sheep and said, “Aw, baby sheep,” gently put it in his cupped hand, and stroked its plastic fur.
“Awww,” you say?
Well, that might be a little premature. When Andrew had all of his animals the way he wanted them, he started flicking them with his thumb and index finger until they were all knocked over and scattered all over the table.
“Here, let me sit with you Andrew,” Pam said and she lifted him up and scooted into the seat. “You can sit on my lap.”
I was surprised that Andrew allowed it it but he sat there for a little bit, playing, then climbed down looking for more toys. He found his blocks and stacked a few.
“There’s one,” Pam said, picked it out of the box and handed it to Andrew. He stuck it on top. She picked up more blocks and Andrew stacked them with one hand while holding on to the ever growing tower with the other.
The tower toppled and we all said, “Aww.”
Andrew started stacking them again but was having trouble.
“Why don’t you let me hold it while you put the blocks on,” Pam suggested and reached for the tower. Andrew let her take it as he picked up and stacked more blocks on top. Finally, on tip toes, he crowned his tower with the very last block.
“Now you take it,” Pam told him letting go and sitting back in her chair.
Andrew took the tower they had built together and glowed with happiness, and in his glee and inattention,
...the tower toppled. Pam and Andrew must have built the tower at least four times, then Pam had to go.
“Let’s pick up some toys,” I said to Andrew after Pam was gone and he willingly started picking up toys. When we had them mostly done, Andrew spots his ball and picks it up. “You want to play ball?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
I pushed the toy box out of the way and Andrew moved a few feet away and tossed the ball to me. We played ball the normal way for a while then Andrew added a twist.
“Hit me,” he said handing me the ball.
“You want me to hit you with the ball?” I questioned as I took it.
“Yes,” he said and took up his station a few feet away and with his back to me, waited expectantly and patiently for me to throw the ball at him.
I was having a little trouble digesting this. I didn’t understand this game but honestly, I didn’t think it would hurt anything. I gently tossed the ball and it lightly hit him in the middle of his back.
“OW!” he cried and clutched at his back.
I immediately felt regret.
Then Andrew turned and looked over his shoulder at me with the most impish grin on his little face.
“Again,” he said chasing down the ball, throwing it to me and going back to stand and wait.
I was throwing so softly that I missed sometimes. It tickled me when Andrew got the ball and took it back to his station with him, turned his back to me and tossed the ball over his shoulder.
“Wow!” I exclaimed. “Over the shoulder! Way to go Andrew!” I cheered. And from then on that is how Andrew got the ball back to me.
Around noon Kandyce and Chi-chi came to collect Andrew to get ready for the parade.
The sprinkles came and went all morning and it was drizzling pretty good by the time the parade started. Mike went and got our stadium umbrella and three of us stood under it — Mike, me and Cork — watching the parade.
Pam had joined us in time to watch the Lion’s Club roll by and then, not wanting to be out in all of the rawness of the day, went back to her RV. I don’t blame her either. It wasn’t a very nice day for a parade.
Later that afternoon I put my boots on and took Itsy and Ginger for a walk-about.
This photograph, with the rain dripping from the thorny branch of a multiflora rose, is by far my favorite of our walk. I hadn’t seen the spider when I took it.
The rain continued into the overnight and Sunday morning, Mike, Margaret, and I went to Golden Corral for breakfast and to see Sue, our favorite waitress. Cork and Pam opted to skip breakfast. For one thing they are retired and like to wake up slowly. For another they planned to use that time to get ready to continue their trip to Kansas City.
When we got back from breakfast their curtains were still closed. That’s a signal RV’ers use to mean DO NOT DISTURB!
“Mike, I’m going to walk the girls. Call me before they leave, okay?”
“Alright,” he said.
I didn’t know what time Cork and Pam planned on pulling out, but with the rain and things blooming I thought I might get some nice pictures.
One of the first things I noticed were the spider webs that are spun on the ground. Momma calls them ‘fairies wash’.
“Why are they called fairies wash?” I asked her once.
“Because it looks like the fairies have hung their sheets out to dry,” she told me.
The fairies wash cradled the raindrops and the underside was fascinating! But you just try to get an old fat lady, totin two little dogs, down on the wet ground with a camera! I wasn’t willing to get that wet for the sake of a photo. Luckily I found some webs on a hillside and got my photographs that way.
I visited the patch of wild daffies but didn’t linger overlong.
I had just gotten to the wild plum blossoms when my phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered, but I knew it was Mike.
“They’re getting ready to leave,” he said.
“I’m up behind Two-Bit Town, I’ll be right there,” I said, hung up and hightailed it for home. When I got here Mike, his helper Gary, and Pam were all standing around watching Cork hook up his Jeep to the back of the RV.
I smiled. When I was within earshot, I called, “This looks like a union job to me!”
Pam walked over to meet me and laughed, “One guy working and three more leaning on shovel handles?” she asked.
“That’s it.”
We shared hugs and said our good-bys and wished them safe travels.
“I’m going back up to the plum tree,” I told Mike after Cork and Pam pulled out of the driveway. “I had just gotten there when you called.”
Once I got home I settled in to write and I’d only just started my letter when Mike came to talk to me. “We have to be in Columbia at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Why don’t we go up today. You can write up there as easy as you can write here.”
So we packed up and drove the eighty miles to Columbia and sat in the parking lot of Camping World.
“Uh-oh,” you say. “Camping World…Columbia…that sounds like you’re having some work done.”
You would be right.
While in Iola, Kansas our room slide quit on us. Mike went through the books that came with our RV but wasn’t finding anything helpful and he was starting to panic.
“What if we can’t get it in, Peg?”
“We won’t be able to go anywhere, Peg!”
“We’re stuck here, Peg!”
So, I jumped up on the internet and found out there is an override switch, what it looks like, where it is and how to use it. It worked like a charm. Mike called Camping World while we were still in Kansas and made the appointment to have it fixed. Oh, and while we are there, we have a recall on our steps.
Sunday, sitting in Columbia, Missouri, in the parking lot of Camping World, I worked on my letter/blog. It was getting long and I knew it wasn’t going to be done on Sunday. That was when I decided to post the rain pictures I had taken that morning on my walk-about with the girls.
Monday we woke to fog. “I’m glad we came up yesterday,” Mike said. “I hate to drive in fog.”
They came for our RV and we relocated to the customer lounge where I continued to work on my writing.
After a couple of hours the head of service man came to talk to us. “It looks like your slide motor is out and you need a new one,” he said.
“But how can that be? The slide goes in and out with the override.” In my head I couldn’t understand it.
“He has 35 years experience and if he says the motors out, the motors out. I’m not sure how it works but the override may use a different motor.”
I accepted that.
“And your steps are on the recall list so when we get the parts for everything we’ll call you.”
Great! Another trip to Columbia.
We gathered our things and headed for home. On the way we stopped at a big antique/flea/junk shop called Artichoke Annie’s. We got off interstate 70 and took the service road. As we pulled in we see a sign that says RV’s, busses and semis are to park in the gravel lot and there was an arrow pointing the way.
“I don’t want to park on gravel, I’m going to go around and park in their lot,” Mike said.
“What if we get in there and can’t get out?” I asked.
“I can back out of anyplace I can pull into.” And I know he can but in the end we just parked in the gravel lot anyway.
“Good morning,” a lady greeted us when we walked in the door.
“Good morning,” Mike responded.
I mumbled morning, but didn’t pause as I headed for the first aisle.
“I hope it’s okay to park where we parked,” Mike started a conversation with her and after some back and forth about neighbors not wanting her customers to park in their lot, I browsed the first booth.
“I don’t understand it,” she said. “Most people go to both places anyway. But what I want to know is what she’s going to do with that camera.”
I take my camera with me most places I go and I did have it around my neck. I was too busy feeling indignant to hear how Mike answered her.
“Nowadays everyone has those cell phones that take pictures anyway, so I can’t really stop it, but what happens is they take pictures of things and pretty soon the market is flooded with fakes.”
Yeah! So why bring it up anyway! But I didn’t say that and pretty soon Mike caught up to me.
This was a huge place with over 200 dealers and I did take a picture of an Old Judge coffee jar. Could this be an original lid, I added to the photograph when I sent it to Cork and Pam. And I also sent a photograph of a beautiful grate. I thought its shape was unusual as most of them that I’ve seen (in the short time I’ve been looking for them) were square.
Cork and Pam were in Kansas City and they could visit this antique store when they left there if they wanted to.
At Artichoke Annie’s we found another potato masher like my mama used to have. Mike and I have come to the conclusion that the reason we haven’s seen any in such a long time is because we haven’t been going to antique stores.
Back at the Lake we backed back into our grouse — boy! That’s a lot of backs! — Mike opened the RV door — and our steps broke.
Talk about timing!
Now we have to use a step stool to get into and out of the RV until it gets fixed.
Talk about a pain!
All of this jibber-jabber brings us up to Monday a week ago.
Tuesday, my oldest brother Ed went home to be with our Lord.
Sigh.
Wednesday, Pam’s mother left for her trip to eternity.
Double sigh. Sigh, sigh.
And it’s time to wrap this up. How about if I show you some photos I took last week of spring bursting out?
My current desktop photo.
Can’t decide which one I like best so I’m going to show you three.
And with that, we will call this one done.
Lots and lots of love to all of you.
<<<<<>>>>>
No comments:
Post a Comment