Post Christmas:

Kevin and April stayed in Waco for a few days at Christmastime. They went back to Fort Worth, and Peter stayed with us for a few more days, before heading back home to be ready to get back into school mode.

A few days ago, Kevin called and asked if Peter’s Dog Man books were here. The author, Dan Pilkey, is a guy who understands the pulse of school-aged readers. One of his first series of books are the Captain Underpants books. I first learned about them when kindergartners at church told me about how much they liked them (and those kids are college graduates now). The books are funny and and appealing to school-aged kids. One site says that the reading level is grades 2-5, but the “appeal” level is grades 4-8. Seems like a big leap. The first book of the series was published in 1997, so they’ve been around for a while.

Mr. Pilkey’s more recent series is the Dog Man series. The web site’s description is: “When Officer Knight and his police dog Greg are caught in a freak accident caused by the evil Petey the Cat, there’s only one way to save them. Doctors carefully sew Greg the Dog’s head onto Officer Knight’s body to create an all-new superhero: Dog Man. Half-dog and half-man, he is here to sniff squirrels and save the city—and he’s all out of squirrels to sniff.”

Peter finds them compelling, and he is not alone. Peter had the first two books, and he received two more for Christmas. I thought he’d probably memorized them by now.

A couple of days ago, Kevin phoned and asked if Peter’s Dog Man books were here. I went and looked at the shelf where books are, in the room where Peter stays when he’s here. I looked at every book, and, nope. No Dog Man. books.

Kevin called back a couple of days later. Had I looked in the shed, he said. Well, no, I hadn’t looked in the shed.

Years ago, we bought a shed (a shed in a box) to store things like the lawn mower and lawn chairs. Kevin and April came to help put it together. At first, there were a few fold-up canvas chairs in there. And that’s about all. Peter and David would open up a couple of chairs and sit in the shed (with doors open) and read books have snacks and enjoy the spring-time weather.

Then, after a while, other things got stored in there, like the lawn mower, which wasn’t used any more, because lawn people came to mow each week. There was an old trunk, an old trash can which we didn’t use any more because the city now provided trash bins that the trash trucks would lift and empty.

Years earlier, David and my dad created some shelving above the garage doors, where things that belonged to the boys were stored. A while back, we needed to remove these storage spaces, and we had to move the boxes that belonged to the boys. Those boxes went into the shed.

Periodically, the city has a bulky waste day, and we were able to put out things like that lawn mower that hadn’t been used in years. I looked in the old trunk and there wasn’t much in there, but most of it was unusable. When Jeremy came, in the fall, he and Kevin hauled boxes out and went through things.

Jeremy had driven to Waco, and had space in his car to take home lots of stuff. Kevin took his stuff home, which meant that there were only a couple of boxes stored in the shed. I cleaned out more of things that I’d been storing for “Fun with Friends,” a summer activity session that I would provide for preschoolers. Since things had been shut down for the summer, and because I was retiring from my preschool teaching time at church, I recycled all the toilet paper and paper towel tubes I’d been saving for making a golf ball structure.

This is a “bean box” that I’d made from a Dyson vacuum box and a variety of round boxes like oatmeal boxes and wrapping paper tubes. I’d used it for several years at “Fun Friends” on Physics Day. I’d set it on four preschool chairs, two on each side, in one side of the large box that my treadmill had come in. Then, I’d pour several large bags of dried pinto beans into the large box, along with scoops. Kids could scoop beans into the various openings in the Dyson box and watch to see where the beans would come out. It was hilarious fun. It was a little poignant to dismantle it and shove the pieces into the blue recycle bin, which left space on shelves in the garage for the remaining boxes that belonged to Jeremy.

Now, the shed is much more spacious, and Peter found it to be a nice, quiet, undisturbed space. So, when Kevin asked me if I’d looked in the shed, and I said, “No,” he said that Peter said he’d been reading in there.

I went to look.

And that, of course, is exactly where they were, all lined up, along with the very old wheelbarrow, and the bag of compost, and those fold-up canvas chairs, all safe and secure.

And now, they’re on the shelves, ready for when Peter comes to visit again.

Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

Luke 15:8-9 (New Revised Standard Version)

I guess there’s been some rejoicing at Peter’s house. Or relief.

In 1976, there were some, um, problematic events, at Christmastime. Nothing epic, just a series of things, that were frustrating for my mother. One of my aunts, who liked to write poetry, wrote a poem about them.

One issue involved some dessert plates. We’d gotten a set of beautiful blue glasses, as wedding gifts. Then, we found some matching plates. A few years after we were married, we moved to Lubbock for David’s graduate studies, and I packed a few of those plates. Our kitchen was pretty small, and things were stacked around as best as I could manage. One day, I was reaching for a couple of those plates, in a top cabinet. I knocked some of them over, and four of them crashed to the floor, breaking.

When we moved back to Waco that summer, I thought that I should go to one of the stores that carried them and replace what I had broken. Mother had the same idea, and, quietly, bought them for me as a Christmas present. At some point, before Christmas Day, I mentioned that I’d replaced them. Mother sighed, a little bit, about it, and returned them.

Another Aunt and Uncle always put up a large Christmas tree in their living room, and decorated it with beautiful red and gold ornaments. As Mother shopped, early in December, she found a red and gold ornament that she thought would be perfect for their lovely tree. She took it, with great holiday anticipation, to their house, excited for them to see it and add it to their tree. But, when she went inside, she was startled to see a very small, plain, sparsely decorated tree. “Oh,” they said, “it just got to be too much for us to handle.” They were several years older than Mother and Daddy, and she understood. But was disappointed.

She got a new billfold for my grandmother. Before she could mail it off to Ohio, she learned that someone had recently given my grandmother a new one.

She bought a sweater for my dad, but, some members of their Sunday School class, which Daddy taught each week, asked for gift ideas, and she handed over the sweater for them to give him.

Mother’s oldest sister, the one who liked to write poetry, had a number of in-laws who had been important in her life, when her sons were growing up. One of that family’s holiday traditions was baking buttermilk pies for Christmas morning breakfast.

The web site well plated, describes buttermilk pie as “a classic, old fashioned southern dessert that tastes like a custard pie but is SO. MUCH. EASIER. to make. Buttermilk pie tastes similar to crème brûlée.”

Sounds yummy.

In 1976, that aunt decided that she, too, should make buttermilk pies to share with family members. She purchased all the ingredients (which is a short list), along with frozen pie crusts. (Those pie crusts often come, frozen, in a stack of three.) She mixed up all the ingredients, laid out those pie crusts, poured the creamy batter in, and baked them up, the day before Christmas, and delivered them.

On Christmas morning,  Mother got the pie, warmed it up, and began to slice it into pieces. She tried and tried and tried, but just could not get the knife through the pie. On more careful examination, she saw that my aunt had neglected to remove the paper circles that were in the bottom of each frozen pie crust, to keep the crusts from sticking to each other. So, you had to scrape the yummy filling out, and eat it with a spoon, then, you could remove the paper and eat the crust.

I’m bringing all this up for a reason.

The dishwasher. At Thanksgiving, it began to develop suds during the cycle. Maybe it makes suds all the time, but they’re gone by time the cycle is finished. Now, when I open the thing up, there are suds. Still hanging around. Several inches of suds.

Then, on Monday morning, yes, just last Monday, when I walked into the kitchen, all ready to make my usual egg-and-cheese breakfast burrito, I looked at the microwave oven and noticed that the black rectangle, which usually displays the time, was blank. Hmmmm. I pressed the buttons to indicate how long the microwave should run. Nothing. I pressed start. Nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. And more nothing.

I got a stool to be able to reach the electrical socket at the back of the cabinet above the microwave. I pulled out the plug and then put it back in. No time showing up on the microwave. I went outside to the breaker box and flipped the appropriate switch back and forth, then went back inside. No time showing.

I had to get out the griddle, warm it up, warm up the flour tortilla, scramble an egg and cook it, on the griddle, and then put cheese on the tortilla, which is, by now, not hot any more. And then put the egg on top of the cheese and warmish tortilla. Not quite the same.

So, now, dishwasher not working right, microwave not working at all!

I worked a little on wrapping gifts, doing household stuff, took a package to the post office to mail.

Back at home, I went to switch on the light in the room where the dining table is. And, oh, I’d forgotten. The bulb on the ceiling fan’s light fixture was out. I got the step stool, climbed up, and loosened the small screws that hold the light’s cover on the fixture. I took the old bulb out and got another one. When I screwed it in, it lit up, then dimmed, then went on and off. Hmmm. Not right.

I went and got another bulb. A different wattage. I screwed it in. Same thing. Bright. Blink. Weak.

Yep. SOMETHING ELSE ISN’T WORKING THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO.

And, company is arriving on Friday night.

I went to Lowe’s Tuesday morning and bought a new microwave. I called Kevin and explained the situation, because he and April had installed the first over-the-stove microwave we had. He said that was the worst experience he can recall, in his whole life. The second microwave we had was put in by the store’s official installer. This new microwave seems very much like that one, so I said, “Maybe, since the new one is very much like the one that’s not working, it would be easy to install. Maybe.” He says he and April will try, when they come this weekend. And I said, “Great,” and that the store has an installer, which we can ask for, if they decide against installation, themselves.

David felt like the light fixture on the ceiling fan could be repaired, so I phoned an electrician. The earliest appointment was not until next Monday, so I made that. Then, on Wednesday morning, the company called and said they had someone who could come that day. “Oh, yes,” I said. “Please send them.” When they came, one of them took the glass cover off and looked at the socket. “Oh, no,” he said. And he pulled the socket part down and looked further up into the fixture. “Oh, no, no, no. You don’t want this repaired. It’s not safe.”

“So, I’m going to need a whole new fixture (fan included)?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. And I asked for input about brands and he gave me a couple of suggestions. I said we’d go shopping for a new fan over the weekend. And to please tell their office to keep that Monday appointment we had scheduled, and they could come and install it then.

As I write this, on Wednesday, things are looking up. There’s a microwave oven in a box in the garage. There’s an appointment to install a new fan w/light. And, after doing quite a bit of cooking this afternoon, I filled the dishwasher up and ran it. When I looked in, towards the end of the cycle, there were no suds. Maybe something had gotten stuck in a drain? Maybe the dishwasher soap . . . . fell into a drain and, instead of dissolving like it should, it just stayed there and kept sudsing up, which seems really improbable, because I don’t see how that could have happened. Anyway. I’d love to think that the issue has resolved itself. We’ll see.

And I, I am going to stop complaining. We’ve stayed healthy. We’re going to be able to spend time with Kevin and April and Peter. There are gifts under the tree, and the stockings are bulging. We are fortunate in so many, many ways.