Mamalade

It’s cold and windy tonight. I’ve just come home and put on my coat and slippers and made a good hot cup of tea.

Anniversary
I’ve been to my friends Margaret and John’s 40th Wedding Anniversary party. I’ve been eating all kinds of yummy food all afternoon, while my poor cats were STARVING. At least that’s what Buddy and Ingrid claimed when they met me in the driveway with reproachful faces and pitiful cries.

I’ve known Margaret and John for about 12 years. A lot of the people at the party had been their friends since childhood. Isn’t it wonderful when friendships endure over a lifetime?

Old friends
I’ve been catching up with a few old friends this week. I phoned Joanne, who has been very sick with pneumonia, as well as lots of other problems. But I never did find out how she is - she was so busy telling me about her visit to a woman in hospital who had just had her leg amputated. Joanne always thinks of others and does a lot of voluntary work with an amputee group.

I phoned another dear old friend who is a nursing home now. We talked for two hours. She kept saying, “Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice.” I must ring more often.

Dogs in church
The other night I had a visitor who told me a funny story about a church service he once attended in the outback. Four large dogs were in the habit of accompanying their owners to the church, where they lay on the floor in the front row and slept during the service.

On this particular occasion, there were some visiting dignitaries at the service. It wasn’t considered “proper” to have dogs in the church, so the dogs were shut outside, where they lay dolefully against the closed door. All went well until the first hymn. The four dogs sat up and howled all the way through each verse, then they lay down again till the next hymn. After a repeat performance during the second hymn, they were ushered back into the church and lay quietly in the front row till the end of the service.

I wish I had been there.

Trash and Treasure
Instead of a regular Jumble Sale this week, we called it a Trash and Treasure Sale and sold all kinds of bric-a-brac. A lot of people came, and we did really well.

All kinds of people come to our Jumble Sales. Most of them are wonderful, friendly people. Some of them will give us a bit extra and say, “Keep the change.It’s for World Vision.” But a few will try to knock down our prices. We’ve even had a couple who switch the price tags. Many of our customers are “regulars” and have become our friends over the years. Some are lonely and drop in to have a chat.

“Daisy”
One of the local “identities” is “Daisy.” She comes in early and selects what she wants, but she never brings any money. Sometimes she’ll come in three or four times during the morning, then she goes off and borrows money from a friend and comes back when we are packing up and pays for her purchases. Last month she had selected a big bag-full of clothes and gone away again. She still hadn’t come back when we were ready to leave, so we left it in the back room. This week she came in early, and on her second visit, she actually paid for the things but she didn’t take them with her. She said she’d come back later.

I spent part of the morning sorting clothes in the back room. I weeded out the winter stuff and Mary took it to put in the Lifeline bin. After we had packed up and were ready to leave, “Daisy” came back for her bag of clothes. We hunted high and low but couldn’t find the bag. It took a while to convince her that she’d have to wait till we unpacked everything next time. After I arrived home it dawned on me that I must have mixed it with the things that Mary put in the Lifeline bin! Looks like we’ll have to give “Daisy” her money back.

We have a lot of funny incidents. Once, I gingerly picked up a filthy pair of thongs lying on the floor. “Fancy anyone donating these!” I thought, and was about to throw them in the rubbish bin when a large bare foot woman rushed up and said, “Those are my shoes!”

Then there was the time I took off my jacket and it disappeared. It turned up in one of the boxes at the next Jumble Sale with a “50 cents” price tag.

School fete
You’d think we’d have enough of rummaging through second hand stuff, but yesterday I went to a School fete and guess where I headed first? The Trash and Treasure stall! Most of the junk was pretty awful, but I found two nice dolls for Mum to work her magic on.

I spent quite a bit of time at the bookstall. (I’ll need another room built onto this house if I keep buying books.) I found a nice one about animal sounds for Miles and one by Charles Swindoll that I thought I would give to a friend who loves listening to his radio programme. The book is called “Come before Winter.” After reading the first few pages, I don’t know if I’ll be able to part with it. My friend will have to at least wait until I finish it.

Time Management
It has good down to earth readings for every day. Last night I read one about time management. Charles Swindoll tells the story of Charles Scwhab, president of Bethlehem Steel. Scwhab asked Lee, a consultant to show him a way to get more things done with his time and promised to pay “anything within reason” for the advice. Lee later handed Scwhab a sheet of paper with this plan:

“Write down the most important tasks you have to do tomorrow. Number them in order of importance. When you arrive in the morning begin at once at No1. and stay on it until it is completed. Recheck you priorities, then begin with No 2… then No 3. Make this a habit every working day. Pass it on to those under you. Try it as long as you like, then send me your check for what you think it’s worth.”

Scwhab paid Lee $25000 for the most profitable lesson he had ever learned, and within five years, Bethlehem Steel Corporation became the biggest independent steel producer in the world.

Now if I could only decide what my most important task is for tomorrow.

I’ve been busy sorting things for our World Vision Trash and Treasure Sale. Someone brought two big boxes of toys the other day. A lot of broken parts went into my wheelie bin, but there were lots of intact matchbox cars, action men, dinosaurs, etc. I think we’ll save some of them for lucky dips. We’ll get more for them that way. I wish we’d had them for the Festival last month. We ran right out of lucky dips.

Transformation
There was a big doll amongst the toys. The poor thing was blind - her eyes were just blank dirty white, and her hair was matted and filthy. I took her down for Mum to work on - she loves resurrecting dolls. Mum performed a “cataract operation.” She cleaned all the gunk off the doll’s eyes and discovered it had beautiful blue-green eyes. She washed and combed the doll’s hair and made it a beautiful pink lacy dress. It was a real transformation. We should get a decent price for it now.

Mum has been sewing for World Vision. ever since our club began. She makes something nearly every day.

Round Robin
I enjoyed our Toastmaster’s meeting this week. After all the competitions, then the Anniversary Dinner, it was good to get back to a normal meeting. The Round Robin was fun. (In a Round Robin everyone gets a turn to speak on the chosen topic for 30 seconds. It’s a good way to “break the ice” and start the creative juices percolating.) This week it took the form of a continuing story. The first person started to tell a story and each one had to add to it, with hilarious results.

I’ve added some of my Toastmasters speeches from the Advanced Manual to my site. You’ll find them listed in the Speech Index.

Dad went back to the hospital for a check up yesterday. I think he had made up his mind to have the operation after all, but the doctor is not in favour of it now. It was a big day for Dad. The ambulance picked him up at 7 a.m. and brought him back at 3 pm. He was exhausted when he got home. Jan and Mum went by car to the hospital to be with him, while I stayed at the house just in case the ambulance returned before they did.

Cough it up
Mum’s cat, Panther started to cough and splutter while I was there this afternoon. I said to him, “You’re not going to throw up, are you?”

Mum said, “He’s been coughing a lot lately. I think the newsprint gets in his throat.”

“What?!!”

Evidently he enjoys playing with a rolled up newspaper every night, slapping at it, ripping it to shreds and chewing the pieces. I had this vivid mental image of a cat spewing printed words all over the carpet.

After all, some of the things they print in the newspaper these days make you want to puke.

Crazy cats
My cats have been crazy, too lately. Ingrid runs behind the wall in the hall from one doorway to the next and waits for me to wiggle my fingers around the door for her to slap at. The game has to be played strictly according to her rules. If I go to the wrong doorway or try to substitute something else for my mangled fingers, she spits at me and walks off in a huff.

Buddy has been crawling in under the bedclothes with me at night. He snuggles in and purrs loudly until he gets too hot, then he suddenly springs out. It’s like sleeping with a pop up toaster.

Ball game
The other night I minded my 16 months old grandson, Miles while Joel and Frances went to a birthday party. They left Nelson, their corgi with me too. I entertained Miles (and Nelson) by throwing a ball down the hall for Nelson to fetch… a very noisy game - Miles has a hearty belly laugh, and when Nelson barks, I can feel parts of my brain rearrange themselves. After a while the ball rolled into the bedroom at the end of the hall and Nelson just sat there looking stupid. So Miles ran into the bedroom and came back with the ball in his mouth.

My 13-month-old nephew Matthew is getting very adventurous. Lea can’t keep him from climbing onto the coffee table so she’s taught him how to get back down safely. The other day, she found him on the kitchen table.

A pleasant morning
Our Friendship Club met this week. Just a pleasant morning catching up on friends and playing games. Scrabble and Skipbo are still our favourite games. We usually have a “Thought for the Day.” I read an item I had found on Jeff’s Home Page. Jeff has an interesting site - he chooses a word at random from the dictionary each day and uses it as a base for his journal entry. Anyway, this was our “Thought for the Day”, courtesy of Jeff.

There is no God.
By Jim Bishop

There is no God

All of the wonders around us are accidental. No almighty hand made a thousand billion stars. They made themselves. No power keeps them on their steady course.

The earth spins itself to keep the oceans from falling off toward the sun. Infants teach themselves to cry when they are hungry or hurt. A small flower invented itself so that we could extract digitalis for sick hearts.

The earth gave itself day and night, tilted itself so that we get seasons. Without the magnetic poles man would be unable to navigate the trackless oceans of water and air, but they just grew there.

How about the sugar thermostat in the pancreas? It maintains a level of sugar in the blood sufficient for energy. Without it, all of us would fall into a coma and die.

Why does snow sit on mountain tops waiting for the warm spring sun to melt it at just the right time for the young crops in farms below to drink? A very lovely accident.

The human heart will beat for 70 or 80 years without faltering. How does it get sufficient rest between beats? A kidney will filter poison from the blood, and leave good things alone. How does it know one from the other?

Who gave the human tongue flexibility to form words, and a brain to understand them, but denied it to all other animals?

Who showed a womb how to take the love of two persons and keep splitting a tiny ovum until, in time, a baby would have the proper number of fingers, eyes and ears and hair in the right places, and come into the world when it is strong enough to sustain life?

There is no God?

    ©1996 by Jim Bishop. Condensed from Miami Herald (July 27 ‘87). Taken from Reader’s Digest, Dec 1993.

Well, I didn’t get to the Exhibition. My week has been too full. I usually don’t go - I find it very tiring - but during the week I did feel tempted to go along and just soak up the atmosphere for a while. I love to feel part of it, to smell the cattle, the hot dogs and the fairy floss…to wander down sideshow alley and vicariously experience the thrills of the wild rides and to hear the excited shrieks. (You’d never get me on any of them!)

Mini Ekka
We had our own “Mini Ekka” yesterday, with the “Minglers” group at our church. Anyone who had crafts or memorabilia of any kind could take it along and display it - just like in the “Fine Arts” Pavilion at the Exhibition. We were all amazed to see how much talent there was among the group - such a lot of beautiful paintings, patchwork quilts, decorated eggs, crochet, fancywork, woodwork, photography, porcelain dolls, floral art and lots more. There were also some very old and interesting memorabilia. We even had ice-cream cones with strawberries - just like at the Exhibition. It was a really good day, thanks to the leaders of the group who put such a lot of effort into it. And it was lovely for the older members of the group who wouldn’t have been well enough to go to the Exhibition.

It was a happy coincidence that the Playgroup at the church had organised a visit from the animal nursery on the same day, so we were able to see the animals as well. One of the ladies said to me ” There’s a pony and pigs…. and even an alfalfa!” I think she must have meant an alpaca.

Mum and I decided to do our shopping on Wednesday. We drove into the shopping centre and I said, “Where are all the cars?” We forgot about the show holiday! We went back and shopped today. I’m never going to the bank on a Friday again if I can help it! We had to queue for ages.

25th Anniversary
Our Toastmasters Club celebrated its 25th anniversary this week. I think that one of the things that set our club apart is the way special occasions are celebrated. Everything is organized so well…the programme, theme, decorations…every little detail. We had a dinner and a lot of past members attended, including most of the past presidents. Instead of each person introducing themselves, we were given a few minutes to glean information from each person seated at our table, then someone from each table was chosen at random to stand and introduce the others. It was very effective, even though I didn’t quite get some of the names right when I was chosen!

Each past president was asked to share some of their favourite memories from the year when they presided. They were all entertaining and some were very funny. A very enjoyable evening.

World Vision meeting
Our World Vision Club also had a meeting this week. Some of our members had the flu and couldn’t come. We had to cancel our next street stall because there are not enough well people to run it, but we are going to hold a Trash and Treasure Sale at the end of the month.

This month we will be raising money for the Kanzokea Dispensary in Makueni, Kenya. It is a mud brick building in a very poor community - they don’t even have basic equipment like stethoscopes - and there’s no ambulance.

We sent some of last month’s proceeds to the Romanian Orphan’s appeal. There has been a vast improvement in the orphanages, but the Romanian government gives only 75 cents a day to feed each child and the babies are provided with just one nappy a day. Hundreds of the children have HIV and AIDS, which they contracted from blood transfusions that were routinely given to all underweight babies during Ceausescu’s regime.

A funny story
The highlight of our meeting was when Mary explained why there had been such loud laughter coming from the kitchen at the last Jumble Sale. She had been telling someone about the time her mother asked her to meet her at the markets. This was when Mary was 14 and painfully shy and easily embarrassed. Her mother told her to be sure to bring a string bag.

The tram was crowded and Mary had to stand clutching the hanging strap in one hand and her string bag dangling from her other arm- right beside a very portly gentleman. After a while she discovered that the string bag had entangled itself around a button on the man’s fly.

Mary tried to retrieve it unobtrusively but it became more entangled. By this time the man had become aware of their predicament and quietly tried to untangle it, but the situation became even worse. Neither of them said anything. The whole pantomime was conducted in silence with very red faces. Finally, the tram came to a stop at the markets and Mary fled, leaving the man to find his own way out of the dilemma. On meeting her, Mary’s mother’s scolded “I told you to bring a string bag!”

August is a month of birthdays. Today is Dad’s 85th birthday. Shea was 10 last Monday, my brother-in-law Ian’s birthday was yesterday and Lea’s birthday is next Friday. Yesterday we had a combined celebration at Mum and Dad’s place.

As usual Robert and Callum were very excited and noisy. Baby Matthew sat quietly taking it all in, then when the two boys went outside he suddenly started jabbering in his baby lingo. He had the floor at last! It’s seems strange to see him toddling all over the place. He’s so little. The boys made a cubby house out of some big cardboard cartons while the rest of us had a game of Bocce (lawn bowls). It’s one of the games I am not good at - I bowl way off target - but who cares, we had fun. Shea was very good at it.

Joel had hurt his back, so he and Frances and little Miles couldn’t come yesterday. I called in to see them on the way home and had fun playing with Miles. He is growing so fast - he is 16 months old now and turning into a real little “kid”.

This morning I visited Grace at the Nursing home. She is so frail but always cheerful. Both the resident cats came and sat with us in the sun. I had only seen the tabby one before. Just before I left, Grace remarked, “That black cat has been sitting there for a long time.” She was looking at my black handbag! Her eyesight must be really poor.

Dad came home from hospital yesterday. They want him to go back for an operation in a fortnight, but he has decided not to have it.

A day with Callum
On Wednesday, Jan took Mum to the hospital to see Dad and to talk to the doctor, so Callum (Jan’s four-year-old) spent the day with me. We had a lovely day together. We built houses with his Lego blocks, then Callum helped me cut out the old roots of the creeping fig that used to grow around the front of the house. He thought it was wonderful to be allowed to use the secateurs. Then we went out the in the backyard and raked up pinecones.

Callum found a long piece of nylon rope in my back shed. “Let’s play Tiger war.” He said. So we played “Tug-of -War”. I held on while he pulled and pulled, then I let it go slack so that tumbled over on the grass. He jumped up and shouted triumphantly, “I won, I won!”

Next, he decided to make a train with the rope. We rounded up a dozen styrofoam boxes, ( I save them to put pot plants in) and we threaded the rope through them. It made a great train, but Callum wasn’t satisfied. “It needs wheels,” he said.

“What are we going to use for wheels?” I asked .

“Paper and sticky tape.” He said confidently.

I tried to tell him it wouldn’t work, but he was adamant.

“We’ll put the wheels on and if they don’t work, we’ll take them off again.” He said.

We cut out circles from an old cardboard box and Callum used half my reel of masking tape trying to fasten on the first wheel. I decided that even if he used up all my tape the entertainment was worth it. It brought back memories……. I tried to do the same thing when I was about his age, and I remember Relle trying to use cotton reels on a go-cart she tried to make. They all popped off when she sat in it! Then there was the raft that Joel and his friends tried to make - they were going to use balloons to keep it afloat!

When Callum finally admitted defeat, I asked ” What do they use to put wheels on cars and bikes?”

He thought for a moment, then his face lit up. “They put a screw in the middle! Have you got any screws?”

I didn’t have any. We pulled an old trike out of the shed and examined how it was put together. He discovered the axle and started searching the shed for something to use as an axle. I don’t know what would have happened next - that was when Jan came back for him.

Half price sale
Our World Vision Club had another Jumble Sale today. We made it a half price sale, to clear out the winter stock, because the weather will be warmer by the time we have the next one. We sold a lot of stuff, but didn’t make as much money as usual because everything was so cheap. We really needed more publicity, to bring more people. Our ad only got into the one local paper this time. We couldn’t advertise too early, or people would have expected things at half price at last week’s sale.

A lot of people would have been at the Exhibition this week. It started yesterday and will be on all next week. We could see all the sideshows and rides being set up when we went to the hospital. The showground is just across the road from the hospital. I don’t think I’ll go this year - but you never know!

Dad is still in hospital. He was hoping to come home today, but they had to put him back on the catheter. He looked really disappointed yesterday. They are not telling him much, but evidently he has an enlarged prostate and they’ve just discovered he has diabetes as well. He is in a nice ward in the new section of the hospital. It is on the 11th floor and overlooks the helicopter pad. I watched the rescue helicopter arrive with a patient while we were there yesterday.

The man in the bed opposite Dad is Chinese and doesn’t understand English. There is another man that keeps wandering in from another ward. If anyone is not in their bed he tries to claim it. It’s bad enough being sick in hospital, without having to fight for your bed!

Mum has been to see Dad nearly every day. My sisters have been driving her to the hospital when they can. I go with her on the train on the other days. Relle went today. Mum and I stayed home and rested today, but we’ll probably go again tomorrow.