throw a potato?! February 21, 2010

“Was it the breaker?”

“Yes but for some reason it was the whole house.”

“I will come down after dinner with some salt and a mirror.  Violet come on I want to show you the walls.”

“I am going to close up the barn, and send the men home.  I will be back in about 30 minutes.”

They said good bye to her father and went to look in the playroom.  It was bright and pretty.  Three of the walls were a pretty light purple color, her mother said it was called “lilac” and the long wall was white.  On the white wall,  the window had been started.  There was blue sky and white clouds, and green grass with little violets in it.

“Oh it is so pretty!  Thank you!”  Violet was so excited she grabbed her mom and gave her a big hug.  All of the furniture was shoved in the center of the room, so they had to walk in a circle around all of it to see all of the walls.  Her mother paused at one point and said “And look what I found in town today.  When I went to get paint at the hardware store, I decided to see if they had any lamps and look what I found.”  She held up a box with a white lamp and a white shade on the picture on the side.  The lamp looked bumpy, and the shade had a little lace at the bottom.  “I got two of them, so you would have a matching pair, aren’t they pretty?”

“They are pretty, where will they go? Can we open them?”

“No lets leave them in the boxes for now, we will take them out when we put them up.  Come on lets go upstairs and get washed up for dinner, your dad will be back soon and it is not even finished yet. “

They headed up to the kitchen and Violet told her mother all about the heads that she had made with Sara.  When her father got back they were talking about what she might wear in the parade and about the candy to get.

“Well we do not want to throw suckers, because they break, and we do not want to throw chocolate because it will melt.  I just do not think it is a good idea at all to throw candy. “

Her father interrupted with “Well I suppose we could throw potato’s.   I am kidding, I am kidding.  I already talked to Bob and his wife is going to get some big bags of Salt Water Taffy to throw, so it is already taken care of and decided.”

why is it so cold? February 20, 2010

On the ride home she told her father all about the heads they had made and asked many questions about what she should do in the parade?

When they parked the truck and he pulled her out, he said “How about we go in together and find your mother and tell her about the parade.  Might be easier on all of us that way.”

Max met the truck and was wagging his tail to spend a quick moment or two with Violet.   She was happy to see Max, but it also made her remember that the calf was no longer alive.

Her mother was waiting for them and was anxious for Violet to see how the painting looked in the new playroom.  On the way down the stairs her dad mentioned that Violet wanted to ride in the tractor in the parade.

“That sounds like a great idea.  We can get you a parade dress when we are in the city.  Ok come on you two, come see the playroom.”

Just as her mother reached in to turn on the light there was a popping noise and all of the lights downstairs went off.  Violet jumped and reached for her moms hand.

“What happened?  and why is it so cold?”

Her mother squeezed her hand, and said “It is an old house with old wires that is all.  Dean go check the box. “  He was already walking away and opening the door to let some light stream in from outside.

“It is cold isn’t it.  There must be a draft from the door.  Violet I want you to go and wait near the door.  Go on, go now.”

Violet hurried to the door and was happy to feel the warm sunshine and to be in the light.  She could hear her mother saying something but just barely, it was like she was whispering.  She could only make out a few words and was leaning to try and hear more.

“into the light…no place …into the light…around the wheel…into a mirror”

Violet was listening so hard, that when the lights came back on she nearly jumped out of her skin.  ©

in the parade? February 13, 2010

When Ellie came back she sat with the girls and they had a lot of laughs over a very yummy lunch.  Ellie was a firm believer in fresh food, natural food and lots of fruits and veggies, that “were never over cooked“.   Meals with her always included a lot of taste and color.

As they finished up, she packed up the remains of lunch to take to the kitchen to clean up while the girls finished the last of the paper mache heads.

Violet was thinking about how the big boys would be in the parade wearing these giant heads, and Sara would be in the parade on her horse and that she had never been in a parade.

“Is it fun to be in a parade?”

“Most of the time it is.  It depends where it is, and the weather…sometimes it is hard on the horses if they are too close to new noise and stuff.  Mostly it is fun.  Are you wishing you could be in a parade?”

“I guess, I was thinking I have never been in one, but what would I do that would be special enough to be in a parade?”

From behind them they heard a voice “You are more than special enough to be in a parade!  Do you want to be in the next parade with Sara?”

“Daddy! Look what we did!”  Violet was so excited to see her father and show him the big heads they made she did not even answer the question.  After he looked at all the masks, and teased Sara that they sure did not look like faces yet he turned to Violet and asked again “Shorty do you want to be in a parade?”

All of a sudden the idea seemed a little scary, and she had no idea what being in a parade meant, and what if the noises were too close to the horses.

Sara asked “Would you like some ideas of what you would do in a parade?  I remember how scary it was at first.  Some kids ride on floats and wave and throw candy I bet you would like that.”

“That would be fun!”

“This year we are not doing a float, but I am driving an old tractor for the dealership in town and if you want to ride with me you can. “  He turned and gave Sara a pretend serious and mad look and said “We could even throw perfectly good candy away during the parade I suppose.”

Everyone laughed, and Violet was very excited to be in a parade “Is this a special secret or is this something we can tell mom?”

Her father shot her a quick look, and Sara looked a little worried as he said “Of course we can tell your mother, she will be happy you are in a parade.  She can be in charge of the candy and will probably want to make you a special dress or something.  We do not keep secrets in our family, you know that.”

Violet felt embarrassed and confused because they certainly did keep secrets, many secrets in their family.  ©

giant heads? February 6, 2010

Violet told her mother goodbye and realized the smell was the smell of paint from the walls of her new playroom.  As she crawled up in the truck Max followed her, licked her hand and watched the truck leave.

It only took a few minutes to get to her Aunt and Uncle’s place because they lived not far down the big road.   As they were pulling in, Uncle Lacey was pulling out in his truck and they waved as they passed each other on the driveway.   Her father parked the truck and had Violet crawl over to his side so he could lift her out; about that same time the front door opened and Sara came out to greet them.

“Thanks for doing this Sara, one of us will come back mid-afternoon or so and pick shorty back up.”

“No problem Uncle Dean we will have a lot of fun today, and I can use the help.  Hi Violet how are you?” Violet and Sara shared a quick hug as Violet replied “I am great thank you!  I get to help you do something to day? What are we going to do?”

“Hey tell me goodbye, I have work to do myself” her father hugged her and Violet said “Bye daddy I love you.”  Truth was it was just a quick thing to get through because she was very excited to hear what she was going to help Sara do.

They waved and watched her father turn around and drive down the long driveway back to the road.  “Ok well there is a parade in two weeks, not this weekend coming up but the next one.  I have to make four giant heads while mom makes the costumes so the boys can wear them in the parade.  So I really do need your help today, to get all the paper mache done.  Then when it is all dry in a day or two I can paint all the faces on.”

It sounded very exciting, but Violet had no idea what they were going to do.  As they headed into the house and down the long hall to the big rooms Aunt Ellie called a quick hello to Violet and a see you girls at lunch time.   Their house had been a school long time ago so the house was on one side and there was a long hall that connected to what used to be big classrooms.  They used one as a library and homework area, one for crafts, one for storage and Violet did not know what was behind all of the other doors.

Walking into the craft room she saw piles of newspaper, bottles of something blue, a big old washtub and a lot of other stuff.  On the table were four large circles, like rally big basketballs, but with out a cover and they were made from some kind of small plastic pieces and some small twig looking things.  Sara could see Violet was very puzzled.

“You see each of these will be a head, they will put their heads up through this part at the bottom and this whole part up here will be like a mask.  But we have to keep them light weight so they can wear them, and see here? That will be the mouth of each head, but it will also be where the boys are looking out so they can see where they are going.  See how I have wire on these two…I need to get that same wire mesh on these two mouths and then we can mix up the goop and get started.” ©