Keep your fingers out of the clippers

 See those clippers? Their cousins bite if you're not careful

 

                When you’re left-handed and you slice open the top part of your left-hand pointer finger. . . well, there are a few things it’s hard to do with it wrapped in a tissue that makes it twice its size. Like type. But it’s doable. Typing my password with one hand is possible if I watch the keyboard. Wiping my nose is a breeze. Working the crossword puzzle is impossible.

                This is not the first time I’ve gotten some part of my anatomy too close to the vine or privet or sassafras sapling I was cutting out of the yellowbell hedge.

For all its heavenly aroma, honey suckle is the devil to deter. It wraps itself around the host so tightly it’s hard to nudge the clippers between vine and host. But it’s hard to fathom how—while I’m holding the clippers in my left hand, how I can get a finger of that hand between the blades. But I did, and because I take a doctor-ordered baby aspirin daily, I bled like a stuck hog. I was never that close at hog-killing time, but it’s an expression I’ve heard since Hector was a pup.

I remember (back when Hector WAS a pup) my grandma Flossie severing the tip of one of her fingers while doing something at the well house. She—smart widow woman that she was—took the piece of flesh inside, dipped it in sugar, replaced it on the cut and probably wrapped a handkerchief around it. Then she walked up the lane to catch a ride to the doctor. Compared to that, my injury is nothing.

When he was five or so, my dad got too close to his dad’s table (planing?) saw while it was winding down and lost three fingers on his right hand. Granddad tossed the severed flesh away, even though Dr. Jones’ office was nearby. With time, scar tissue grew over the stubs – the size of my tissue-wrapped digit—but with his thumb and pinkie, he still was able to do his carpentering jobs as an adult. I presume the result of that accident is what kept him out of the war. Though he couldn’t be a soldier, he did help build Fort Leonard Wood.

Many’s the time I’ve jammed my hand holding a washcloth down into a glass or a fruit jar only to have said piece break. There are several scars on my dominant hand for proof.

One time while living in Arkadelphia, I cut a gash into my pinky, and white stuff oozed out. I took Billy (6 or 7) years old and we checked in at the emergency room. When the triage doctor saw it, he delivered the most withering look anyone had ever laid upon me—except Mama. We must have skedaddled because that’s all I remember about the event. The ooze was fat, I suppose. I should have known better and seen to it myself in the first place. Like Grandma Flossie did with her fingertip.

In the sequel to “A Journey of Choice,” one character falls into a puddle of glass and pretty well messes up the side of her face.

Warning: be careful when wielding clippers, saws, knives, and use a brush to wash jars and glasses. Our ten fingers are one of God’s greatest gifts to humankind.

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A great Mother’s Day week

A younger Kid Billy, now 23

 

by Pat Laster

Early during Mother's Day week, Amazon sent word that Florida son Gordon had honored me with a gift card. That Friday, Hot Springs son Eric came over and --for his (requested) Mother's Day gift--worked in the north yard cutting down and apart the huge branch of the hackberry that had peeled off and lain in the yard for a couple of months. All the while--till about 1:30--I worked alongside him pulling branches to a new brush pile beside Couchwood Dr., clipping the ubiquitous privet, honeysuckle and sawbriars (with scratches on my left hand to prove it--I eschew gloves), then weed-eating around the area.

             E. took his chain saw later and cut (to the ground) the stand of privet, a wild cherry and hickory (alas) sapling that attached (in looks) to the giant tree. Wonder how long it's been since anyone attended to that mess. (My brother said later, "Probably 30 years.") I left the yellowbell and the spirea, of course. Still more privet among the yellowbell, but I'll take care of that myself--with such a good start as was made that day. I took pictures but it will take a while to get them online.

Billy came home overnight Friday to pick up his birth certificate. He's moving from the (expensive) on-campus-but-contracted-out apartments to an apartment out in town with a friend and the friend's girlfriend. At 23, he's old enough to decide--and the rent is only $260 a month.

He'll take summer classes again. Next fall will be the beginning of his 6th year. His trumpet advisor laughingly said at the last choral concert, "Yeah, we're gonna give Billy tenure."

I told someone I didn't care what he learned or didn't learn, I'm just proud of his musical training/experience. You wouldn't believe how still he can stand without moving anything but his mouth (and vocal apparatus) and one hand to turn pages and his eyes to move back and forth (without moving his head) to watch the director/music. So proud!

And if those weren’t blessings enough, former middle-school-choir student, former church-choir member and present friend, James, came by Friday night since his wife was at choir rehearsal. We caught up on Chamber Singers, River City Men’s Chorus, St. James UMC (where he now attends) and his family doings. He told of attending a “contemporary” funeral of a relative where the mood was celebratory in the most vibrant sense of the word. The only tears he noticed were from the deceased’s mother and one other relative. Guitars, drums, vocals, praise and worship—you name it, he said.

            Saturday night, daughter Annamarie took me to dinner at Casa Americana. Afterwards, we ate yogurt from a shop across the parking lot. Two journals and two cards added to the evening.  

Cards came from the other two children-grandchildren-in-laws.

Lucky, lucky me.