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July 5, 1959
Dear Mother & Daddy,
Seems like the letters get farther apart every time. Our days are pretty long, & we try to spend as much time with Pooh as we can. If anything, she's thriving on the schedule, though her parents are pretty beat. We are really looking forward to our vacation & getting away from all the hustle. I've worn shoes more in the last six months that I have in the last couple of years, & that's a bad habit to get into. There is a great deal to be done before we can take off in a carefree manner, especially with this house deal in the machine. The man at the bank is very pessimistic about FHA's delay, though he has speedily expedited all of the bank's part in the deal. You simply cannot rush bureaucracy.
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The car has a long way to go to completion. This weekend, Jim rebuilt the waterpumps & installed a relay to boost the headlights. We're waiting on the pistons. We ordered them out of the Sears catalog when we found that Sears regular price for good pistons is over $15 cheaper, but it takes a little longer.
Tues. Since I last wrote, the pistons arrived & Jim has the engine all buttoned up & painted Commodore blue. Now all we have to do is find some way to gently lift it up & heave it under the hood. We know where there is a nice chain hoist in Redwood City, but we'll have to get it up into the truck before we can use that.
Pooh now has 8 teeth, 4 up & 4 down. We're hoping she won't start anymore until after our vacation.
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Some people with apricot trees invited us to pick apricots last week, so five boxes later Bee & I were still canning & preserving apricots last night with 2 boxes to go. We've got close to 50 jars of canned & preserved apricots, and tonite we're giving away the last two boxed to a girl Bee met, who wants to dry them. Anyway, now I know all about canning & preserving apricots. Next year, maybe we'll try something else. One short interlude of that per year is enough.
The house deal is in the final stage. FHA has okayed the house, the bank has okayed us, & now we're waiting for FHA to approve of us.
July 22 This letter is taking quite a bit longer than I expected. Things have been so rushed lately. I've spent all of my spare time scrounging parts for the car and performing household duties. The car is finally finished, and Jim is pretty satisfied with his job. He will probably be making little adjustments here and there for month and months, though. We have two or three other carburetors [?] another
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manifold. We haven't decided which one we really want on the car, but have stuck one on temporarily, since the others would require the fabrication of a manual choke, a project to be postponed until after our vacation. Mechanically, the car is in terrific shape, like new. It's appearance belies this fact, however, so after the carburetor bit, we're going to put on new seat covers and paint it. It should run without complication for many more years, so we won't have to worry about extraordinary car expenses, while we fritter our money away on some of our more immediate wants. By the time we're ready for another car, we should be in a position to make an investment in line with what we want. None of this nothing down and everything a month jazz.
Pooh is apparently cutting some more teeth. She's drooling, chewing, and a little crankey at times. This time, it's stomache and eye teeth, or molars, so we're probably in for a bigger hassle than we had with her 8 other little pearls. I hope that she doesn't decide to have problems when we're on the road. The arrangment we're planning for the back seat should keep her plenty happy while we're driving along in a cloud of playtex disposable diapers. Her introduction to the potty chair is still going along with caution. What usually happens is that she takes a nap in training pants, wakes up dry, gets put on the potty chair, gets impatient listening to the water in the washbowl, gets up and starts to play, and minutes later leaves a puddle on the floor. This is pretty permissive potty training, and I'm sure that at this rate, we will not do her any emotional damage at her tender age. Until she decides to do otherwise, she can still pretend that the potty is for putting both feet in and falling over. She now feeds herself with a spoon most of the time. She is very resistant to other arrangements. At mealtime, it's simplest to do away with bibs, and just put her in a pair of training pants period, and work her over with a dish rag later. Her stomach is arranged in such a way that little food waste is necessary. While she's feeding herself, I can take another spoon and scrape the food off of her stomache and put it back in the bowl.
Your nice birthday card and check arrived. Thank you very much for both. Jim is taking me shopping tomorrow night. Just going with him will be fun, since he has been spending so much time working lately. Now we can relax and enjoy ourselves. We can put your gift to good use, especially at this time. I'm pretty satisfied with what I have to show for 23 years, I hope that the next23 are as much funas present expectations predict.
Well, I guess that I'd better wind this up and mail it before I end up bringing it with us. It's pretty definite that we will be leaving Palo Alto on either the night of July 30 or Aug first. The 'either or' part has to do with our being ready. Now that I look at the calendar, I begin to panic at how close the date has moved. It's time to start listing things to do. From here, we plan to head straight for Beverly Hills, so now you have an idea of when to expect us.
Thank you again for your birthday gift, BOTH of you. We will be seeing you soon.
Love, Marcia
