10

Ten years after walking to the alter, I spent two hours at the Big House that afternoon catching up on some unfinished business. Linnea-Irish was not enthralled with Dairy Queen, which had failed to live up to her pristine standards, if not expectations.

“They keep the hot dog griller on a shelf in the storage,” she said disdainfully.

Puck has been very interested lately in the behavior of children around him. Since they introduced a color system at school: white = exemplary, green = well-behaved, yellow = caution, and so forth.

“Today one of the boys got a blue,” he told me almost solemnly as we walked out of school. “He had to go visit the principal. I got a red today.”

Somehow blue is worse than red on this scale. I have yet to understand its far reaching elements. He continued his observations of children and their ways on the drive home.

“Anna has always been badly mannered.”

“She hasn’t, bud. She might just be going through a phase.”

“No. She’s always been like that. She says she has anger issues. I think she wants anger issues.”

Anna is six. We talked.

“So did that girl bother you again today?” I had to ask.

“Yes. She put her feet on my knees.”

Puck hates feet.

So anyway, once we got that all cleared up…

Puck ran off with Eddie until pork cutlets were ready for dinner. He gobbled up three before I could finish my own plate. It was movie night so I flipped on a 1970’s Disney: “Island at the Top of the World.”

As victims of the fictitious 1907 Arctic were sent down the river in burning longboats, Puck noted matter-of-fact, “That is not a very efficient way to be killed.”

Thunder rumbled in the south, but no rain fell.

Puck had a few more thoughts as I tucked him in for the night and he had prayed for his baby brother.

“I still wish we could call him David Freese Wayne.”

“Where did the Wayne come from?”

“I don’t know. Could we, please?”

“We’ll have to think about that.”

El Oso and I weren’t celebrating our anniversary till Friday, so while he was out for the evening, and because there was no game, I caught up on some Korean and Cosmic Brownies. Why change what works?