Collette

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Sunday afternoon, nine year-old Linnea and her neighbor friend were in the kitchen discussing credit cards and computer programs:

“We have the old Windows 1998.”

“Wow.”

“Webkins requires Windows 2000.”

“Do you have 2000?”

“No. It’s like 2004-ish. So it’s much better.”

“I think we have 2005.”

For lunch, OLeif let Puck suck on a watermelon rind. He seemed to enjoy it, kicking his little legs in his plaid pants.

Later, Mom, Collette, Carrie, and Rose were in Mom’s room reminiscing over how fat Rose was as a baby:

“You were only seven pounds, five ounces, when you were born,” Mom was saying. “The smallest of all the babies. But you were by far the fattest as you grew.”

“Rolls, just rolls,” Carrie said, lying upside down off the edge of Mom’s bed.

Rose laughed. She liked hearing about how fat she had been.

“She looked even fatter when she was in her puffy pink coat.”

At youth, Jimmy was threatening to eat “Tinky Winky” if Meg didn’t take the stuffed creature back home with her.

Later, Augustus was busy beating up Rose with a pillow. And Sunrise and Susie were teaching him how to use an “Epi-Pen”, should he ever accidentally eat something containing peanuts and begin to dramatically suffocate. This led to the predictable inappropriate jokes concerning the need to remove one’s pants, stabbing oneself in the bum as opposed to the thigh, etc…

“Aaaaaaah!” Augustus pretended to stab himself in the leg.

Mollie knitted her block scarf like a mad woman, talking about how she would be working 35 hours at the fabric store that week:

“Don’t even try to look me up this week. I’ll be folding cotton like nobody’s business.”

Magnus arrived late from bidding adieu to his own youth leader and began surfing through his collection of Renaissance paintings on his iPod.

Part of the time was spent ribbing Augustus’ Lutheran friend.

“I want one of those shirts that says: ‘Calvin better than Luther’,” Augustus said.

Then he and Rose battled over the jalapeño cheddar potato chips.

“You’re a shrimp.”

“No, you’re a shrimp.”

Then Rose made fun of Augustus’ tie-dyed white, green, and pink t-shirt.

“So the float trip…” Jimmy was saying. “Rose will have her own canoe with two guys massaging her shoulders as they float down the river.”

[He still hadn’t forgotten the incident of the Canadian model offering to give Rose a massage New Years’ Eve on the Nile.]

Ben-Hur was looking up an old collection of Sinai-isms that he had put to rap, on his laptop.

“We should change your name to Susannah, in the blog,” Ben-Hur was telling Rose.

“Yeah, and then the post could be titled: ‘Oh Susannah!’” OLeif said.

“Or we could just call you Rose.”

Rose couldn’t decide which name was worse.