A Car, for Once
Friday, April 8, 2011
In which OLeif takes leave for Tennessee, and the park is attended for the afternoon…
Collette dropped OLeif off at the Silverspoon’s by eight o’clock that morning. He would be accompanying Theodore and Gloria to Nashville for the weekend.
Back to the house in the gray post-rain of the morning to bring Linnea-Irish and Puck to the house where…
Trooper was wagging his tail again and looked considerably more thin, and younger. However, as soon as Carrie-Bri and Francis departed for Home Depot in The Valley, he drooped again.
“Don’t worry, Trooper,” Puck assured him, “your… your… mama’s grandpa will return soon.”
When Collette showed Puck photographs of Mom’s and Dad’s travels the previous day in Spain, Puck said thoughtfully…
“That doesn’t look like Grandma’s house…”
And out came the bag of almonds anchored with a clothespin.
Then to the park for some sun for Collette, Linnea, and Puck. An hour or so in the cool breezes overlooking Camelot in the Shiloh quiet and the horse farms of the millionaires across the park… The light was bright enough reflecting off the white pages of Collette’s books to alter her eyesight to 1970’s green-gold photograph quality, which was an odd dreamlike sensation.
Back out on the road, windows down, Doctor Who, to the grocery store, where they picked up a sample box of Cheez-Its for 98 cents including the three candidates for the newest Cheez-It flavor, including: Asiago, Colby, and Romano. In the end, Collette wished that she had voted for Romano instead of Asiago.
In the checkout, a kind granny talked to Puck about his Cheez-It box, and then after Linnea had taken him to the bubblegum machine to pick out a little necklace with a silver cross…
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Your sisters are very good to you!”
Back to the house where Carrie and Francis had been busy with projects all day and Linnea took up her, what seemed bi-daily, lengthy phone conversation with Cherry. And not long later, Collette and Puck packed up to visit the library where they picked up the Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream Recipe Book and The Love Bug for their Friday night film… for such classic old lines, repeated by the Snicketts children throughout the years, including…
“Groovy, Pop! Grooooovy!”
“We all prisoners, chicky-baby. We all locked in.”
“A couple of weirdos, Guinevere.”
Meanwhile…
Mom and Dad were at sea, enjoying nightly dinners and shows with their new Irish friends.
OLeif had arrived safely in Nashville.
Rose was attending Jimmy Dean’s surprise party, sprung in celebration following his recent graduation from the police academy.
And for Collette: endless evening red-eyed typing and McArthur, Spurgeon, and decades-lost human remains from French glaciers in A Tramp Abroad…