A Few Last Items

We had a little Irish banshee wind that morning, wailing around the house corners, wrapping in bare black branches and pale violet light, cream morning sky.

Puck got out to the kitchen where he was creating a habitat for Crackers on top of the kitchen cabinet:

“Do you want some more milk in your milk dish, madam? Crackers, I don’t know if you understand English. You think I’m your slave, but I am your butler. Not your slave. Okay, I can be your slave if you want. It’s sort of like a butler, except you’re treated better … Hey, don’t move that picture up there. I put that up there especially for you because that was your mudder (mother). Good grief. Cats don’t remember anything.”

“Mom! Not shopping again!”

Puck’s eyes stared up at me in the rearview mirror. In Puck’s mind, Wednesdays should be reserved purely for recreation and relaxation at Grandma’s House, a day of carefree vacation and minimal obligations. Shopping was not included on that list. He was cranky enough to announce:

“I’m so angry, I can see my eyebrows.”

Until we got to T.J. Maxx and he found the “roll-y suitcases for our trip to the Grand Canyon!” and then the pair of pink sparkly shoes for his brand new baby 2nd cousin (which would be shipped to Cambridge, MA) and all the Cardinals shirts for his aunts:

“Lila! Lila! Look! This one would fit you just fine!” He held up the XL specimen to check the size against her shoulders.

Then Francis texted me:

“Bring me foods.”

After a few last-minute trip supplies at Aldi and Target, we were just about ready to hit the trail.

Puck spent the last part of his afternoon fashioning an outhouse for Donkey and Buck out of the cardboard box that once held the space ray gun coffee mug Curly gave El Oso for Christmas. What thrills in life.

Old Church, skies bursting over with that perfect evening blue patched with endless seams of dark clouds and gold.

While Puck screeched Bible songs down the hall, my tiny class heard Anselm’s argument for the existence of God, and confirmed that, in fact, only 432 angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Drove home under Halloween skies: dark spaceship clouds on fire orange. Puck and I enjoyed the moment, driving up home to El Oso involved in one of two tele-meetings on the evening.