A Time to Pack
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Collette woke up at one o’clock in the morning with a sore back, swollen fingers on her right hand, and the effects of other odd dreams. She stiffly moved herself out onto the couch in the living room and drifted off to sleep until seven the next morning. Some nights were just like that.
And considering that bad weather had, and was continuing to move, into Florida, the crew had decided to head home Friday, arriving early Saturday morning.
Around town, the wind was whipping, freezing and whipping. People huddled themselves into their coats under the cold sunshine as they went about their Saturday activities.
Rose had decided to spend the first part of her day, helping to finish painting the youth annex with the other youth helpers and their parents. And the evening was reserved for a surprise birthday party, also attended by Joe, Wally, Annamaria and Tor, Curly, and others.
Saturday morning saw OLeif and Collette running around town, bringing over seven boxes of dishes to the house, purchasing paint for the kitchen, and a refrigerator (courtesy of Theodore who also brought them to two separate stores to find the best refrigerator). This was followed with a much needed lunch and more packing for Collette while OLeif prepared to leave for a rehearsal and memorial service at church, where he would be playing violin. He soon hurried off into the cold wind in his black trench coat, violin in hand.
And in other news, Lilli had still not had the baby; either way, “it” would be born no later than Tuesday. She was six days overdue as it was. But in the meantime, Aunt Corliss had called Mom about Polly’s wedding, which has been moved up to May 19th, the same day as Peter’s and Julia’s wedding, hopefully not overlapping. Polly had found an old antebellum plantation not too far away, where she hoped to have the ceremony and reception. It wasn’t easy trying to coordinate a wedding in St. Louis from Boston. Aunt Corliss was definitely doing the leg-work in preparation for the big day, now only three months away.
Everyone had an interesting story. Polly’s? – that she was working on her doctorates in religious studies at Harvard and was engaged over Christmas to a Guatemalan Harvard Law School graduate, who had just been doing some work in China that past autumn. Everyone had something a little unique.
Meanwhile, Diana was back in town for a day and the Englishs invited OLeif and Collette over for dessert, following dinner which they had already shared with a family from the old days of Immanuel; (the mother of the family had watched Collette in the nursery at the time). OLeif and Collette ended up staying for three and a half hours over a good ham and potato casserole and mint chocolate chip cookies, six of which Diana ate, before she had realized how many she had eaten.
The evening was spent in conversation: how OLeif looked like Francis Schaeffer, preparations for the baby, and word on Diana’s roommate, Lema Nada, who was a senior at Wheaton, worked at the British consulate downtown, and came from California where her mother was an interior designer with million-dollar clients. And so Lema knew the tricks of the trade and was refurbishing their basement apartment – had painted the walls a certain lettuce green, the kitchen shades of dark red, was going to reupholster a couch which they had found at a second-hand shop, made special dinners every night, had plans for fancy hors d’oeuvres parties, murder mystery parties… Between the two of them, they had already invited about 60 people to their house-warming ice cream social that month.
Later, while Mr. English snagged OLeif for seven rounds of pool in the basement, and after the other family had left, Mrs. English, Diana, and Collette headed over to the little house.
“Oh, I want a house,” Diana said mournfully, upon finishing the brief tour.
Although Diana did like her apartment. On the way back she told them the story of how she and her roommate had purchased the couch at the second-hand shop. Not wishing to wait an extra three days to have it delivered to their apartment in her roommate’s boyfriend’s truck, they had marched down Main Street to the shop, and told the little old ladies there that they had come to take their couch. After being told to pull their vehicle around to the back, both girls explained that they were going to carry it away. After the shock had worn away from the little old ladies, Diana and her roommate began taking mincing steps down Main Street carrying a very heavy couch towards their apartment. This ridiculous situation continued until one of the Wheaton professors happened by in his PT Cruiser and hauled the couch the rest of the way. As a gesture of much thanks, the girls had discovered that this professor loved Dunkin’ Donuts, and they had plans to leave a coffee and bag of donuts on his desk before class one day.
The evening ended around the wood-burning stove. Eve had also returned from work and was snuggled up in a blanket and slippers.
“I love coming home on the weekends,” Diana said.