A Week's Time
Since Wednesday of August 19th, the days had progressed quickly…
Wednesday
The Colorado crew returned in the evening after a few wonderful days of biking, horseback riding, hiking, Chinese food prepared by Mom’s cousin, Clancey, etc., etc.
A thunderstorm in the night.
Thursday
Puck had seen a trailer of blue Johnny-on-the-spots heading down the highway that morning.
“Tardises!” he cried out happily. “Tardises!”
Then he took his stuffed donkey and carefully chastised him for some unknown offense.
“Don’t do that ‘gain, donkey. Ok? Get apple juice. Ok?”
That evening, Rose joined OLeif and Collette for Blackbeard’s Ghost, sparkling red grape juice that she confiscated from work (leftovers), and a pan of chocolate brownies that Rose prepared and decided to add two special ingredients: peppermint extract and… cumin. Surprisingly, it was a rather tasty outcome.
Friday
Collette caught Puck chewing on a bag of Francis’ unused rubberbands intended for his braces.
Then he started rolling up random items in Mom’s rattan placemats.
Carrie-Bri returned later from a hike with Grewe, and a visit to the Korean grocery store. She brought back pocky sticks for Puck (thin crunchy sticks dipped in chocolate), squid jerky (one of her favorite snacks), and Japanese sodas (complete with glass marbles to activate the fizz).
Meanwhile, Puck had found his old green grocery cash register. He very importantly walked around the house, telling everyone that he had to go ‘work on his computer’.
Dad came out for a break from the studies later on, and commenced with another punch-the-shoulder fist fight with Francis, as they congratulated each other on good hits.
The best news of the day: Judah and Evangeline were expecting their first baby in April, only one day before Gus’ third birthday.
And the skies were almost fantastical that evening, with patterns of beautiful clouds and sunlight.
Saturday
On the way to take care of Sebastian and the cats at the Silverspoon’s house (who were all in Tennessee for the weekend), OLeif, Collette, and Puck passed the long line of bikers in the big Missouri bike race.
And that evening, they were joined by Joe, Magnus, and Rose for discussions of Magnus’ latest line of sketches incorporating cyan acrylic paints, over a box of strawberry wafer cookies, and Casablanca.
Sunday
Sunday brought news of Judah and Evangeline preparing to possibly enter the foreign mission field, just as Judah was preparing for an eleven day take-leave of mission work in Rwanda.
But not before he called out a ‘nice shades in the back there,’ to Puck during early morning music rehearsal, where Puck was running around the sanctuary wearing his sunnies and grinning big.
Back at the house, Collette read to him “The Good Humor Man” until Mom returned to prepare stromboli.
After his nap, Puck took after his uncles by throwing dirt in the backyard while Mom and Francis sat chatting at the picnic table and the cats sunned themselves.
Beautiful, remarkable weather.
Monday
Volcano Day.
When Mount Vesuvius erupted over Pompeii back in 79 AD.
And that evening, Collette and Rose worked on organizing the basement, then watched half of the lengthy original Japanese feature, The Seven Samurai.
Tuesday
Collette’s laptop was restored via FedEx, repaired, and with a new smoothly-grained keyboard casing.
She and Puck read books together on the couch, with the washing machine beating out a tribal drum solo from the basement, until Mom dropped off Carrie, Francis (to mow the lawn), and Linnea.
Before leaving for the grocery store that afternoon, Puck walked over to Collette inquisitively.
“Mama? I’m gonna get wittle brudder?” he asked with a huge grin. “From Cwumbia? (Colombia)”
For dinner there was stir fry, and Rose singing “Moon River” in various foreign accents before math tutorage.
She had also successfully trained Puck (while reading to him “Goodnight Moon”) to answer the question, ‘What do stars say?’
Puck would grin big and say,
“Tweenkle. Tweenkle.”