After Red

Monday Night:

“Now, it’s just time for you to go to sleep now. I don’t want you playing or doing anything. You just need to go to sleep now.”

This one-sided conversation coming from Puck’s room intrigued me. And though it was past his bedtime, I still asked him what was going on back there.

“Uh . . . You just never know if your toys will come alive when you’re asleep. So I’m just telling them to go to sleep. Because I just don’t want to freak myself out by seeing toys playing in the night.”

Tuesday morning: powdered sugar snow. Not much, but enough for a four degree windchill even by the afternoon. El Oso took the Mazda. Puck lounged in the pale square of sunshine on my bed like a cat. He was on school break and didn’t have any pressing matters to attend to. This relaxed manner carried over into his chores.

“Patience, my friend,” he told me coolly.

Part of my morning was spent cleaning out and organizing the hundreds of pennies and Legos on Puck’s floor, stretching out my back as much as possible. I was still sore from standing so many hours over the weekend. Worth it. Puck mildly assisted with the cleaning, mostly so that I wouldn’t toss any of his “precious-er” items. I saw him later on the couch smashing goldfish crackers in a pencil box with a small hammer.

I slipped a peppercorn pork tenderloin into the oven for dinner – one of Aldi’s finest – while Puck splashed in the tub. Cold rose-lit sunset. Half an hour later he shoveled mashed spuds in his space shuttle jams, waiting on the tenderloin and taking in an “I Love Lucy”. His conclusion on the advised card-deck sized meat portion, surfaced with mild gagging.

“It’s so spicy. Feel my throat. It’s warm.”

He finished it anyway. Crackers batted one of the small discards around the linoleum. I guess she wasn’t a fan of pepper either.

El Oso walked through the door after 8:30. If his days were anything in the last months, they were meetings, meetings, and yet one more meeting. Pinned him to work, like a butterfly on a board. It doesn’t seem to bother him too much, but then again, what does bother El Oso?

Puck’s Blog: Day #22

I love cardboard. I’m going to build a house with connecters that connect things. A fat house. There will be one room with furniture made of cardboard. Everything in my house will be made of cardboard. I got a brand new Moses book. Just now, I’m going to continue it.