All the Strands

“Ug, Francis. It makes me sick to look at you.”

“What? It’s not that bad.”

“It is so bad.”

“Just take a little bit of it off.”

“I feel like I’m shaving a goat. I can’t do this.”

On Dad’s 57th birthday, this was the conversation floating back from the living room. Francis was in need of a beard trim, and Carrie wasn’t happy about administering it.

“Fine. Let me shave off the whole thing.”

“No!”

“Then let me just test a little bit on this side…”

“Carrie! You can’t do a test!”

Two years later, the old perfume bottle had run out. So earlier that morning, Carrie and I made the drive through sunshine and biting cold to Clayton where we hunted around for a good new scent.

I probably haven’t spent that much dough on a single item for myself – other than Cardinals tickets of course – since high school. But it was going to last me awhile. French-milled l’Occitane’s “Acacia”, black locust and mimosa. I like those “wood-y” scents. Of course, with my busted sense of smell, Carrie was my “nose” for the morning, and I was pleased with the results.

We followed up that success – I guess the entire research and purchase took about twenty minutes – with soft pretzels.

Meanwhile, Puck was having a good day at school. His report had been a success. The remains of his chocolate coins sat beside him in the cardboard treasure chest for the drive home.

“Can I have a chocolate coin, Mom?”

“No, pal. You still have a cold. And you had a lot of sugar at those parties over the weekend. You had cake and…”

“Cupcakes, Mom. Not cake.”

“Same thing. And soda. That has sugar in it too.”

“Mom! I only had soda. I was honest. I could have had a beer, but I didn’t. They offered it to me.”

In Puck’s world, where “beer” naturally means “root beer”, caffeine also equals sugar. I’m not sure how he categorizes “soda” yet.

We ended our evening with quesadillas, carrots, blueberries, and a strange clash of Camelot and spacemen in Disney’s 1979 – “Unidentified Flying Oddball”. Puck was glued.