Always Entertained

Crackers bat unclipped paws on the patio glass. The wind. She can’t help but go crazy over it. And we had some great wind that morning and into the afternoon, when it dropped dull just before dinner. She had also woken me in the night – 3:03 a.m. – meowing a little pitifully, but it wasn’t enough to make me think I hadn’t dreamed it. So I didn’t open the basement door, and fell asleep again.

Puck – full of endless energy – began his first dance party of the morning blasting music through the house from every conceivable and/or available speaker on hand: Mexican pop, Ukrainian alternative Christian, James Herriot veterinarian stories, and Renaissance dirges. At the same time. Then he added pots, pans, and spoons. And the ukulele. Enough to make his mama want to laugh like a crazy woman.

At lunch, we heard about the Lewis baby from Old Church born earlier in the morning. Puck crunched into his cucumbers and thought about this new development.

“Are you excited to visit her in the hospital?” I asked, penning the potential Saturday morning visit into my calendar.

“YES! And I will still see her at church, right?”

“Yes.”

“But…” and here he crinkled his nose up like he does when slightly embarrassed. “I won’t be her in-law or something, right?”

It was after four o’clock, and Puck hauled his red toolbox of miscellaneous trinkets out to the driveway to “enjoy it while it lasts,” presumably the weather. Then he ran back inside for ten seconds, tossing up the red couch cushions to hunt for a single missing treasure. “Ketchup bottle!” He held it up to my face. The dollhouse kind. He also reported to me from the neighbor’s yard that, “The birds gobbled up two bagels in one week!” I watched him from behind the window, working on whatever, as he constructed a house of these gadgets on the cement, the occasional whir of passing traffic.

Following an all-day meeting for El Oso in Clayton, just blocks away from David Freese at Red Crush I later learned, he joined his compadre in the city to fix a fence.

I, meanwhile, resurrected a little “Monarch of the Glenn”, castle in the highlands at the turn of the century, the most recent one, that is. A little of my baseball interview stockpile, commentary on Puma’s retirement … hopeless circles. I like rhythm though. Old shoes still fit fine.

Then El Oso ordered me a pizza on the road: stuffed crust, extra cheese, minimal sauce. Good chap.