Amours mi font souffrir peine a tort,

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Bitter cold. That was the way Collette liked it. And it was bitter cold that morning. Blue clouds on a yellow sunrise.

The office brought the usual laughs, now that Ivy was in full-gear back from vacation. She did manage to call a file folder “You Goob” before the day was out, seeing as it displayed the wrong alphabetical letter on its tab.

And Judah decided that the Snicketts baby should be called “Pipsqueak” or “Pip” for short, by the office staff.

Meanwhile, Rosie Hatch had dropped by a gift for the baby. And she chatted with Judah and the ladies for awhile, telling them about the cow tail she had at home, ready to be eaten. Apparently she had received dibs of part of a cow, from somewhere.

“Or rather, I’ll give it to you, Rosemary,” Rosie chuckled, not wild about the cow tail. “What do you think?”

“Aww, now if you had gotten the nose, I really wanted the nose,” Rosemary said, refusing the offer of the tail.

“Well how about I give it to Judah for Christmas then?”

Judah might have taken it, seeing as he also enjoyed cow tongue, which he said tasted like corned beef.

That evening, back at the apartment, someone had a bonfire going nearby. Collette could smell it in the air, the colored leaves were dancing on the streets, and the winds were just right. The skies were just the shade of blue only October could make, right before sunset.

But the bitterest cold was coming late that night, early the next morning. Collette reminded Rose to bring in Mom’s pink geranium on the front porch, lest it freeze.

That night, Collette dreamt of giant colored leaves with different patterns on a river boat in southern Asia strung with little white lights sailing past Badlands bluffs and chartered by two or three young Eastern Europeans. Rose snapped enough pictures of the scenery to make her lens nearly burst.