Another Gone
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
The weather had cooperated for school children everywhere. Snow was thick. Thick enough to cancel everything of educational value.
Puck was up at six with his daddy and a somewhat green Guatemalan banana.
When Collette joined them, Puck was concerned, still, about their radio having ‘been taken’, and Collette tried to explain that the Classical music was no longer on the radio, but that it was still on the Internet. Puck was not appeased.
“They stole our music!” he declared. “The Bible says… punch them!”
“No, it doesn’t say that…”
“I will play my ‘biolin’ to have them bring the music back.”
At breakfast…
Puck had a hankering to have his milk warmed again.
“You should like cold milk,” Collette told him. “You’re a big boy now.”
“Well,” Puck looked for a good reply, “I…. don’t exist.”
Then back to the Marbleworks, in which Puck was finding creative ways to prop up his artistry, including his apple green thermos.
“I fixed it!” he announced. “With all my life!”
Meanwhile…
OLeif was home for the day, and locked away in the library until the lunch hour.
And Collette and Puck headed into the snow.
It was cold, yes, but Puck had a blast sitting in the snow shovel while Collette gave him a running start down the driveway, and then, much as in curling, let him go, after which he slid on his snow-suited bum across the snow.
A smoked turkey went into the oven around the lunch hour and a giant pot of soup with paprika on the stove. OLeif was apparently in absolute food heaven. And Collette did not even grumble about the whole ordeal of working on two cooking projects at once, despite the currently indisposed dishwasher.
And Collette showed Puck the photo collection of her Israeli artifacts, to where Puck began a narration of explanation as she flipped through them…
“That’s a rock.” [pottery sherd]
“That’s a pizza.” [coin]
“Rock.”
“Pizza.”
“Rock.”
“Pizza.”
At three o’clock, OLeif emerged for the day to head out into the snow, all a-thunder with plans to sled down the driveway, this time in an old Tupperware box, which worked even better than the shovel.
Then inside for a bubble bath and some violin-ing for OLeif to Andrew Bird — sort of in the vein of Italian-Spanish cafe — with Puck working away on the bugle.
Smoked turkey wraps, after the usual prayer, which had morphed into the beginning of…
“Dee-or Jesus…”
And cuties, which Puck loved. Plus ‘snow ice cream’, which OLeif made from a large bowl of snow, vanilla, and stevia. Puck was thrilled and consumed three tiny red teacups of it.
Into the evening… the same, the usual, the good old night routine, with Puck once again falling asleep to OLeif reading to him from the rocking chair.
And early that morning, Mrs. Chalke had gone home, as they put it: ‘restored at last’.