August 3
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The dentist. 10:00 in the morning. It was already six months later.
Firstly, while OLeif had completed setting up an elaborate system of wires, speakers, and computers to the television in the basement, Puck was busy collecting DNA samples from his parents. He held Collette’s palm-dictionary in his hand and went to both OLeif and Collette, pulling imaginary samples from their hair, eyes, and pretending to remove noses, which were then air-stuffed into the waggling flap of the dictionary’s cover.
Upon arriving at the house, Mom was just preparing to leave for Iowa to join Dad for two days. As they waved her off, Puck hurried over to Francis on the porch.
“Mama’s leavin’ now too,” he said. “She’s goin’ to the police officer.”
Where he got his ideas…
The dentist was the same: painless, quiet, and the good feeling of clean. The pretty Indian woman who was the head dentist of the day, came to see her afterwards. Upon inspection, she smiled and said, “Everything’s just great! You’re the patient of the day.”
Upon return, Francis was busy cutting away at the neighbor’s yard, while Carrie sent down red Gatorade to him in shifts. And Puck was inside, just having completed a reading spree with Carrie.
Collette asked him if he had to use ‘the loo’. A look of surprise came over his face, as if he had not considered this idea recently. He popped off his chair and hurried down the hall, saying, quite seriously, “I gotta use dah loo. ‘Cause den Grandma would say, ‘Oh… oh, no, Puck! You made an aksident on my… my, my, beautiful chair!”
Meanwhile, Carrie was busy with meatballs in preparation for grilled subs that evening, and also had Collette sample a tasty test-batch of crème brûlée for Grandma Combs on Friday while Collette made Francis, upon request, ‘one of [her] signature quesadillas’, as he had put it. (Not unlike her ‘signature egg sandwiches’ the day before, also upon request.) And then 24 red velvet cupcakes for movie night.
Nearing one o’clock, a package arrived in the mail for Carrie from Grewe. Swimming goggles and water torpedos.
Carrie laughed, “Well, she knows that I love swimming and hate war…”
Meanwhile, the day was blistering.
Shortly after two, both girls and Puck visited Grandpa with one of the cupcakes. He was heartily involved in singing tunes from the old days with friends around the piano (a.k.a. keyboard), led by a slim girl, with dark red hair knotted at the nape of her neck, wearing glasses, who might have been 25 or 35… difficult to say. She cheerfully led them in song and passed out another songbook to Carrie at Grandpa’s request, after which they joined them in singing Meet me in St. Louis.
And then home for more books, including Puck’s newest favorite, a book that Carrie had written and illustrated years ago for Francis, entitled, Fred the Fish. In fact, Puck liked it so much that, after having been read it only three times, he read it aloud to himself, remembering a good deal of the words, and giggling loudly the whole way through. It was a hit.
It was movie night, as Rose had plans in the Loop the following evening. Lasagne, red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and half of the three-hour Quo Vadis with one of Collette’s favorites, Peter Ustinov.
Carrie-Bri and Rose had signature greetings and farewells to each other over the phone. The hello was simple enough, but the goodbye, taken from a Cary Grant film, was quasi-humiliating enough, that Rose did not like to say it while at work. “Remember my dimple, Charlie!” as a sign off, was apparently just a little too embarrassing.