Back on the Ranch...
Wednesday, January 12, 2016
Back on the ranch…
Mom and Dad were preparing for the possibility of driving to Nebraska to Mrs. Chalke’s memorial service. She had gone peacefully, and her last battle had been, mercifully, a short one.
The previous day, Mom and Mrs. O had taken the kids sledding at Quail Ridge Park. The kids went sledding while the moms sat in the car drinking hot chocolate.
“…with multiple piles of whipped cream,” said Mom.
“And Linnea and I did a double-sled,” said Francis, “and Linnea went flying off.”
“And twisted my ankle,” Linnea finished, dourly.
Meanwhile…
Carrie had scones waiting on the counter, baked on Monday. And there was a package of Reeses peanut butter cups in the pantry.
“They’re calling you, Collette,” said Francis with a grin.
Francis had his finger stuck in the back of his mouth for the better part of the morning, trying to pull a wire away from the side of his mouth.
“Mom,” he said, “can you call the dentist and tell him he goofed?”
Puck found Collette’s first violin case in the basement, which was musted over in various areas.
“It’s ‘pahtaminated,’” he explained loudly.
Speaking of contamination…
“I got that old fridge out of the basement,” Rose had announced. “I duct-taped the doors shut and drew a skull and crossed bones on it. It’s been unrefrigerated for a year.”
“Does it still have that dead watermelon in it?” Collette asked.
“Yup.”
Rose had plans to start on the deep freeze next.
Around the toaster oven for lunch…
Puck was busy playing with a collapsable cube featuring various photographs of art. He saw a picture of a woman sculpted in relief.
“Well you know,” he said, “some girls have beards. Lila told me. I’ve got to grow some pickles (prickles) on my face.”
“Let’s see you grow some,” said Carrie.
“No. I’m not big enough yet. My ears are still soft. I’m still little.”
Joe returned from finalizing his last semester of art classes at Flo.
And Collette’s eyes were watery and burning from something in the air, perhaps.
Into the afternoon…
Joe relaxed in a coffee bath-bomb bath.
Gone with the Wind trivia.
Oberweiss truffles.
A clothing shipment for the cruise, including a sun dress for Carrie, a swimsuit for Linnea, and a top covered in roses print for Mom. Rose also had a long blue and gray striped sweater.
Next, the subject of fruit flies surfaced…
“Did you see that one over the microwave that could hardly take off?” Rose asked.
“I have to admit, they have gotten stupider,” said Mom.
“That’s because they get fat and they get senile.”
Then updates of the ladies’ Bible study, to which Rose had brought an ‘amazing’ fruit salad. She had also signed up to bring baked potatoes for the women’s shelter.
And dinner arrived with lasagne before pushing off in the cold to church for the revival of youth group and children’s choir.
The kids were amazingly well behaved, and were learning all the better how to sing. But Collette was still beat by the end of it, and thankful for a warm bed and a glass of cold water back home. And Mark Twain’s account of Mormon polygamy in 1800’s Utah… o, yuck.
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
— Augustine