Bing is 25

Friday, August 19, 2011
In which Bing’s belated 25th birthday is celebrated in hot-sauce style…

Five hours of sleep.
Crash! Rumble, rumble.
The storms had returned, and Collette was awake at 5:15.
The Edenly green of a morning of rain.
While Collette prepared Puck to leave for the morning, he recounted the time he had sat in the corner while being babysat by Dad and Francis.
“That silliness went on for some time,” he said, with a laugh.
Puck was very much into the methodology of events those days, and why he did what he did. When having spoken on the phone to his daddy the previous evening, and explaining the points of the day in which he had been disobedient or disrespectful…
“Sometimes we listen to God’s laws, and sometimes we do not.”

Back on the ranch…
Linnea’s volleyball season was about to begin; Junior Varsity team. However, the Varsity team (whose coach was apparently one of the best in the world and had coached in Guatemala) needed a sub and voted Linnea to take the position. So the possibility of her schedule being heavily packed for the next two months, was a high one.
Earnest was busy giving Carrie a licking-the-face-grooming session. He pretty much thought he was the king of the house.
Mom showed off her antique mercury glass votive, a gift from her friend, Mrs. O.
Linnea got busy building a house — much like an endless Mod-Egyptian labyrinth — of lapis and glowstone.
Carrie prepared fancy salads for lunch, incorporating tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, etc. Dad was not pleased with the tomatoes.
“They have to be diced,” he said.
“Well,” Carrie replied huffily, “I’m not cutting up your food like a baby.”
Dad managed a knife and fork.
Out came the Hawai’ian ukulele later…

In the afternoon, Puck busied himself beating rugs for his grandma in the backyard while she sanded down an antique metal stool to paint fire engine red. And Puck played in piles of dirt. He found a bucket of suds and dumped them on the patio.
“Look!” he cried, delighted. “My water artwork!”
Collette and Carrie returned from a Target-Dierberg’s run to finish creating Bing’s birthday-movie-night-feast. While Collette walked her half-hour, Carrie got to work on the chocolate bundt cake frosted in homemade sweet peanut butter frosting and topped in Reeses.
Meanwhile, Puck was anxious to obtain a certain object of interest from his aunt. Carrie taught him how to barter for it with a proffered Reeses.
“Tell her the offer expires in five seconds,” she instructed.
Linnea took the Reeses.
“See?” said Carrie. “It’s good to do trades.”
But Puck was eyeing the Reeses.
“Don’t you want to split that, Lila? ‘Cause that’s a little bit small…”
And because Rose wasn’t around to squish, Carrie was obliged to substitute Linnea in her place.
“What do you want for Christmas?” she asked. “Have you been a good little girl?”
Linnea was not going to miss the opportunity…
“A second ear piercing. An iPod Touch. And someone to order my jeans from Delia’s…”
Dad walked through the living room.
“Carrie, don’t squish your sister.”
“I’m training her for volleyball. Hey, Dad, turn out your pockets. Turn ’em out, Dad. I’m gonna have Francis start frisking you when you leave the kitchen.”
And the whole day was punctuated with Puck locating new sources of disaster in various rooms of the house…
“Sun! Bunny berries!”

Into the evening, Francis and Linnea took Puck back to the house to babysit.
And with Joe picking up the Buffalo Wild Wings, the other items were added, by suggestion of ‘a little birdie’, as they told Bing later… Jalapeno Pringles, Ranch Doritos with salsa, and root beer.
Rose returned from work with her Fiat paperwork and a giant road atlas they had tossed in for free with the obnoxious smile of Mater from Cars on the cover. Rose immediately began perusing possible routes for her first Fiat road trip.
Joe felt the need to commence spontaneous dancing-singing before he left for Buffalo Wild Wings…
“Where are the keys, Rose?”
“The keys to her heart?” Carrie teased.
“I ate them. They are now in my pancreas.”
And Joe started his snapping-waving-arms-off-rhythm-dance saying something about ‘Dear hot boyz… I love you soooooo much!’ and singing something about ‘Quit playing games with my heart, my heart…’ And dancing with the cat when necessary… Or was that Rose? Possibly, probably, both.
7:30. The boys arrived, and Bing discussed the oddness of now having lived a quarter-century. Happy Birthday sung to him around a sparkler-lit cake. All About Eve, a new feature for the majority of those there gathered.
As the film commenced, Pumpkin was being a pain, so Rose wedged her into the empty top shelf of the book case by the television. But the felines continued to hang around for hand-outs, so Snuggles was then predictably called…
“You fat lard of chicken.”
“Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be bumpy night,” said Bing. “Sorry. Just couldn’t resist.”

After eleven, when OLeif and Collette returned home, Francis had a confession to make…
“Oh, and I owe you half a watermelon.”