Castles for Sale & Greens-Loving Spiders
Thursday, June 1, 2006
And so it was a gray and cooler day that Thursday at the office. Diana would be home in two days, the Hobcoggins were on their way to Oklahoma for four days, and Judah and Evangeline would be married in two. Joe was to clean “Nemo”, Judah’s orange Ford Focus that day, provided it did not rain too heavily. Judah came in to the office later with a friend (whom Collette presumed to be his best man) to trade out staplers for some wedding project.
“Collette!” Judah whined, coming up the stairs, “we need help!”
And the fiendish stapler (which would staple once, and then not staple again till it was opened and then re-closed again) was exchanged for the better bulletin stapler.
Later, as the rain poured and the thunder cracked, OLeif sent Collette a link listing castles for sale around the world. One 13th century beauty was selling for just under one million euros. The advertisement read as follows:
Located in the hart of a caract village, and at 5 mn from a town with 20000 peoples, this nice property will offer you a charming Castle from the XIIIth century composed by 3 rooms of reception, 6 bedrooms, 5 bathroom, library, and many other rooms. Orangery, outbuilding (2 X 300 m2), superb wooded park closed by ramparts (with watch tower) with 1 ha (possibility to build). Very nice view on the valley and the Pyrénées.
Region: Pyrénées
Price: 995,000 euros
As far as the wedding was concerned, there was to be a rehearsal at 5:00 the next evening, where OLeif would play violin. Dinner would be at 6:30 in the barn. The next morning, while Dad and Mom attended Haiku Cuthbertson’s wedding (a girl from their first church, Immanuel Baptist, sixteen years before) while OLeif followed Judah and the other guys around, taking pictures. Then he would have a final check-up with the music, play during the ceremony, and then he would play music with Curly and Izzy during the cheese and wine reception in the barn (while the wedding party had their pictures taken at a stranger’s lovely house in Cottleville), followed by a sandwich and cake reception back in the church, and then dancing in the barn, and taking more pictures. It promised to be a rather crazy day.
Later, Sasha Popples came through the office while Rosemary worked on several things and went out to buy a clock for the sanctuary wall with Ivy. Sasha carried a camouflage backpack which read: Iraqi Freedom. She had received it from a soldier whom she had written over in Iraq. The gal also sent her Iraqi coins. Meanwhile, Rosemary was trying to convince Sasha that it was OK to marry a guy who was younger than herself. But apparently Sasha already had her man picked out at the lovely age of ten.
During the afternoon as the rainstorms continued to roll through, Mr. Scone called the church office, trying to track down the name of a lady who was to make Judah and Evangeline a tray created from an old oval mirror and decoupaged (perhaps). She had enlisted the help of Mr. Scone (who loved historical items) to find some glass handles to affix to the tray. Mr. Scone had found some beauties, which had been all the rage at the turn of the century in 75 various colors and everything. But he couldn’t remember the ladies’ name, to whom he had spoken.
Meanwhile, as Collette prepared a salad that night, she was horrified to discover a smug little spider sitting on a discarded broccoli stalk in the sink, lethargic from being cooled in the fridge overnight in the lettuce, or the broccoli. Before smashing him in the garbage disposal, Collette thought it might be a brown recluse, and hoped that she hadn’t been bit. She looked up spider pictures and kept imagining that she could feel welts forming on her fingers. She decided never to buy lettuce again, and decided not to let OLeif eat the salad.
“ME WANT SALAD!” He bellowed over instant messenger.
Collette refused.
“No, they only eat veggies alone,” he insisted. “They are embarrassed because spiders are supposed to be scary meat eating creatures. Not silly little vegetarians. I mean, who would be afraid of a veggie eating spider? He’d be laughed out of the community! Spiders don’t stay in packs anyway. Didn’t you see Charlotte’s Webb?”
And so Collette consented; but she still refused to eat it herself. And that didn’t bother her anyway; she hated salad.
Later that evening, they discussed Rose and how she came up with stubbornly ridiculous phrases, such as, Hello, stupids!, when entering a room.
“Oh, it’s going to be so funny when Rose gets married,” OLeif chuckled later that night. “She’ll be up there with the guy after they say their vows and she’ll be like, Kiss me, stupid!”