Ch. 145; Vol. 10
I eyed Puck’s attire, somehow wondering if the color of his jeans was bluer than usual…
“Are these really your church jeans?”
“Yes! They don’t have any holes!”
Thank you for that.
“I’m going to go down and talk to Snuggly.”
Ok.
Puck circled the deck with his Strider, telling the sad, sad story of Snuggly, to the mother bunny hopping around below in the yard.
A storm was coming in. You could almost smell it as we walked into the church.
“I counted four police officers,” Carrie told me later.
Including Mr. Hobcoggin. As usual, there were moments of embarrassment. You can’t attend a home school high school graduation without feeling like you owe an apology to invited guests for lack of consideration amongst many other things. The good thing was that, even with 60 students, the whole ceremony lasted under two hours. Which started out with Francis and his brief biography featuring his love of eating and napping with his cats. And Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering. Just had to throw that in there….
“So, Collette, weren’t you the first one to graduate with this group or something?” Dad ribbed me afterwards. “How long ago was that now?”
Nice one, Dad. Joke’s on him though, because I don’t care if anyone knows how old I am. And, yes, I was the first-ever graduate from the St. Charles group. Everyone has to be first in something.
McGurk’s Pub was Dad’s recommendation for lunch – all fifteen of us – including Grandma Combs, Uncle Mo, Aunt Petunia, Jaya, and Izzy. With thunder rumbling and lightening softly crackling, we were escorted to the covered brick-and-garden patio under heat lamps and strings of lights. Linnea handed a quarter to Puck which he tossed into the splashing fountain filled with fat orange goldfish.
“Storm, perfect,” said Rose. “Anyone else would be like, ‘Oh, it’s raining. Rats.’”
Not this crew.
“I wish there was something that just said ‘Burger’,” said Francis, looking over the menu, who would always just end up ordering a chunk of meat no matter where he went.
They were playing a decent collection of tunes from the Oldies. Carrie recognized one selection in particular…
“Here’s your theme song, Dad. Wait for it… wait for it…”
I’m a Soul Man. Dad had a funny story from back in the day about that.
So we had a lot of plates of stuff chucked out to us, including a three-cheese sandwich for myself, of course. And Rose didn’t finish her burger as usual. Dad just shook his head. So Rose began interpreting the shapes of her potato chips as eyeballs and hearts and other things, handing them to Francis to eat one at a time, while Puck gave Francis tips on finding a girlfriend…
“You should take her to Hawai’i! No, to Tennessee!”
“DAD! GUESS WHAT!” Puck bellowed as we left the parking lot. “I have a crush on ANNELIESE!”
“Oh you do, eh?”
“Yeah! And GUESS WHAT!”
“What?”
“I have a crush on a BUILDING! AH HA HA HA HA HA!”
Oh, my son.
Izzy had something like ten graduation parties over the next two days, so he was gone soon. Two Donna-Doctor-Who’s for us and a nap for The Bear before we got home and picked up groceries. Orange cream Greek yogurt, Häagen-Dazs limoncello gelato, a green compact pop-up brush and mirror – that was The Bear’s allowance for Puck – and a make-your-own-mini-pizzas in a box for Puck’s dinner.
Google Hangout with the folks in Austin right before Puck’s bedtime. Kitts made Baby Elvis wave a hand to Puck. Puck, who had been making crazy faces at babies all day, grinned…
“I wish I could jump into the computer!”
And the ritual Happy Hollisters.
We must be spoiled.
[*Goldfish photo courtesy of Puck.]