Ch. 152; Vol. 20
“DAD!”
– Boom. Door flies open. I was awake enough to understand that the emergency did not involve any relevant tornadic activity. –
“DAD! Can you go put Crackers downstairs? I’m trying to sleep and she’s pounding ON MY CHEST!”
That was around seven o’clock this morning.
Weldon Spring was goofed up some from the alleged tornado in the late evening. About a sixteenth of a mile from my parents’ house. Trees all bungled up and rolling debris. The chain on the map Friday night had been extended and freckled in red and fuchsia.
Puck is too young to see the big picture. I guess everyone is on some level. But he doesn’t know anything about riots in Turkey and twisters in Oklahoma. His world is a box with curious tentacles exploring the shadows beyond it. One item in that box is Minecraft…
“It’s a big DYMANITE box [yes “dymanite”], and it took a long time but I managed.”
And his Strider bike…
“MOM! COME OUTSIDE QUICK! HELP ME RESCUE THE WORMS! It’s a WORM ATTACK!”
And one of those little tentacles is Geocaching, suggested as a new experience by The Bear. The concept of a treasure hunt sent Puck into mad stomps of laughter.
And I was left at home for a cool, birdsong morning of chores and Korean dramas.
Treasures; tiny cars and buttons and light-up whistles. And mud. Mud. Mud.
I left them to sop up the petri dishes decorating their clothing for more elegant matters.
Because… Ivy knows how much I love a good baby shower. I knew it before I opened the white envelope in the mail a couple of weeks ago. So instead of taking in the action of a double-header in the city or even returning a too-short curtain rod to Wal-Mart [UGG…] I was driving Mom and myself to the corner edge of St. Charles County for Ivy’s daughter’s party. I somehow get the idea my sarcasm isn’t shining through here as well as I intended.
“The roof got ripped off the school.”
Joe texted me that while I was behind the wheel. The school – well – you could walk about two blocks’ worth to the school from Mom’s and Dad’s. A few roofs and upper levels were obliterated in the millionaire’s quarter a few miles further in. I guess that dredge of low hanging cloud was about as severe as I had thought. It spawned about half an hour later. Maybe less.
But Mom and I were sitting with pink tissue paper, lemonade, and platters of blackberries, strawberries, and Heaven Scent chocolate cake. And a little Cardinals talk. I’m not the only baseball nut around here. Proof in the tiny Cards hoodie for the baby. So tornados were forgotten for awhile.
Then I won a ten dollar Culver’s gift card, without even trying. That went to Dad. And the potted flowers in pink – daisy style – went to Carrie, because plants like to die when they see my face.
The clouds were packed in the sky by now, as I joined the boys for the library and the music shop. High sails, fast. And with a double-header downtown, there was still more rain somewhere out there. A guitar string for the cigar box banjo – yes, The Bear had already snapped one of them. Papa Murphy’s pizza pick-up to meet Izzy back at the Silverspoon’s – Theodore and Gloria were still down in Texas – before he went to the youth theater to see… The Little Mermaid. Yes, The Little Mermaid. Of course Joe was going, too. Mom had already been. We keep some tight circles around here.
Muddy, muddy. Puck left the rope swing after a short round for pizza and cheesy bread and other fun things indoors…
“Ta DA!”
He was head-standing on Gloria’s good chair.
The kid basically ate half the platter of cheesy bread…
“One MORE, Mom? One MORE?”
Wild eyes. Like he was hopped up on yeast and dairy [and that bitter oil they coat the bottom of the bread pan with that makes me not want to eat another one, really]. I mean most of the time when I see my son these days he has both arms thrown straight up in the air, running around back and forth like a half SpongeBob part Calvin and Hobbes and half Garfield. Why should this surprise me?
Except for the SpongeBob part.
That one I don’t understand.
He’s been sort of banned from that one for awhile now.
[*Field photos courtesy of The Bear and his fancy iPhone that occasional cooperates for my fingertips.]
Adoption Status: Down: 3 years, 9 months; To Go: 2 years, 6 months.