Ch. 165; Vol. 10
Stabbing tomato, basil, and baby bell with two-pronged wood skewers.
That’s where my Friday morning was. Mom was hosting Annamaria’s bridal brunch. Carrie – brown hair whisked back sloppy – prepping the food. Rose organizing the final details of the decorations, grumbling about the spring green/yellow skirt she was wearing because it was “too fancy”. Linnea applying eyeliner in the bathroom because she hadn’t fallen asleep till 1:30 that morning. And myself – pinning caprese salad skewers after depositing my son at Nana’s for the morning.
Twenty women know how to stir up the volume…
The littlest English girl sat at the small kitchen table gobbling her Viennese crescent cookies and asked…
“Why is everyone so loud?”
That’s a question I often ask myself, too.
Imported from the kitchen of our very own baker from church – pound cake, gingersnaps, jelly cookies, other cookies, stolen. The crowd was pleased.
And the bunnies made an appearance for the younger girls, and older girls, to ooh-and-aah over.
Diana and I reminisced on how “easy” kids like Eleda and Linnea have it now. High school sports teams? Boyfriends, girlfriends? Pierced ears and make-up before 13th birthdays? What was this strange new world bequeathed to our younger siblings at such a young age? Guinea pigs.
And half the girls, including Mom and my sisters, lugged all supplies into the Big Green, to decorate the church and Elks Lodge.
Sometimes in the mix of a weekend like this, it’s interesting to take two steps back and just imagine where everyone else is around that event. Strangers walking by, in their cars, nothing to do with brunches and dinners and weddings at that hour. Everyone has their own world.
Puck hauled his airplane to the car, old keys jangling in his plaid pocket. He clicked the buckle. As we drove away, he expanded on his time at Nana’s…
“Izzy and I had a long conversation together about church today.”
He informed me of this fact like a bank manager reciting monthly reports.
“Is that so?”
“I told him that we might leave church, but that’s ok that I told him because he’s my uncle.”
The kid talks a lot, so we have to warn him sometimes about certain subjects.
He analyzed his cranberry-raspberry applesauce pack in the check-out, after informing a woman in the opposite check-out that she could take off the “stick divider thing” because we were headed for another check-out line.
“What’s taking so long?” he asked for the third time.
An Hispanic woman and her mother waited in front of us with three or four separate purchases involving gallons of 2%, paychecks, mangoes, and chickens. The computers didn’t like something involving a coupon for wheat bread.
“There is never an appropriate time for you to ask that question,” I told him.
He didn’t ask again.
We passed a kid sitting in a cart with a new shiny green and black two-wheeler in the basket…
“Nice bike!” Puck congratulated him importantly.
No strangers.
Computer issues. Asian pork tenderloin, mashed spuds, and veggies on the patio. That was our evening at the Salthouse home. I think Puck’s mind was blown a little right off the way. Not only was a baby bunny dining in the yard, nibbling sweet green grass, but Peter had grand ideas for Minecraft mods and fantastic things only two boys could get excited about and forget to order a third helping of mashed potatoes…
“And you can turn into a chicken, too.”
Puck’s eyes danced.
Somehow while The Bear and Nicodemus wrapped up the technological morphing, it was almost ten o’clock. Ivy had sliced up the watermelon, also offering purple grapes, and dished out the warm apple pie with vanilla bean ice cream.
Puck and Peter tore it up with Matchbox cars, little ball gizmos that popped open into space creatures – which Peter generously offered for Puck to take home – and more Minecraft demonstrations and constructions.
It wasn’t surprising that Puck received another eleven o’clock bedtime that night. Somehow he kept the peepers open until that time, dreaming about dogs and chickens and giants and all sorts of incredible things he would become in Minecraft on Saturday morning.
“Don’t get out of bed until the clock reads eight tomorrow,” The Bear advised him.
Snores were not long coming.
