Ch. 174; Vol. 10
Sometimes when we’re running behind, I have to coax Puck more than usual. 7:24 and still working on the yogurt and banana from his green director’s chair at the table. So I assisted with the socks and cowboy boots…
“Mom! It’s not going on all the way! My baby toe is not coo-lop-erating!”
He was fascinated with drawing strings of fat blue lightbulbs on his bulletin during the service. Black pen, blue highlighter. Concentrated. Purposeful. Even if I don’t always understand what that purpose is.
Another little girl had fallen for my son after Sunday School. Long brown hair, fat pink cheeks…
“I love you, Puck! Goodbye!”
“Mom! Anneliese is already going to be my girlfriend! I can’t have TWO AT THE SAME TIME!”
This certainly was a dilemma.
Joe was a mad-social-kid these days, more than even back in high school. If it wasn’t breakfasting on the cliffs of Castlerock with his girlfriend of four months, or attending Shakespeare with old choir friends, it was hiking with Boy Scout/home school buddies and checking out photos of exotic cars sent to him by a best bud on his honeymoon… [Sometimes I think these guys are still ten. I’m not kidding when I say this kid has been to more slumber parties than all his sisters, combined.] Anyway, it was like keeping tabs on a tornado ever since mid-winter. All that to say, Joe’s Sunday plans following “Church with Girlfriend” included “Making Fudge” at Jaya’s house.
Linnea also had plans. Right after church Mom and Dad drove her up towards Iowa meeting halfway with the Pie family for a week with Cherry. Five years separated by states, and still going strong.
Then Puck, who was no longer happy about that muscle man shirt, thought he’d be clever and hide it from me by stuffing it in the napkin bucket in Mom’s pantry. Then he just laughed about it when Carrie found him out.
Francis hustled out the door – faster than we had ever seen him hustle – when Carrie discovered that the fridge was empty of cheese. Whenever a greasy meal is on the line… Carrie fried bacon for the quesadillas while we discussed the news of the week. Then Francis browsed the bacon plate before Carrie caught him…
“FRANCIS! TOUCH IT, YOU DIE!!”
“OK, OK!”
“Did you put some in your pocket?”
He laughed, but we all know he’d do it if pressed. He escaped to lounge in the living room with Rose, Puck, and The Bear. Cary Grant, dancing caterpillars. Eclair chocolate ice cream bars. [Francis can never just go to the grocery store for one item.]
Claus and Rupert were going to miss the last game of – an unfortunate – Rangers series in town. So, in a conglomeration of my very early birthday and things, the tickets were purchased and in my wallet. So we played hooky from Sean De Silva’s installation service.
Of course there was that storm…
and deluge…
Three hours of rain delay later – soaked purple shoes, dried raspberries and pistachios, cracked javelins of lightening streaking the sky, about twelve rows back from the Rangers’ dugout – and we were still awake. Then, there he was…
…spitting sunflower seed corpses during the National Anthem. Not in uniform, but still there.
So it wasn’t the best series, and we would happen to be sitting behind a majorly obnoxious young female Texas fan in sparkly headband who didn’t always seem to understand the game properly, yelling…
“Good eye! Good eye!” when Wainwright’s strikes rocketed past the batters in blue.
About drove the older gentlemen sitting in our row right up the stadium walls…
“Hope she gets laryngitis,” he mumbled to his wife after awhile.
And then there was that kid in the back yelling intelligent and helpful cheers like…
“WORLD SERIES!!… I’M TWENTY-TWO!!”
But then as things started wrapping up, you could hear it scattered around the stadium…
“SEND OUT BERKMAN!”
“BIG PUMA!”
It didn’t do any good. And in the end, I didn’t get to see him play again after waiting another year for the opportunity, but he did do us the courtesy of failing to compete against his old team. He didn’t even walk out onto the field to congratulate his new teammates after their win. So… lose-win.
We fell asleep around 2:30 in the morning.
