Chapter Eighty-Nine
ACHOO!!
“Cover your mouth, bud.”
“Ok.”
ACHOO!!
“Bud…”
“I’m trying, Mom. I just had somethin’ in my lungs. That’s all.”
40+ eggs into boiling water.
Two. Hours. Later. The 84 eggs or something were done, and with no great disaster to my kitchen counters. I wasn’t feeling super shoppy or anything, but Puck needed a comforter for his upcoming bunk bed, and…
We walked through the sliding glass doors of the red store, hoping for interesting things and quiet aisles. Bingo. Four sheets of stickers in bright colors, sea creatures, for “Baby Hesed” and a pack of cool artsy crayons for his third birthday. Maybe it would get to Ethiopia by mid-April. A variety of small notebooks and folders. We just get roped in too easily. Way too easily. Never let me walk down an aisle stocked with paper and pens. The big purchase of the morning arrived in the form of an Angry Birds twin comforter. And red t-shirt sheets. Puck toted the bag beside him, which made more contact with the floor than his hand.
And, because we sort of needed them – running shoes. Red for Puck, purple for me. Same brand. So we found some success. Although I’m pretty sure I bought him girls’ shoes by mistake. He wouldn’t know the difference…
Corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes waited for us at the Silverspoon’s. Puck watched the meat boil, anxious to get to eating…
“Is that meat fairly cooked, Nana?” he asked.
…which is Puck’s way of asking if the meat has been thoroughly cooked. I did not teach him that. Following slabs of meat with butter, Puck was ready to hunt eggs. He gathered them from the living room and dining room before cracking open the treasures of coins, Starburst jelly beans, and chocolate bunnies. The first of the wealth. Followed up by a few rounds of UNO with his nana as I checked into the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special news. I was a very busy person this afternoon.
It had been a long time since we had all been together again, but the English family had invited us over, with my family and Jaya’s for a big spring BBQ bash. Which basically meant over 30 people eating together at the same time. Hence all the deviled eggs. So with rain falling lightly, we drove off for our next appointment of the day.
I think almost everyone was there, everyone except Diana, her husband, and Rose who was still at work of course. She showed up later. The old gang; sort of crazy that we got sixteen out of eighteen. And some. Not bad. Tor walked in from the rain with his new girlfriend after a tennis match. Francis was getting kicked in pool by the youngest English boys in the basement, shocked at their abilities to conquer in almost every game. A rare sight – Carrie holding a baby. Eve’s and Othniel’s chubby almost-six-month old. After I held him for a few minutes, he seemed to want to go back to Carrie…
“He wants me,” she said. “Because he knows I like to pinch fat little cheeks.”
It’s sort of strange being the “old kid”, I guess. But it happens. Yes, it happens.
After burgers, dogs, chips, pasta salads, salad salads, pot stickers, deviled eggs, brownies, chocolate kiss cookies, and all that jazz… we got a send-off past the once-giant snowmen in the front yard and the pansies, some of which had survived the great snow.
Puck walked out of his room halfway into his jams…
“I’m very thirsty, Dad! I’m like… dehy-duh-rated!”
Then his closing prayer ran something like…
“Please take care of my baby brother in Colombia and please help me to not… shall we say… disobey?…”