Chapter One Hundred Four
“OH! I forgot my LASSO!” an unhappy Puck announced to us from the back seat of the car.
“We’ll get it later, bud.”
“But I was going to lasso Uncle Francis!”
The Great Exodus had begun. I think our family was split between five different churches today, Baptist and Presbyterian. Myself and my boys were still at the usual, sitting in the last row like always where I looked over and found Puck spreading clean trash bags on the chair in preparation for the service. I just let it be sometimes. Unless it gets distracting and/or irreverent. And there are about two million and a half ways for a five-almost-six-year-old boy to find himself irreverent during a worship service.
So anyway, it was going to be some kind of process… We discussed our collective opinions and soap boxes of the morning. Dad saw the lemon Ritz Carlton bundt cake on the counter. The bundt that wouldn’t come out. We three girls had already attacked the crunchy top. Dad dug in with a spoon…
“It’s pretty rich,” Carrie warned him.
Dad took a bite…
“Is this supposed to have icing on it?”
“I just said it was too rich.”
Dad took another bite…
“How about powdered sugar?”
“How ’bout you put some powdered sugar on it,” Carrie mocked in her usually-reserved-for-Francis voice. “Yeah. Maybe some syrup. How about some syrup and powdered sugar.”
Dad grinned big.
“So much for that wind advisory,” Carrie scoffed out the window. “Gusts up to 60.”
Linnea folded a large amount of Nutella on a bun, not pleased with being dragged away to a Baptist church for the morning…
“If we go somewhere else, I won’t go,” she threatened to no one.
Francis walked in from another Baptist church, announcing that he had been ticketed last night for not having a license plate on the front of the car, which apparently is illegal around here.
It was sort of quiet in the green-yellow-white-blue of a feeling-more-like-spring afternoon. So Rose hit the roof. Literally, I mean. I could hear footsteps. Linnea gave Pumpkin a trim in the living room. When I walked in the door earlier, she was only half-shaved, which is always a baffling sight for a cat of that… magnitude. And she’ll just sit there and take it. I guess she just knows she’s Linnea’s cat.
Then Rose walked down from the roof and grabbed a handful of Provel cheese to snack on while she and Carrie clothes-shopped. Online, of course. Francis was going out mini golfing. The Bear lured him outside to build a slingshot. Joe took off on his bike.
The Bear commanded us out on a date that evening. He had free tickets to see 42 at The Moolah, so we left at four for an adventure. We paused for Penn Station in the Valley. Penn Station is the sort of place where you forget just how good a club sandwich can taste. And then those soft-baked square-shaped fat chocolate chip cookies. A small ice-cold root beer on the side. Fresh fries. The ballgame on the tele…
“I’m not going to see you at all, am I?” The Bear grinned.
I did a pretty good job paying attention, actually. To The Bear, not the game. Well. I was still aware of what was going on and all, but I know how to behave.
Anyway, The Moolah was waiting – leather couches, microfiber couches, little tables for drinks, which I did not participate in. And the bowling alley and burgers underground. Jackie Robinson on the big screen. Harrison Ford and some good one-liners. All sports films are the same to me, but it was still a good two hours. A comfortable two hours.