Chapter Seventy-Seven
The ground was plenty soggy this morning. Squishy muddy holes in the back yard where it didn’t drain properly. Puck would be in heaven, if I had let him out. But Mondays are pretty busy days, so I abstained from that urge to let him have at it.
Puck’s thumb went right through the last ripe green pear. Not on purpose. It just sort of happened. There went my Thursday morning breakfast. Now I have to wait another two weeks to get another one to the right perfection of white juicyness. And all that juicyness was quickly dribbling down Puck’s chin onto the couch where I was trying to read to him – “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”.
“I’m coming to feed Crackers her lunch!”
Puck pounded down the basement steps to where I was handling the second load of laundry that morning. I do at least three a week.
“Crackers doesn’t eat lunch, bud.”
I scooped another tablespoon of powdered blue laundry detergent – the non-itchy kind – into the washing machine.
“But why, Mom? Why can’t she eat lunch?”
“Because she would get super fat like Stinkerbelle.”
“What would happen to Crackers if she got fat?”
Did I really want to go into diabetes, heart disease, feline cancers… not really. So I lightly danced around that bush without extracting gory bits. Then I fried up bacon for more sandwiches at lunch. Never again will I buy the three-pack bacon package at Costco.
Puck walked out of his room with an armload of stuff to float in the bathroom sink. At least we had already applied Drain-O last week. Then marched out of the kitchen with a roll of butcher’s string – I have no idea where that came from – and a pair of my good scissors – also have no idea. He walked past me speaking importantly…
“I will return them in a few minutes.”
Pulled the three loads of laundry up from the basement. Stuffed pasta shells with a bowl of ricotta, eggs, mozzarella, salt, and pepper. Puck examined the little soap duck that Curly had sent back with The Bear from Nashville.
He stared me over a bowl of rapidly cooling manicotti. He wasn’t happy about the meal selection, but he was still feeling generous…
“I’m going to fix you bref-test [breakfast; still working on that one] tomorrow, Mom! For Mother’s Day!!”
That explained the white apron back around his neck.
“Wow. Buddy. Thanks. That’s very sweet of you. I mean, it’s not Mother’s Day tomorrow. But…”
“That’s ok. I want to make it for you. I will make you a tunafish sandwich! And guess what? I will find whatever I can, and I will paste it on!”
I envisioned an open-faced sandwich pressed down with nuts, bolts, and rubber bands.
“That’s… really great, bud. Thanks a lot.”
“And you will wake up late at four o’clock! And I will wake up at… 51.”
“I can handle that.”
The Bear was meeting Dad at Starbuck’s, to talk about the conference in California, church, preaching, etc. He was bringing another brown paper box wrapped in ribbon for Dad – a biography from the church’s book store.
“Bring me back a cake pop,” I suggested to him over text, knowing he probably wouldn’t get it.
Then I sobered up my greed for thick cake with a recent sermon from John Piper about the end of the age. Courtesy, Joe. And waited for more emails and photos from Rose, sailing somewhere between Miami and the Bahamas.
