Common Life
Monday, August 16, 2010
Now that Joe was home again, the school year was just about ready to begin for him, but not before one last week of activity, friends, and driving cars.
Rose had also taken off work that Monday, her first normal weekday at home since early March.
Meanwhile, the itchies were back…
“Fraaaaanciiiiis!” Carrie exclaimed. “You are no longer wanted here!”
“What?” asked Francis, with his usual red-faced grin, already perfectly aware of the problem.
“My rash was almost healed until you came back! You brought it back again.”
“The plague has returned,” he replied, laughing.
In order to avoid further confrontation, Francis hurried off to mow two of the four lawns in his repertoire… good thing too, because, for a few delightful hours, the weather was almost cooled.
Later on, Carrie was busy with Live Mocha, in which she had been voted ‘English Teacher of the Week’ by her Arabic ‘students’.
“Great,” she said. “This is like the 30th Mohammed to add me as a friend on here.”
In his first note, he told her that she had the face of angle. Yes, angle, not angel.
Somewhere in the afternoon, squeals emitted from the basement as Francis chased Puck around with a squirt bottle.
The afternoon was for errands. This included an attempt by Rose to purchase a new Beta fish for Francis. Because, he had, one day, come down to the basement and found his first Beta fish lying on the floor.
There was no time for Beta fish. However, there was enough for Francis to pick up a giant watermelon. He dumped it into the cart.
“There.”
“Francis, that’s not how you pick watermelon,” said Rose. “Hold it up so I can thump it to see if it’s ripe.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Well?” asked Collette.
“I don’t know what it’s supposed to sound like.”
Movie night. Back to the old times. Homemade cheese-chili dip with tortilla chips, chocolate-creme Oreos, and Little Debbie’s strawberry shortcake rolls.
“Hey, check it, check it,” said Joe, ready to dip an Oreo into the cheese dip.
“Living on the edge!” OLeif exclaimed in agreement, and slapped Joe a high five.