Compilings to Make a Sunday - Creatures, Jokes, and Barrel-Rolling Fish

Sunday, January 22, 2006

[6:36pm] Another Sunday began with a stop by St. Louis Bread Co., for a souffle apiece and an apple juice for Collette. OLeif was late coming back out with the box of souffles as he had run into Joseph the Blue-Eyed and they exchanged opinions on the new Derek Webb CD and Joseph said he wanted to catch a movie with OLeif soon – a movie about some sort of sword, as Collette took it. Church consisted of Sunday School and nursery for Collette.

“Eeeeeeeeew!” Linnea said on the way home. “Eustache kissed me!”

“Where?” Collette laughed.

“In the nursery! He…”

“No. Where on your face?” Rose giggled.

“On my hand!”

After church, OLeif, Joe, and most of the guys (minus Wally (who had cousins coming over) and Bob Buckle) went on to Simple Simon’s to study Romans and to eat pizza, of course. Meanwhile, Collette was at home with everyone else (minus Carrie who was still on the road back from Kansas City) eating meatloaf and potato boats (the latest favorite of the family). This happened while they laughed at the fish which amused itself by turning barrel rolls in the tank.

“What a nut!” Collette couldn’t quite believe she was seeing the spectacle.

“He’s my favorite,” Rose said. “His name is Craig. He just enjoys the water more than the other fish. He has a better time.”

Youth was spent in the barn playing trashcan football, after OLeif had chased down Joe and Molly to duct-tape their arms to the trashcans (them being goalies and all…). The Coca-Cola boys showed up, as did Jimmy, Ecclesiastes, Joe and Rose, Boy, Susie, Samantha, and Molly. There really wasn’t anything particularly special about the day – it was one of those sorts of days. Just playing with the kids in the nursery, holding Aeaea Parnapple for most of the time and lifting kids over to the changing table for Lace Hobcoggin (who was nursery lead) and had hurt her back somehow. When Loraine asked her how she had done it, Lace replied, with a shrug:

“It’s called being 41,” as though she was old or something.

It made Collette oddly, almost sad to hear it. Lace was one of those ladies that Collette always thought of as a teenager – a bundle of nerves, but completely on top of things, and a fantastic cook. This was the woman who was married to a man who had never seemed to grow up, even though he was a police officer – a lieutenant, nonetheless. The same woman who had four beautiful children who were absolutely crazy. And the same woman who could beat down any four-star chef – who made a brunch of bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs (half with cheese and half with red and green pepper and mushrooms) and biscuits from scratch or rolls from the Bread Co. (where her mother worked) with homemade frosted cream cheese – every Sunday.

Collette took the Christmas stocking off the hearth, which she had forgotten to take off earlier, along with three Precious Moments angel ornaments which Libby had given her for her hope chest the Christmas before Grandpa died. At youth, they all passed around stupid pick-up lines and dumb jokes – Joe and OLeif did, anyway, such as:

“Knock knock.”

“What’s there?”

“Train.”

“Train who?”

“Train… moving…”

And…

“You must be a camera lens, because I keep focusing on you…”

And OLeif had created another creature – walrus-like – on his writing tablet, named Clifford, with huge tusks extending to the ground, who apparently enjoyed walking on hot air balloons and eating cous cous and navy beans. Everyone seemed to think he was awesome, including Magnus’ friend, Ai, who left the following post on OLeif’s deviantart account:

“dear cilfford,

ai”

“Sin is my melody, my monster, my foe, my viper. Born in my birth, alive in my life, strong in my character, dominating my faculties, following me as a shadow, intermingling with my every thought, my chain that holds me captive in the empire of my soul…”

– a Puritan Prayer