Create, Operate
A wintry morning mist outside the windows disguised the fact that the day was, in fact, completely mild. 60’s, gray until the sun pushed out in the early afternoon.
Puck walked out of the shower rubbing a towel over his head that still had a little shampoo in it. He listened to a few lines of Gregorian Chant from my laptop. “That music sounds like an adventure is about to happen,” he said. “And a long adventure. Around the world.”
On that note, we left for the library and then the Big House.
Carrie-Bri and I caught up on all the kids as usual, in no real order, before Mom and Linnea returned from the orthodontist and Aldi with a pizza for lunch. While the oven preheated, Snuggles decided to attack first, right through the plastic, engorged in cheese and tomato sauce.
“Make sure he doesn’t escape today,” was the first thing Carrie had told us when we arrived. “He has a vet appointment this afternoon.” Snuggles somehow always knows. “Yeah, last night I was telling him all about it, and he ran off. It took all of us to find and bring him back.”
Anyway, Puck snubbed the pizza in exchange for his own creation.
“I really just want to make my own sandwich, Mom. Please!”
Twenty minutes later he sat at the coffee table with a green apple, Caesar dressing, kale, yellow pepper, and Rice Krispies sandwich on whole grain bread.
Carrie shut off the heater and opened all the doors and windows, it was so ridiculously like spring. I almost fooled myself into thinking it was. Even smelled like spring.
Half an hour in the hammock telling Puck stories under cool breeze and mild sunshine, before joining Mom and Carrie with the old Christmas films and threading popcorn and cranberries for the tree …
“OW! DANG IT! I hate working with needles! That’s why I had you finish Collette’s quilt square for her wedding, because I was getting blood all over everything!”
So … Carrie gave up and took Snuggles to the vet. About half an hour later, she came back.
“He did fine. He has an infection on his tail but they were going to charge extra to lance it, so I’m just going to do it myself. Someone get Linnea up here to hold him down.”
After both girls avoided vomiting through surgery, Mom reheated a pot of Carrie’s sausage-kale-and-sweet potato soup before Puck and I drove out to Old Church, bellowing out carols down the hall while Ray Bolger expounded on the various opinions of the pronunciation of “Augustine” in the Andes-mint-green classroom.
Pomegranate juice, edits, a little Korean “Panda and Hedgehog” on the couch by Bær …