Critter Trouble
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
In which worms fall from the skies…
Puck woke asking for ‘breaftest’.
“I was dreaming about the rice milk,” he said soberly, kicking ‘more shots’ in the kitchen.
“You don’t like rice milk?” Collette asked him.
“Noooo.”
“Why?”
“Because sometimes little boys don’t like rice milk.”
He kicked a few more shots.
“I want a banana, Mama.”
“We’re out of bananas.”
“Daddy has to buy some. Else or we’ll die.”
Collette worked to correct this rather drastic response while preparing to see their little family out the front door.
Over to the house.
Trouble was afoot. Snuggles had snagged a baby bunny. It had been caught twice in the same morning and was still quite alive.
Sometime during this episode, Rose and Linnea-Irish made the discovery of thousands of tiny white worm-like creatures coating the ground and the picnic tables near the fire grate.
“Aaah! They’re in your hair!”
“They’re falling from the trees!”
They were slightly disturbed by this occurrence, theorizing that they might be anything from ticks or parasites, to aliens (well, not really, about the aliens…) until they learned that they were some sort of fly larvae.
Once this dilemma was solved, Carrie-Bri and Rose decided to let Snuggles outside to observe where he went on the prowl, so that the bunny could hopefully be returned to its mother.
“Then I’m going to put a shock collar and a high voltage fence around you,” Carrie threatened him. “Fried kitty cat!”
Meanwhile…
Carrie-Bri had found an old tape cassette that the four oldest kids had recorded for Mom’s and Dad’s 18th anniversary, June of 1998. That was a laugh. She had also burned the 90’s Celtic River from Target for Collette, which brought back similar old memories.
Puck was busy crawling through the kitchen wrapped up in an old sheet, growling, pretending to be a monster.
Dad had Redboxed the 25-year anniversary edition for Les Miserable, which they had watched the previous evening.
Time to get to math for Francis, who was busy munching jalapeno potato chips.
“I was munching these really loud during the most emotional part in the movie last night,” he said with a grin.
He followed this by turning on Victory at Sea to accompany his algebra exam.
Towards the later part of the morning, Francis and Puck left with Mom to visit the bank (with a sucker for Puck), Lowe’s, and a donation drop-off at Goodwill, while the girls explored further possibilities with the baby bunny, followed by a shower for Linnea to wash the sensation of tiny white worms falling from the trees out of her hair.
Carrie had resumed the cello.
And Rose had died her hair a dark chestnut.
In the afternoon…
Joe received word that three of his canvases had been accepted to The Foundry for display.
The Vincentennial was taking place in May. Collette and Rose drooled over the film line-up at Wash-U, HiPointe, and the History Museum, not to mention a lecture given by Vincent Price’s granddaughter.
The weather was gorgeous, even with the expansive sunshine, the winds, early blossoms, and 70’s. And Puck loved it, running around ‘taking shots’ and playing with the three neighbor girls and his Lila.
This was followed with a bath for the dirty little tike before dinner.
He seemed rather fascinated with Carrie’s cello sitting out in her room.
“Someone touched your ‘jello’, Sun,” Puck told her seriously.
And Linnea was outside catching giant panels of pink insulation that had blown from a nearby construction site into the treetops.
After Puck’s dinner, he spent some quality time with the dog.
“I’m cuddling with Trooper. You want to join me, Francis?”
For the evening, Mom was taking Collette’s place to supervise the kiddos, until Collette had recovered, fully. And so Collette remained at the house with the girls and Dad to watch half of the impressive Les Miserables.
And home, with Linnea, who was spending the night.
BBC’s Pride & Prejudice, the first part, as Linnea had never seen it.
In the news…
Elizabeth Taylor had passed away at the age of 79.
“Have you ever wondered why God made us in such a way that we have to sleep away a third of our lives?… He wanted to give a universal reminder to the human race that we are but children and ought to own up to it. We are so frail that we have to become helpless and unconscious and blind and weak every day in order to live at all. Sleep is a terribly humbling experience.”
– John Piper, 1980