D-Day
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Collette was feeling somewhat less terrible that morning, and she had never had a fever to accompany the significantly painful sore throat, so she diagnosed herself as noncontagious and merely in a state of severe sinus issues, and prepared to attend church with the boys as usual.
At breakfast…
“Mama, why are you wearing those earrings?”
“So I can make them jingle for you.”
“But, Mama!” Puck gasped “You can’t be in a wedding! You already had one!”
“I did already have a wedding. That’s right. A long time ago before you were born.”
“I was there though.”
“No, you weren’t there, buddy. You weren’t born yet.”
“I was in jail for a little while…”
The unexplained logic of a three year-old…
Church was weird.
Awkward segways, comments, etc. And someone had apparently taken silly pills that morning.
Then Sunday School regarding the persecution of the church, which seemed a subject best appropriate for dark cold winter days. Except that the sun was out, and somehow the mood didn’t match… Despite the inconsequence of the weather, Collette was reminded, yet again, of the first time she had thought seriously of doing mission work, all those summers ago back in Budapest…
Back at the house…
Rose was at church with a dozen baked potatoes, which she had brought for the women’s shelter dinner that afternoon.
Collette did just about the best thing that she could have done for her sore throat by immediately devouring two cake donuts. They knew better than to leave that sort of stuff lying around.
The next couple of hours were spent in trying to arrange flights to Lisbon and from Venice with Dad’s rewards miles, a trickier thing to do than originally expected.
Followed by Collette crashing on the leather couch in the basement for about a half hour or more. She wan’t sure if she actually fell asleep, which she never did on purpose anyway, but if she had, it seemed to have cured the bulk of the sore throat.
And upstairs Rose prepared her a cup of gingko tea with honey.
“You should try those all natural strawberry popcicles too,” she said. “When Carrie and I had strep a long time ago, and it felt like we were swallowing pinecones all the time, it was the only thing we could eat because it numbed our throats.
In other news…
Linnea had won a box of Sour Skittles from the Un-Valentine part for having constructed the ‘best catapult’.
Joe, who had not been told that the afternoon was reserved for Francis’ birthday, departed for another birthday party for a friend at the City Museum.
And for some reason, OLeif found it necessary to say…
“Collette, we’re going to give Puck a fire alarm for Christmas.”
Meanwhile, it was time to celebrate Francis’ 16th birthday. Two days early.
The grandmas arrived at three o’clock.
Dad got the grill going.
Then he and Collette finished via phone, arranging his and Mom’s itinerary, including three nights in Lisbon, two nights in Venice, and four in London and Scotland, leading up till ten days before the royal wedding. Things were finally settled.
So supper was continued with pork steaks, salad, and Mom’s special macaroni and cheese.
During dinner, the old episode was recalled of Dad having attempted a hang-gliding off the roof as a kid.
“I told him to come down,” Grandma Snicketts was saying.
“And did he mind you?” Mom asked.
“Well, sure,” Dad replied for her. “I came down. I jumped right off the roof.”
And of course the ice cream cake with candles and singing.
“Look, Mama,” said Puck. “Sun taught me a special glue.”
He licked his fingertip and picked up some of the stray edible confetti at the edge of the cake.
Later in the living room, Francis opened his cards from the grandmas, as his other gifts had not yet arrived, both of which featured bumblebees. Grandma Combs included inside a note about how, when all the grandkids were little, she would sing to them…
“Be my little baby bumble bee… Buzz around, buzz around, keep a buzzin’ round…”
That is, until the kids were old enough to talk and then they would say to her…
“Don’t sing, Grandma.”
And she had got a good laugh out of that.
This was followed with quick haircuts for Puck and then Francis, at the hand of Carrie. Puck sat in a chubby bunch on the floor with the plastic apron around his neck and waited while the fluff fell to the floor in piles.
Then he ran around for awhile doing jumping jacks and other crazy things to expel the energy of the ice cream cake.
Shortly later, the grandmas began to leave.
“So long, farewell,” Grandma Combs sang, “auf wiedersehen adieu!”
“Don’t sing, Grandma,” Carrie said.
Grandma laughed in her tickled way.
The evening ended well with a viewing of Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, and Jean Simmons in another strange 1960’s presentation that was redeemed only by Cary Grant’s laughable sense of dry humor.
And the renewed sore throat for Collette.