Dad's Birthday

Friday, February 5, 2010

Dad’s 52^nd birthday.

And the snow was falling in sweeps over black woods and rolls of gold hills.

Collette and Puck arrived at the house that morning.

“I got snoaking out dere!” Puck cried, upon entering the school room, which could only be imagined as a combination of ‘snow’ and ‘soaking’.

After a part of the morning had passed, everyone gathered in the kitchen to call Dad and sing him his own version of Happy, Happy Birthday.

Currently:

1. Carrie was busy piecing together the bright and colorful elements of one of her many entrepreneurial enterprises while her hair was soaking in tea tree oil.

2. Rose was still busy scrounging and rummaging through the wares of the basement. Segment by segment it was coming together. And a conversation with Boeing about a possible position…

3. Francis was deep into his daily reading of Number the Stars.

4. Linnea was foggy in a bad head cold, but not so bad that she was unable to calculate geometry or perform inhuman backbends on the living room floor. She was also quite busy, by the afternoon, in Farmville, harvesting her crops of wheat and white roses.

5. And Snuggles had been busy eating avocado chips.

In the morning, Carrie briefly interrupted Puck’s playtime to rest her head on his chubby belly as a pillow.

“Oh!” she exclaimed for him. “What quality! what pizazz! what bounce!”

Meanwhile, Rose was giving Collette suggestions for her next work.

“Write about a pancake that falls in love with syrup.”

In the afternoon, there were various congregations around the house. One, taking place around the dining table, included Rose exhibiting the large bruise on her arm from her recent tumble down the stairs.

“I have them everywhere she said.”

“Well, you could go out as a raisin for Halloween,” was Francis’ best piece of advice.

Dad returned home early from work.

“They let me off work early for my birthday without pay,” he said, grinning.

And then they discussed what to do for the birthday dinner.

“Cracker Barrel,” Dad suggested.

“I’ll drive,” said Joe.

“We always go out in bad weather so we have the pick of the restaurants,” said Mom.

The next day was the first wedding of the year: Megan Salthouse.

At the end of the day, OLeif was let go.

“Daddy lost his job, Puck,” Collette explained to him on the way home.

“Where did it go?” Puck asked.

“It’s gone now.”

“I find it. It’s in my pocket.”

The worst thing about it was that good friends, close enough to be family, would once again no longer see each other every week-day morning, no longer exchange ideas and share thoughts and events and beliefs and life together every day. And that was the part that hurt…