d'amors n'ai deport,
Thursday, November 2, 2006
At breakfast that morning, Collette unknowingly chewed through her piece of toast into the shape of a Roosevelt Scottie dog, while OLeif was at Bible study with the boys.
The day was fresh full of sunshine. Collette was especially joyful that morning. And while she was at work listening to a John Piper sermon, Mom called looking for the girls’ Egypt itinerary. She had decided to take the kids to Grandma Combs’ for the day. Rose was filling out an application for the St. Louis Bread Company. And Joe was working an eight-hour shift at the Green Lantern.
Ivy arrived later from her doctor’s appointment, hopefully the last, regarding injuries on her foot. She lugged in the heating dish to warm up the ice-cube office and orange-frosted cupcakes left over from the pumpkin decorating in the barn the night before.
Collette had been munching on a giant apple as Ivy walked in, courtesy of OLeif picking up the produce from the grocery store.
“What are you eating, a pumpkin?” She asked.
It was rather enormous.
And speaking of pumpkins, Jimmy was trying to pawn off the remaining pumpkins from the night before, still sitting in rows in the back of his pick-up truck. 25 orange pumpkins. There didn’t seem to be many takers that day – Collette did not feel up to making fifty pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving.
Later, an elderly gentleman (who looked somewhat like a weather-worn farmer in overalls), brought up two large boxes of old hymnals for Judah and Collette to look through. Collette selected three very worn thin song books, one entitled Soul-Winning Songs, which she found to be rather humorous.
Earlier, Rosemary had come through the office to set a stack of various hot chocolate mixes on Ivy’s desk.
“I felt so bad last night,” she said. “Ivy somehow managed to transport all this hot water for the junior high over to the barn, and I had told her earlier in the day that I would bring the hot chocolate mix, because I just had so much. And I completely forgot about it. So she can just drink all that she wants to today.”
The heat had not been working in the barn either, leaving another frozen batch of middle schoolers to play Steal the Bacon with nothing to warm their insides but hot water.
“Are we going to have any hot chocolate?” They had asked, shivering in huddled masses.
“It took me three hours to warm up even after I got home,” Ivy said. “My legs were still cold to the touch, forty-five minutes later. One of the girls was there in a skirt, short-sleeves, and flip-flops! Flip-flops!”
Collette was pleased that she had not attended, and wondered how many would have the sniffles come Sunday morning.
That night there was fried chicken for dinner and the heater was humming nicely – only one more day without heat at the office, at least that week anyway.