Do I Hear Sleet Yet?

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Oddly, Wednesday was predicted to reach 70. Thursday was thought to probably hit no higher than the 20’s. This, to Joe and Frances, meant tornado weather.

Back at the house, before he left to take Rose to Junior Achievement, Joe was telling Collette about his planned senior trip: buy a jeep, he and Wallace would head down to the Buckles’ for a few days to boat and ski on the lake, then they would blaze on through to Philmont, New Mexico, to work as staff with the Scouts, and return with Yaotl West after they had had their share of the outdoors. That was the plan, anyway.

Meanwhile, Grandma had also just arrived for the trip to Kansas City, bringing with her two small silver Christmas trees for Collette, like Mom’s.

As Grandma, Mom, and Carrie took off, Carrie ran around making sure the hairspray and the organic carrots were both packed. And they drove off in Grandma’s Saturn while Joe and Frances worked on some catch in the front yard. And Linnea batted around a small plastic ball with her foam bat.

“You’re afraid of the ball,” Joe said to Frances. “Hold it in front. Yeah. That’s better. Bad throw; good catch.”

The wind rolled that morning, as though it couldn’t make up its mind on where to turn. Joe checked the radar earlier in the day, and was met with a wall of blue and green from the west.

Rose returned later in the afternoon from Junior Achievement after Joe had also dropped off Linnea at the English’s for choir.

“Oh,” Rose moaned a bit, “I feel sick.”

Collette also discovered that this was after Rose had only eaten pretzels and milk for lunch. So they got to the tutoring while the boys played more catch and Joe picked up Rose again from the English’s. The weather slowly grew colder as the green lights shone on the roof and Frances plugged in the lighted reindeer in the front.

Then OLeif arrived to bring Frances and Linnea to church for the evening, and put a dozen wild brown chicken eggs in the fridge.

“I was out doing some computer work for this guy today. And he has four chickens, so he just gave me a dozen.”

It was like being paid in the old days.

When Dad arrived, he said that Mom had called to let him know that they had still not hit Kansas City, five and a half hours later, as the windshield wipers had a malfunction.

So Dad went downstairs to run while Joe shipped himself off to the store to look for a new graphing calculator and Collette and Rose watched a couple of episodes of The Waltons, waiting for OLeif and the kids to return.

Then Rose got the call that the Kansas City crew had arrived safely, the windshield wipers still being unfixed.

Meanwhile, most of Missouri was under a winter weather advisory, and by the time OLeif, Frances, and Linnea had returned, the rain had started to fall.

“How do you get a Wheaton… College graduate off your porch? Pay her for the pizza.”

– Tor English