Dominoes
We turned into Mom’s and Dad’s neighborhood, crunching branches and twigs under rubber tires. Several men were in the process of carving down an old tree. As we passed them, Puck looked offended in the rearview mirror…
“Haven’t they ever heard of nature?”
At the Big House, Mom had found two things on her morning walk: a wallet, and a feather.
“What kind of feather do you think this is, Puck? A tail feather? Or a down feather?”
Puck thought about this. “I think it’s… an up feather.”
Linnea, suffering from bad volleyball-induced back pain, shared with me from her drawer of hijacked Andes mints, and a bag of king sized Reeses cups from Francis, stapled shut after he and Joe apparently got hungry and helped themselves before the gifting.
Then she and Puck got busy painting rocks at the kitchen table. Mom made a bumble bee. Then Linnea rinsed out her brush in Mom’s coffee…
“Oops…”
The sky was a rich turquoise that afternoon; I hadn’t remembered seeing it so blue in a long time. I read a few more pages of Ireland [prescribed fiction for my work], sitting on the driveway, while Puck stomach-swung under the tree. Waiting for a seven o’clock game.
Linnea walked back in from the orthodontist.
“So… you get those off in what, a year and a half?” I asked her.
She smiled at herself in the mirror. “They’re not staying on for more than a year.”
“Did he say that?”
“Nope. I did.”
This is what we call the Snicketts Female Ego.
Bær had bequeathed the “biggest beard” title to a friend at church, whose beard was once apparently so thick and curly, it would hold pencils. However, this didn’t stop Bær from making an appearance as Ray Bolger unfolded the heretics of the early church.
“MOM! ALEX THREW UP!” Puck ran over to herald the news.
“We won’t have any kids left to sing,” M&M said, walking with us out to the car. “They’ll all be sick.”
“The epidemic begins,” I reluctantly added.
Time would tell.
I’m also thinking that moms who teach their kids at home [See how I avoided that whole “home school” label again? Dang it!] should automatically be rewarded “off duty” during post season.
This proved a true idea when the Cards crashed through Game 5 into the yelling huddle of ten year-olds boys trapped in grown men’s bodies. For one more day, I could relax.