Entertainments
The winds were huge last night. Huge enough to split off half the persimmon tree in Mom’s and Dad’s backyard, which left a jungle for Puck to explore. The lightening had been incessant over a couple of hours at least, which sent Carrie, Lucia, Rose, and Linnea to the overpass at 40 to watch the show. They weren’t the only ones there either, despite it being midnight. I think it’s not just my family though. I think the city in general trends this way. How many times has someone said to me, “Oh, man. It’s supposed to storm this weekend.” “Oh, I love storms,” I’ll say. “Really? Me too!” I think it’s in the blood. In the water. We know we’re expected to be disappointed if it rains, but secretly (or not-so-secretly), we love it. And apparently both Joe and Francis called in to warn the family about impending peril last night.
“Everyone stay out of the living room,” Joe cautioned. “Big storms headed your way. If that dead tree falls on the house…”
“Yeah, so Rose slept with her head under a chair,” Carrie explained. “In case the roof caved in.”
Meanwhile, at church, the Popples family came back to visit. Apparently if I don’t keep up with Facebook, as Miss Mollie reminds me, I’m not aware of the outside spinning world, so I failed to note that Susie was moving back into town to teach seventh grade in a nearby school district.
I knew Sunday School was running late when I began to hear kids running past the door conversing loudly about chocolate and Skittles. Then a cute Linnea wrapped up in moccasins, chunks of bracelets, and toast-shaded cardigan over blue and white print sundress joined us on the ride home.
“Our car is always open to you, Linnea,” Puck announced, marching her to the vehicle.
Carrie was throwing together “funeral sandwiches” for lunch. Such a morbid name for a delicious combination of worcestershire-sauce-mustard-brown sugar glazed hot sarnies stuffed with ham and Swiss. Plus no less than six bags of various chips and pretzels, selected by Dad. Man, if Carrie’s not interviewing programmers in China at midnight, crossing time zones and language barriers, she’s crafting something you’d expect to find on a plate on the QE2. I think you begin to gather some of the scope of my siblings and their many talents throughout the years. And they just keep keeping on…
Rose fed Cheetos to Stinkerbelle during lunch, who apparently has been using Snuggles as her role model lately. Or, “Uncle Snuggles”, as Carrie labeled the relationship. Only a cat owned by Rose.
“Look out, Grandma,” Puck said seriously, pointing to the glass oven pans of sandwiches. “There’s hearts and kisses in that.”
Carrie-Bri told him the other day that she liked to put hearts and kisses in his snacks. Puck can’t let an idea go, so it was inevitable that he continues translating this idea to future meals. For part of the meal he kept blowing kisses into all of the food, trying to scare Rose from eating various food options.
About the time Francis returned fully sunburned to join the family sawing down the broken trunk in the backyard, Linnea-Irish and I took in the scope of all the Cardinals in powder blue, accompanied by the Bear as chauffeur and temporary bodyguard if necessary.
When I asked Linnea the other day, “What is your opinion on teddy bears?”, she needed some time to contemplate. When I told her that the first 12,000 kids fifteen and under to the ballpark today would receive a free Build-A-Bear stuffed in powder blue 1980’s Cards jersey… she said, “I want one.” The mention of free ice cream sealed the deal. And a chance to run the bases after the game. All mixed in with a sweet 88 degrees for the day’s high – well, one of those predictions anyway. It was my first favorite number – that symmetrical eight – before I lost an interest in symmetry.
It was an age game tonight. The gentleman distributing the teddy bears actually seemed to waver as to whether or not I made the cut.
Seriously, man?
Fifteen and under.
Then when our section won 50% off coupons to a “decadent steakhouse”, Team Fredbird with the black curly hair was about to pass the stack of coupons over my head to the first person in my line who looked 21 or older. I mean, I’m flattered kid, really I am, but my husband loves steak.
We missed all of inning five. Linnea had more or less captured a hopping cheeseburger on the big screen, so we jogged halfway around the stadium to Bic Mac Land for her free Bic Mac coupon, and then ran back before a very quick sixth inning had concluded. I also realized somewhere in this Brewers sweep shut-out that Tony Cruz – filling in to catch for Yadi between innings – reminded me of a red triceratops.
It’s always a little surreal though, all of this. Or, as the Bear described it once, “the polar reversal of the gladiator games”. No royalty enjoying sand sponging up the blood of Gaulish prisoners of war. But you do have families just at poverty line scraping together enough to spend one night watching millionaires take a crack at some sport. Or the folks who want to forget their worries and take a nickel to the movies, 1920’s style. Granted, these millionaires give an admirable amount of their green back to these kinds of folks in the stands. We’re not living in Neronian times. Just another curiosity of the game.
So Linnea put aside all embarrassments and ran those bases, snagging a clump of dark red dirt off the field after her debut crossing home plate, which she has plans to incorporate into a glass vial necklace.
Our evening ended with grilled cheese, chili, and a vanilla malt for the Bear at a Steak ‘n Shake drive-through in the valley. When we pulled up Mom’s and Dad’s drive just before midnight, Rose was still there, undergoing a Carrie-special make-over.
“I look like an Indian Ronald McDonald!” she wailed.