Father's Day II
Sunday, June 20, 2010
It was the final day of the Shakespeare Festival. ‘One tear for me. One tear for Petronius’… A sad thing to see come to an end. Collette could only hope that next year would bring back a reappearance of Joseph Shepherd and possibly a viewing of The Merchant of Venice.
On the radio that morning, Collette heard what she had been regretfully waiting for… during Chapel of the Cross on the air that morning, the announcer declared that their final broadcast through KFUO would be July 4th. Sad, sad day.
Meanwhile, in happier news, it was Father’s Day.
So back at the house… Carrie was busy preparing a chicken lasagna and giving make-up tips to Rose, who was just leaving for church. While it baked, the girls and Francis sat around the living room and discussed things, while Francis pet one of the ‘fuzzies’, as Dad had taken to calling them. Occasionally he would cringe when Dad walked past him, several times, in case Dad would land a punch on his shoulder.
Sniff, sniff. “My pillow smells tropical,” said Linnea.
“That’s because I slept on it last night,” said Carrie. “You’re lucky I didn’t have coconut oil in my hair. Or did I?…”
“When’s it time to eat?” Francis asked, always thinking of his stomach.
“When Rose gets back.”
“Can’t we eat without her?”
“It’s back,” said Linnea, seeing Rose outside the door.
“Everybody stare,” said Carrie.
When Rose walked in, she wrinkled her nose at them all in a typical Rose fashion.
Around the table, the usual sillies were in operation.
“Who gave you that ring, Linnea?” Dad asked.
“Carrie gave it to me.”
“Is that an heirloom?” Collette asked, glancing at the three diamonds.
“I got it at Claire’s back in high school,” Carrie laughed.
“When I get engaged some day,” said Francis, “I’m gonna get one of those enormous fake diamonds like the size of my fist, and attach it to a little ring. And then I’ll put one of those things inside it that changes colors.”
“Yeah,” Carrie replied. “’Will you marry me? Now let me just hook this thing up to a generator.’”
“And if it changes colors, she could have a ruby one day,” said Rose, “and an amethyst the other.”
“Or one of those mood rings,” said Francis. “Then I could tell when she’s mad at me.”
“Which would be a lot because of all your fat jokes,” said Carrie.
“Yeah, ‘How are you feeling today? Let me just check your ring. Oh… Oooh. I’ll see you later…’ Unless it’s the color of laughing. And then I’ll be ok.”
Then Dad opened his card and gifts: a container of ‘Blossoming Onion’ chips and a soon-to-be-delivered Smithsonian Rick Steves’ 100 Best Places in Europe magazine from the family. And a box of lemon drops and a book title, one of Dad’s old reads, Dove, (about a sixteen year-old boy who sailed around the world on his own), from OLeif, Collette, and Puck.
“If you ever go to Colorado…” said Dad, picking up the box of lemon drops.
Reactions of recognition. Who could forget about the story of Dad and Uncle Mo driving to Colorado together when they were sixteen, listening to AM stations ‘bouncing off the ionosphere at night’, surviving off practically nothing more than lemon drops.
“All we had was lemon drops and Coke.”
“And a lot of pit stops,” Carrie added.
“We didn’t stop,” said Dad.
Then off to pick up a Dairy Queen ice cream cake while Mom, Dad, OLeif, and Puck napped. Sometime later…
“Hey, Puck, go wake up Daddy,” Carrie instructed him.
“Yeah, go pat his stomach,” Rose added.
“I can’t do dat, said Puck seriously. “His mouff will water if I do dat.”
Around 3:30, they piled into two cars (as the green slug seemed to be quite dead), and drove out to visit Grandpa. They had about half an hour with him. He was doing vastly better in recent months. And he showed them his Father’s Day cards, one from each of his five children. And the photos that had been sent to him from Uncle Balthasar’s and Aunt Tuuli’s trip to London and Paris.
Then back to Culver’s for dinner, where the World Cup (Carrie’s new ‘favorite thing’; that, and Italian club soda…) played silently on the screen in the corner. Recap: Slovakia vs. Paraguay.
Everyone munched up, including Puck, who somehow seemed to enjoy the flavor of dipping his straw into his Ranch dressing, then into his highly watered-down pink lemonade.
Back for a brief video chat between the whole family and Joe, who had momentarily made the connection successful… during which they all sang Happy, Happy Father’s Day. And Carrie continued some cleaning out of her closet while the family waited for cake.
“Ok, for the last time!” she announced, marching out to the living room with a black robe over her arm. “This is not my grim reaper costume! It’s Rose’s. It always ends up in my closet.”
And then ice cream cake, on which Carrie had penned in blue frosting: ‘Big Bad Dad’ while they watched the 2008 Celebration Iowa in which Sean Welches had performed as a high school sophomore.
Then home, bubble bath for Puck, laundry, iron-on for Collette’s VBS t-shirt, and Sherlock Holmes, OLeif’s choice. They came to a rather quick conclusion that Holmes and Watson were a parody of Carrie-Bri and Rose, respectively. Or, on perhaps occasion, Carrie and Collette, again, respectively.
Good day all around.