Festive Day
Saturday, May 5, 2007
It was a day for many events: Cinco de Mayo, Lace Hobcoggin’s birthday, Ben-Hur’s 18th birthday, Aunt Tuuli’s birthday, Idlewild Redcoat’s baby shower, and Polly Black’s wedding shower. And once again, because of the Cinco de Mayo, there would likely be all kinds of partying going down in the city on Cherokee Street involving (according to the news) seafood tostadas, Mexican sausages and potatoes in tortilla sandwiches, and ice cream in 31 Mexican flavors, with a baseball game to boot.
Meanwhile, Mom, Collette, Linnea, and Puck headed off to Polly’s wedding shower, come early afternoon. (And OLeif amused himself at the movies while they were gone.) Polly seemed only slightly embarrassed during the 21 Questions game, which seemed to be a popular shower game. Only this time, for each question that she answered incorrectly, Esther handed her a large piece of sour bubblegum on which she was obliged to chew until the end of the game. Polly ended up with about eight or nine pieces.
“Well, good thing she has a big mouth,” Aunt Corliss had said, prior to the start of the game.
“Thanks, Mom,” Polly laughed, who was already a little embarrassed at the thought of being put on the spot.
And Lilli and Liselotte were there. Liselotte was already three months old – dark hair, wide eyes, also sucking on her fists. Upon Puck’s entrance to the room, Lilli immediately came over to see him and to talk with Collette. Collette had always been happy that Lilli married into the family. She was a very sweet and kind person but not in the sort of way that made one think that she was being fake about it, just to be acceptably social. That was just the way she was.
Aunt Galena was also there, as were Grandma Snicketts and Martha. And according to Aunt Galena, Samwise was still intent on studying Chinese, likely moving to Indiana that fall to one of the only universities nearby that provided instruction in the language.
Once the afternoon had ended, they headed back to the house and then out again, (this time accompanied by Joe), to Florissant for barbecue at the Valley of Flowers with Grandma Combs, Uncle Mo, and Aunt Petunia.
“Put my name on the waiting list for babysitting,” Aunt Petunia said, cuddling Puck upon his arrival.
Even Uncle Mo decided that he would try to hold Puck for a few brief moments. It was kind of a funny sight watching Uncle Mo hold an infant. He likely hadn’t done so for seventeen years, since Linus had been a baby.
Before leaving that evening, Grandma Combs presented Collette with her and OLeif’s early anniversary present (about four months early, to be exact). Grandma could never hold on to presents for very long. It was a little Irish drum, bound in leather.
“And I picked it out,” Grandma started chuckling, “because for your third anniversary, you’re supposed to get leather. So I got you this.”
Collette laughed; it was a very Grandma thing to do.
Collette always enjoyed the ride home from Florissant. Throughout the years it had provided many a good hour of thinking time.
And on the way back, OLeif treated them and Joe to ice cream before he and Joe headed out to OLeif’s second movie of the day.