Fighting For Meatloaf
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Monday had been Bing’s 19th birthday, and Carrie had decided to get her good old life-long buddy a subscription to download as much music as he could handle for a full year.
Carrie also displayed another ear piercing to Mom and Collette in the basement that evening while they watched the Antiques Roadshow. Mom was sufficiently surprised.
“I guess it’s every parent’s job to act at least a little surprised,” she joked as she and Collette took a spin up to Dairy Queen while Carrie prepared Diana’s hair.
Meanwhile, the funeral was scheduled for Thursday morning, 10:00, at Grace Community Chapel – a place of which Collette could think of many memories connected to it. Only four years earlier they had attended Edred’s funeral, also on a Thursday.
Collette remembered the day he had died, also a Monday; it had been the TFC quizzing end of the year picnic at Laurel Park. She had been reading Phantom of the Opera under a little tree on the lawn. There, Lollipop South and Rose had talked with her about Edred’s death. It had been one of the strange sorts of days where everyone laughed and talked happily because of the picnic, but at the same time, were a little haunted by what had just happened that morning.
Collette decided that for the day she would tutor math and take a break to read Nancy Drew to Linnea. She would then teach ACT after reading Chosen by God to them, to start. And then she would look at the Pleasant Company with Linnea. In between she would certainly hear more stories and ideas from Carrie, thoughts from Mom about the school day and plans for Chicago, as well as see designs of tanks from Francis, bikes and mopeds from Joe, and perhaps there might even be time to squeeze in a Midsomer Murders with Carrie and Rose before Carrie left for work.
For the evening, she would come home and take a nice hot shower while the rain rained (hopefully) and the kettle brewed for a cup of blueberry tea. And then she would snuggle down in her pajamas and a sweater with the red fuzzy hat Joe had brought back for her from Chicago. She loved the red fuzzy hat – it was bright and thick and warm, perfect for the cold winter days in the coming months.
At the house, Francis was busy re-filling a used hairspray bottle with water from the bathroom sink.
“Here, Collette, could you please hold this for me,” he asked eagerly, and handed her his red lazerlight. “Could you please shine it towards the wall?”
Collette took the light and did as he asked. Francis whipped out his hairspray bottle and began squirting the water across the invisible beam, which suddenly became visible – a wispy stream of red. His eyes lit up in delight.
“Oh, thank you, Collette,” he said happily. “This is just so cool.”
Meanwhile, as Collette tutored and such, Rose had dreams of purchasing an iPod. She turned on Dad’s lava lamp as Collette cracked open the first text of the day in Dad’s office.
“I’m getting an iPod today. Yay!” She celebrated, thinking aloud. “If Dad lets me…”
Upstairs, Francis had changed into all fatigues, his shirt tucked in smartly. As Collette later read a chapter of Nancy Drew to Linnea on the front porch, Francis sprinted out the screen door.
“Whoa, dude,” Collette called after him, “where are you going?”
“Don’t worry,” he held up his hand in assurance. “I’m just going to run four laps up and down the street.”
“Well, alright,” Collette said reluctantly, knowing how worried Carrie got if the kids left the front sidewalk without supervision. “Just don’t go past the pine tree.”
Later, inside, Carrie called her over to the window. From the dining room, they could see both Francis and Linnea doing a set of push-ups, simultaneously, at the end of the driveway on the street. Mr. Francis was serious about the army business.
Meanwhile, Rose had waltzed over to her window garden and returned with a fairy-thin mushroom from the heavy rains the day before. And Carrie turned on Elvis’ “Make the World Go Away” while Mom and Rose prepared strawberry lemonade and popcorn for a snack during the second half of tutoring.
Around noon, Carrie fought Joe for the remaining meatloaf, which was soon shoveled down by Joe just before Carrie tackled him in the kitchen. And so Carrie was forced to content herself with beefsteak and potato soup with Amish dumplings while Rose baked peach bread and Collette prepared macaroni for Francis and Linnea. Joe picked a ripe tomato from the plant crawling up the old school bell, and that was lunch.
Later, after Collette picked up OLeif from work, they dropped by to see Izzy’s new bass. He was quite excited over his new instrument, which was huge, and the three boys picked around on it for a spell while Denae told Collette how she had helped serve grilled snapper, steamed vegetables, and couscous to the admiral of the Pakistani navy at a convention dinner at Boeing. And Collette and OLeif talked over things that evening as usual, thankful and thoughtful.