First Party
Friday, September 2, 2011
In which the first of Joe’s birthday celebrations is celebrated…
Puck started his morning waiting for a hot breakfast, as usual…
“I might as well just rock in my chair… while I wait.”
He dragged his little rocking chair into the middle of the living room, lights still off, and rocked.
Semi-early departure.
While OLeif engaged in an appointment at seminary, Collette and Puck read Calvin together in the rec room until Puck was distracted by two guys playing ping-pong. The room smelled of cinnamon rolls. Collette ignored it. Old hollied white brick buildings. Greek sprawled on the green chalkboard behind them…
Convocation.
Wiggly Toes Guy was singing up front.
Puck was wearing his ‘Big Chief’ shirt.
“Come on, this way, Big Chief,” one of the older gentlemen of the faculty called to him, when Puck began walking off the wrong way.
A clearly Argentine student and Japanese student in the crowd. There were others of international background as well…
Back to the rec room while OLeif was at class. This time, the smell was of coffee. And the old Roman skeleton behind the glass had sadly been removed. Puck was disappointed not to have seen it. So he watched The Three Caballeros on Collette’s laptop and picked out an 85-cent bag of
O-Ke-Doke cheddar popcorn from the vending machine. It was pretty quiet.
As they left, the gentleman from the faculty called out…
“Hey, Big Chief!”
Fuel-up at Shell; coffee for OLeif. As they waited…
“Mama? The world is full of tears, isn’t it?”
And when OLeif asked him about why God wanted him to do good things…
“So we can glory Him.”
Updated fifteen-month-renewal physicals for the adoption off Manchester; tetanus/whopping cough immunizations. Now required for travel to South America. When OLeif entered the examining room, his arms were filled with the items of the day, including his bento: too hot to be left in the car…
“You can just put your stuff on the chair,” the nurse told him. “This is your room. Hang up posters if you like.”
“Oh, good to know. I’ll bring paint next time.”
And finally, back to the ranch, where…
Carrie was busy preparing homemade ice cream cookie sandwiches: chocolate chip cookies filled with vanilla ice cream and rolled in brightly colored candy sprinkles. Puck immediately received a half.
“Well I guess now he won’t eat his cheese sandwich for lunch. Thanks, Sun,” OLeif teased.
“I can’t help it! He’s so cute!”
And the boys back on the road for OLeif to drop Puck off to spend the night with his nana while OLeif went for some motorcycling with Gaston Bananas.
Joe was dog-sitting for the Peppers.
Francis had been called over to help out a neighbor.
Linnea was at an all-day volleyball tournament on the varsity league till after ten that night in Illinois.
And Earnest was adding white spots to his new look.
Collette and Carrie took off for their own errands, after catching up on everything and briefly discussing the effects of polio on the young in Uruguay, which Carrie had witnessed in her travels.
T.J. Max, Sally’s, Target, and Beauty Brands later… the hair-repair solution was located. And Carrie’s hair was not nearly as green as Collette had feared.
And back to the house where an unexpected email from a certain cousin produced a sizable amount of shock.
For the evening with the whole gang: ice cream sandwiches, Carrie’s special caramel popcorn, and cold cider. Sparker candle. Joe was destined to have seven children. Curly dropped by for about ten minutes with Joe’s birthday gift: ‘Why Should the Fire Die’ Nickel Creek matchboxes. Magnus sketching on his disposable coffee cup, as usual. Francis participated in the party. Bing’s last night with them for awhile, with BSF leaders’ meetings starting up the following week… And Joe’s choice of film: The Season of the Witch: Crusades, witch hunts, etc., another Nicholas Cage winner, inspiring a plethora of laughs, even extending into the Presbyterian jokes and Bengay commercials… filmed on location in Budapest. What an embarrassment. Another laugher.
“He had to make five films this summer because he went bankrupt buying dinosaur bones and a castle,” Rose explained.