Fourteen
The familiar sound of plastic trigger and chemical spray woke me that morning. Someone was hard at work on the bathroom sink with a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles.
Puck.
“Mom! Come check out how clean I made the bathroom!”
I guess I could handle having this as my daily alarm clock. Who wouldn’t mind letting the almost-2nd-grader in the family volunteering his early morning hours to scrubbing the sink? But then there’s the whole issue of chemicals. And child labor laws. Still, he did a pretty darned good job, and not just the sink but the rest of the room as well. I almost had him sign a contract.
By the afternoon, Puck and I had sludged through another stack of books, the Russian fur hat still smashed on his head. I never asked why it’s been his inseparable accessory these last three days.
He biked with Eddie on his scooter in the street for some time. Earlier I had heard them making battle plans with Anna on the porch.
“This weapon will be used when you get a FOUSAND FIFTY HUNDRED POINTS!”
“Yeah! Or sixteen hundred.”
Around three o’clock we showed up at the Big House for Puck’s second official bunny room cleaning. He put in some hard work, still wearing that hat.
It was quiet. Irish was still in Iowa with Cherry. Mom was ironing stuff in the kitchen, telling me about her latest historical points of interest; Mom loves history. This time it was Henry VIII. Rose drove over on her day off, waiting for Francis to get back from work. An hour later they shoved backpacks into the trunk of Ricky’s car. Six hour drive to Chicago, just for the heck of it. For three kids who don’t mind pulling all-nighters, they had already made plans for the whole weekend despite the late start.
Game fourteen for me; eight for Carrie. No storms, no blistering heat. Just cool breezes on a strange July night in Section 369 high above left field. Witnessed Matt Holliday single-handedly win the game, including a two-run homer, 400th career double, and 1000th career run. Not bad for the old chap. And some nice pitching from Lance Lynn, until he came up for his turn to bat, bases loaded.
A kid across the aisle moaned dejectedly, “Lance Lynn never hits anything…”
Francis texted Carrie around eleven o’clock. Stuck in traffic outside of Chicago.