Gardens & Burgers & Movies
Friday, June 22, 2012
Puck had employed himself in foot races in the living room before breakfast…
“On your mark! Get set! Go!… On your mark! Get set! Go!… On your mark! Get set! Go!…”
All while OLeif was catching extra winks. He had taken off work to celebrate a mix of his and Collette’s (highly belated) birthdays, despite a lingering dry-sore throat.
Collette blamed the upped illness intake on the fact that the winter had never really frozen anything over in St. Louis. It was kind of weird.
Funny how two boys could make such a mess so quickly. A scattering of gifts from OLeif’s guys’ group. Chet Danger’s wife had made individual raspberry cobblers to send back, a ring pop for Gus, and coffee for OLeif. All spread out on the counter. Collections of apple cider vinegar jars, Airborne, Vitamin C lozenges, drinking glasses and dishes… OLeif’s boots and socks in the kitchen, motor oil… Then Puck had scattered catnip all over the kitchen floor for Maddie.
Which she ate.
Boys.
They stopped at the first light on Kingsway.
Puck had started a new habit. At every red light, he waved to the driver behind him. So far, the response had always been congenial.
The Botanical Gardens.
It had been about seven years, and most things were the same. But this time, the endless paths and botany included enormous Chinese lanterns pieced together with bright silks and an elaborate white dragon composed entirely of porcelain teacups and dishes.
An imaginative Victorian-Asian world where plants of odd names – The Old Man of the Andes – populated greenhouses, glass-space-domes, and a generous koi pond which was Puck’s favorite. For two quarters he provided lunch for the hundred or more fat fish in golds, yellows, oranges, and… less attractive brothers. Also ducks.
Then the gift shop – spilled over with everything from mirrored shelves of orchids and framed Costa Rican butterflies in telltale brilliant blue, to “apple ghost chili truffles” from Bissingers and 500 vegan-recipe books.
“Don’t ask for anything, now,” OLeif instructed Puck upon entering.
Puck was obedient.
“Look at this fat panda over here,” Collette led him to a back corner of plush animals.
Puck took on a serious tone…
“Dad told me not to ask for anything, so I’m not going to look.”
“Afraid you’ll be tempted?”
“Yes.”
He busied himself with a play table of magnetic blocks tucked inside shells of pale colored wood. Then OLeif let him dig through a hefty box of hematite, tiger eye, etc., to fill a tiny red velveted bag for $3.50. Puck marched up to the counter and struck up conversation with the cashier across a glass case of custom beaded jewelry.
Red Robin.
It might just very well have been the first time since Puck’s birth that they had dined – just the three of them – at an actual restaurant. Over stuffed burgers, all-you-can eat fries, speckled lemonades, Dr. Pepper, and Puck’s grilled cheese and chocolate milk, he also had words with their waitress…
“You’re spending the night at Grandma’s house!” she exclaimed. “Well, could my kids come with you too so I can have a night off? They’re eleven and three. Is that ok?”
“Well, yes. They can come.”
“How about through Sunday?”
“Well… I’m only staying one night at Grandma’s.”
“I guess they’ll have to come back and stay at your house after that then. Is that ok? You don’t mind if they play with your toys?”
“Well, yes, and they can play with my toys… but maybe not the really special things.”
“Oh, of course!”
“Like my baseball that Lance Berkman signed for me.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did!”
“No way, Jose!”
“So we will go pick up your kids.”
“You’re cute.”
The Great Escape movie theater.
“Brave”.
Collette ranked it very near “The Incredibles”, which had always been her favorite Pixar, as the boys consumed a bloated bag of buttery popcorn, and a box of Sno-Caps for Collette, because there weren’t any Junior Mints. Black bears, will-o-the-wisps, trays of scones, misty highlands, Scottish accents… not bad, not bad.
On the ride over to the house, Puck contemplated aloud striking up sports in the next year or two.
“You think about it, if you want to do one,” Collette told him. “You don’t have to.”
“Yes, well. Number two – you must have clothes for sports. Number three – keep focused on the ball. Number five – you got to get focused on the goal. Number seven – you got to keep focused on the coach. Number three – you got to keep focused on the other coaches… there’s a lot of coaches. No one even can count them. Number seven – you got to take a nap every day before the game, to give you lots of energy every, every day.”
He had it all figured out.
Once Puck was jams-ed, tooth-brush-ed, and settled down for another reading of “The Happy Hollisters”, OLeif and Collette joined Rose who was dinner-ing on a bowl of Cheerios, at her place.
The kittens were fighting in her bottom clothes drawer.
“I closed the drawer before I went to work the other day and I didn’t know he was in there,” Rose explained. “When I got back, he was still in there. And he didn’t go to the bathroom on anything. So I rewarded him.”
“Which one are you keeping?” Collette asked her.
“That one,” Rose nodded to one of the two indistinguishable grays. “He’s a trouble-maker.”
“What’s the other one?”
“A brat.”
As Collette considered the monumental idea of actually letting Puck take one of the kittens if no other home could be found, Rose grinned…
“What are you going to name it? Stink-a-hontas?”
“What?”
It was just the three of them for the night. Magnus forgot he had a wedding to attend, and Bing was sending off family to Hungary. So Rose found “The Last of the Mohicans” – a messed-up flick from their childhood – and Collette surveyed Rose’s recent grocery additions. Lemon drops, corn chips, canned mini ravioli, herbal tea, tortillas, bacon, Velveeta, sausage, and of course – the mangle of Yiddish word magnets on the fridge.