General Impressions
Crackers would not leave me alone Tuesday morning while I tried for breakfast, a bowl of shredded chicken on the couch. Puck owns a chicken thief. She bugged me so much, I finally put the scraps, still bowled, on the floor.
Weepy skies. In sympathy for the loss in Los Angeles. Sometimes I think I’m just absurd, but I never completely buy it.
When I arrived for the Puckster, a sheaf of blonde hair stuck straight up in celebration of bed-head. I brought him to the kitchen sink while Gloria prepared to leave for work.
“Let’s smooth your hair down, buddy. You have a date with Anneliese in an hour.”
“It’s not a date!”
“A date is just where you meet someone.”
“I don’t need to meet her! I already know her!”
Gloria stayed as long as possible before her deadline at the office. I think she would have preferred to paint the bathroom.
Puck’s 11:30 “date” at the Redcoat house went well. I held the baby before returning to the Silverspoon’s for a few hours of editing while Puck enjoyed pizza, boxes of markers, magformers, and jungle gyms with three sisters as playmates.
“He was such a gentleman,” Idlewild told me when I got back.
Puck was gathered from the basement where Anneliese sat on a chair holding a damp cloth to a bloody cut beside her eye. Apparently there had been an accident with her sister on the jungle gym. Brave speck.
Puck held up a piece of notebook paper he had been busy coloring into a Native American spider web masterpiece. He turned to the young family…
“I vow I will make a print of this for all of you.”
On our drive home, I asked him more about his time with the girls.
“I ate only half a pizza slice for some reason. But the girls chug-chug-CHUGGED on their milk! Ha ha! Prob’ly to impress me! Ha ha ha.”
Later, Puck continued filling in the spider web with color on the couch.
“Pretty nice, son.”
“Thank you. I thought it was pretty good myself.”
“I think the girls will like it.”
“I think they will. Because I made this pretty attractive for little girls.”
At dinner, Puck was concerned about where this masterpiece could be safely kept until he saw the Redcoat girls again.
“What about my firebox?”
“Well, what if a burglar comes though, Mom? He could wham it with an axe. But of course that could wake you. But he would be clever enough to do it outside.”
I snapped green beans for Bær when he got home, preparing more food for Wednesday. Eighteen pounds down and counting. This was also to distract myself from another tight seven o’clock match-up under the peeling palms of L.A. They did not disappoint.