Goodbye, November
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
In which everything sort of happens altogether like it usual does in a family of so many people…
When Puck arrived at the house in the frigid 28 degrees of the morning, he found Linnea-Irish up on the roof, stuffed in a robe and blanket, soaking in some wintry sun.
“Her feet froze to the roof, I think!” Puck declared loudly, as he ran in and out several times to confirm her position.
Then Mom showed him the Charlie Brown Christmas display in the dining room, loaned to them by Grandma Combs. This included the sad little Christmas tree with push-button for the Peanuts theme song. Even Dad started jiving a little to it, just having returned from his early run in the ‘beautiful morning’, as he put it.
“He kept playing that thing over and over last night…” said Carrie.
Joe was just leaving for work, equating Puck with…
“He’s like a firework in the middle of June.”
“You mean July, right?” Mom asked.
“Nope. June. That’s how crazy he is.”
There was a catch-up on business plans, the possible move, the church situation, etc., and Linnea being mistaken for a rabbit…
“Mom went into my room yesterday,” said Carrie. “And she came to tell me that one of the bunnies had escaped. ‘I saw his little brown head pulling back under the bed like a turtle going into it’s shell,’ she said. And it turned out to be Linnea, hiding under the bed from Mom.”
And back to algebra for Linnea, as the radio crackled out some Bing Crosby…
“A star, a star, dancing in the night…”
“I never liked this song,” said Linnea. “It always reminds me of tornados.”
“How?”
“Because Joe would always change the lyrics… ‘A tornado, a tornado, tearing up the houses…’”
This was only expected.
Snuggles was debating whether or not to attempt the elements. Puck waited by the open front door, lounging against the bench…
“Make your choice, cat,” he commanded.
Mom turned on the Christmas records.
And Carrie was busy arranging meetings with financial advisors (who were already impressed with the presented figures), lawyers, and the tech guy in Malaysia. Around coffee and Skype meetings and dinner dates with Earnest. Keep the morale high in bun-bun land…
After one o’clock, everyone but Dad and the boys (all at work) departed for Aldi in The Valley and the House Rabbit Society shortly past Manchester.
They broke out a box of knock-off Nutty Bars on the way toward 141 to the house near Gladiator Lane that basement-ed the hundreds of rescued buns in bunny wonderland. It was an entire world of adoptable bunnies. Hundreds of buns, thousands of buns, millions and billions and trillions of buns.
“Aren’t they just beautiful?!” Carrie lavished compliments upon them.
After they had picked up the necessary transport cage and hay, back on the road in the already beginning-to-dim sun.
Back for fresh bake-it-yourself Aldi pizza and A Charlie Brown Christmas for Francis and Puck.
For the evening, Mom and Dad decided to take Rose mattress shopping. She had still been insisting that a mattress was not yet necessary. The floor would do.
Francis arranged a get-together for himself, Creole, and Puff ‘o Lump after about a month apart.
Linnea would attend a music night at youth group. Her show-and-tell selection would be an original music video staring: Curly, Starr, and Joe, entitled: Smokin’ Hot. She and Joe were busy loading it on her iPod in the middle of the heaviest traffic patterns of the house. Carrie pushed past them to the kitchen…
“Excuse me, ENFJs.”
Carrie was also leaving for a coffee meeting.
And Puck had dug up an old model outhouse, crafted by his great-great grandfather. Apparently it ran in the family… And Joe explained to Puck the mechanics behind it.
Back to church for the final kids gathering of 2011.
On the road in, Dad and Mom escorted them, including Hansel and Gretyl (running out of the house with half-eaten green apple in hand), in… the green slug.
“It’s the Titanic!” Gretyl announced.
When traffic built up on N…
“Grandpa, can’t you get in that lane?” Puck asked.
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” said Dad, looking down the two-lane road.
“Police cars don’t usually like big vans bumping baby cars off the road,” Francis explained.
“Yup,” said Dad. “They might put me in the slammer. And then you all would have to fend for yourselves.”
“That’s right,” said Francis. “Because I would be the bread winner of the family. Because I would make the most money… Except for Joe… And Rose.”
“Do you make ten an hour?” Collette asked.
“Nope,” Francis grinned. “$7.25.”
“And you would all have to live in cardboard boxes,” Dad went on. “I’d actually be even better off than all of you, because I’d at least be inside in the jail.”
Puck was somehow not entirely confused…
Inside the church: two hours of reigning in the potential chaos. About the time that most of the ‘Little Lambs’ were sprawled out on the floor, one of the dads helping out gave up on trying to have them all sit up again…
“We should just teach them planking,” he joked.
And then Daisy-Jean was ready with the cookies to charge them up for the final fifteen minutes.
There was also news that Idlewild’s husband had interviewed for a detective position that day.
OLeif arrived after 7:30 and rushed them off to obtain via a Craig’s List ad…
“A surprise, Dad? For me?”
“Yup, buddy.”
Puck’s tired eyes perked up as they arrived at the QT station next to a blue mini van, where OLeif handed over 25 dollars for a large Christmas tree after breaking a twenty inside via excuse of King Size Reeses.
And final word of the night came in that Rose was now the proud owner of a new mattress.