Greetings from Donkey
Monday, August 22, 2011
In which Puck receives a note of regret from ‘Amsterdam’…
The morning:
Puck began with a mug, each, of milk and blueberry juice.
Compiling the last of the financial documents for the adoption update.
Schedule appointment at Honda to replace left brake light.
Puck’s ninth reading lesson.
Clean library for OLeif’s upcoming week of website work.
Confirm OLeif’s Tuesday lunch appointment.
Type up grocery list for OLeif.
Outside was sounding like something out of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Wishbone version, of course.
“It seems like that dog is fighting with his best friend,” said Puck thoughtfully, “probably fighting with his best dog.”
Calvin & Hobbes. Of course.
Puck ran over a loaner yellow highlighter to their active-granny neighbor, Tasha.
More responses for the genealogy.
In the mail…
- A tiny postcard arrived in the mail to Puck from Donkey… “Dear Puck. I miss you very much. I missed my boat because there were too many donkeys on it already. This made me very sad. Bu I will come home for Christmas. And I will write you letters from my travels. I am in Holland. Can you find that on your globe? I love you very much. Love, Donkey.” Puck was highly excited. The postcard was painters-taped to the wall by his bedroom door.
- Reimbursement check for returned books back in June: $62.85.
- And a surprising $25 Subway gift card from generous Aunt Galena in thanks for Collette’s work on the genealogy.
Puck was eager to help plan Donkey’s passage from Holland. So they looked at cruise ship charts and Puck marked an ‘X’ on the cabin in which Donkey would live on his journey across the Atlantic.
Puck stuck out his tongue a few times that afternoon…
“I wanted to say ‘hello’ in Tibet,” he giggled.
He noticed the patch of suddenly-sprung pink lilies in the corner of the yard… an odd time to decide to bloom. Puck was happy to see them…
“They just appeared out of nowhere. Probably someone planted them in a far-off country. Probably they grew very long roots leading to another land. Yeah.”
At dinner, Puck turned on his selection of ambient music for the meal: Charlotte Church: Christmas. As the operatic so-many-times-just-that-flat voice sang of the Little Drummer Boy, Puck was contemplating…
“Something strange is coming in my heart when I listen to this music,” he said, in great solemnity. “I’m not a superman anymore, ’cause I’m listening to this music. I have always been a superman. But now I feel I’m not a superman anymore. I think I’m a servant now.”
— He took another thoughtful two-handed swig of his milk. —
“I have always had all of this stuff. But now I feel I’m giving everything away out of my room. I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I’m thinking… There’s something strange coming into my heart. I’m a servant and I’m Octavian Puck Theodore Silverspoon. I’m still Puck, but something strange has come into my heart and I’m not a superman anymore. I’m a servant.”
Then he recited self-memorized passages of the story of the Tower of Babel, which sent him into giggling fits over his dinner plate. The same ones over, and over, and over again…
And OLeif was home for his first week of vacation that year.