Happy Anniversary
Saturday, September 17, 2011
In which an anniversary is celebrated…
The morning started with Battle-of-the-Hiccups for Collette.
Puck arraigned himself in his own garb: Krispy Kreme sweatshirt, blue cargoes, yellow wellies, clip-on tie over the sweatshirt, and motorcycle helmet. Visor down. Automatic self-made Puck audio-control. It was… amazing.
OLeif had put together his Amazon Universal as well: octopus tentacle Macbook decals, books on how to make personal canons and other minor weapons, mini air conditioner for his work desk, and Icelandic Opal candies.
So with the rain falling steadily, incorporating the world into that which much resembled the scents of the Atlantic… OLeif, Collette, and Puck drove to the Silverspoon’s. On the way, check-in with Mom, including Mom’s idea to make a glow-in-the-dark-eyeball wreath for October. Rose was feeling better. Joe off on his final-PE-credit canoe float…
“They’re all college students,” he had groaned earlier to OLeif.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re all going to be falling out of the canoes. And I’m going to have to rescue all of them.”
So over at the Silverspoon’s…
Gloria was in Texas on her own personal road trip, visiting friends and family. Izzy and friends were recovering from a late night of McDonald’s (involving apparently about ten packs of unused buttermilk sauce) and zombie attacks. And Theodore, OLeif, and Puck were heading out to a motorcycle show.
Before departure, OLeif introduced Charlie to the wild and wonderful world of Spotify…
“Aah!” Charlie exclaimed. “What is this black magic!”
“Easily converted,” Theodore chuckled.
And then the inevitable subject of OLeif’s facial hair…
“My beard is shameful compared to yours,” Charlie was saying. “I should go shave it now. Out of sorrow.”
Theodore finished his coffee…
“Izzy, if you would, before you go, please… take these brownies that you made. And feed them to your ravenous friends. Because if you do not… there will be a high probability that I will be compelled to not let them waste.”
“Sure… Hey, I learned something yesterday… that cleats and asphalt do not mix.”
Once Theodore, OLeif, and Puck took off, Izzy, Charlie, Jordan, and one of their other pals cleaned up ‘the carnage’, as Charlie so eloquently put it. This was followed with several abstract rounds of Kung-Fu-space-wars sound effects in the kitchen.
And then Collette was alone to herself with: English ancestry, South African wildlife reserves, and sparkling raspberry seltzer.
Shortly after two o’clock, OLeif and Collette dropped Puck off at the house with Mom and Carrie, who was keeping an exhaustive eye on the bunny, while Dad was teaching Rose and Francis how to drive the stick on hills, Joe was obviously canoe-floating, and Linnea was at yet another volleyball practice.
It was time to celebrate the seventh anniversary, three weeks later…
After a both-sides-of-the-highway sudden shut-down, which for a moment OLeif thought might possibly be a police protest… to Alton, and a little further down the River Road… a lot down the River Road, to none other than the Finn Inn. In cool gray skies through Grafton’s 175th anniversary celebration.
Halibut sandwich for Collette, with an added layer of steak fries. A four-part platter of catfish, fried clams, butterfly shrimp, frog’s legs, slaw, mashed potatoes, and gravy for OLeif.
On the way out, they dropped in at one of the small one-time-cottage-shops for a half pound of part-chocolate, part-chocolate-peanut-butter for the family, Boston Baked Beans, and a fist-sized jaw breaker (a.k.a. everlasting gobstopper) for Puck.
Before leaving the Illinois side, they drove high up on top of the cliffs, all old red cobblestone, where the beastly bones of Hallowe’en Victorian homes clustered together under large shade trees.
After picking up Puck, still graced in motorcycle helmet, home to the aromas of neighborhood woodsmoke and The King’s Speech. And though it was a fine film, she was sure… Collette fell asleep halfway through…