Happy Everything

Sunday, November 20, 2011
In which days of note are celebrated late, early, early, and early…

At church that morning…
Francis and Linnea-Irish were recovering from a swing dance the previous evening.
Puck sang with all the other kids up front. He forgot to participate in the hand motions, but his voice was heard distinctly enough, hands shoved in both pockets, grinning back at his parents for most of the song.
And Ben-Hur was back for the week from California, and caught up with Joe and Mollie after services.

Back on the ranch…
Rose was still in her comfy new bathrobe over jeans…
“I’ve decided I’m going to scare people when they knock on my door and I’ll always be in my bath robe,” she said, with a satisfied smile.
And Carrie had stories of church. Not only had a man in a leather trench coat yelled at Dr. Wintershine over the din of the pipe organ during communion, but the ensuing potluck had not been very pretty. Carrie was still feeling ill…
“It was terrible. They all had weird names. Wiggly Toes Guy had labeled everything: ‘Pasta with Meat Stuff’, ‘Brownie Thingy’… I had some of a salad that smelled like a foot… I took five Pepto-Bismol last night.”
Meanwhile, Carrie-Bri had a full spread of hors d’oeuvres ready for lunch: bacon-wrapped asparagus, stuffed mushrooms, baked brie in pastry shell (which were Carrie-crafted works of art), little smokies, pineapple, sweet potato kabobs, and homemade Mackinac Island fudge.
Conversation was nothing very unusual. It included Rose suggesting that she hide the spare key to her apartment in OLeif’s beard. Her possible move-in date was now Friday.
Then.. the cake, from Grandma Snicketts, courtesy of Dairy Queen… Candles by Grandma Combs. The cake was soon stuffed to capacity with candles and various cake-toppers, including a lace-ringed candelabra for Mom, and Grandma ‘photo-shopped’ onto a yoga-body-statue for Carrie’s particular benefit. The placement and lighting of candles was always a spectacle…
Somehow ‘Happy Birthday’ read only ‘BAD HIT’, at the efforts of Francis and Linnea.
“Don’t light all of them.”
“Just that red squiggly one.”
“Linnea! No!”
“Don’t light that one. It will drip wax all over the cake.”
“No, Joe!”
“Just the red one!”
“Aaaaah!!”
Finally, the cake was presented to the anti-harmonious tunes of Happy Birthday to three ladies at once. Then passed around with Joe screeching out an unpleasant version of O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Later, they convened in the living room for the unwrapping of gifts.
Joe stuffed Pumpkin in his sweatshirt, which she never seemed to mind, with only her mischievous head sticking out from time to time.
And one of the foster bunnies came out, which looked much more like a small sheep than anything else.
Carrie was first to open the boxes: a lop-eared silver bunny charm and a tie-dyed beach towel from Grandma Combs…
“Nice. Now all I need is a beach,” said Carrie with a grin.
And a pair of Naughty Monkey shoes and an organic Lush body bar from the family.
Mom came next. Grandma Combs handed her a wrapped box…
“Oh… Mom…” Mom said, surprised. “A groovy lamp? You shouldn’t have…”
Grandma only laughed uproariously.
Mom then began to open the box, relieved to discover that the it did not actually house a lava lamp as advertised, but a bag of 500 Irish shamrock seeds in Irish soil.
“So you gave her… dirt?” OLeif asked.
And a set of lavender-scented items from Monticello.
Grandma Snicketts was gifted a small boxed jigsaw puzzle from Grandma Combs. There was also a card for Grandma Snicketts…
“Well, we sent Francis to get your card,” Mom explained. “And he forgot the envelope.”
“I didn’t know they came with envelopes,” Francis protested. “I was just trying to get out of there as fast as I could.”
And the gifting had been concluded.
As the grandmas departed for the early evening, and Joe left to meet up with Wally and buddies for radio scripting, Francis lifted Pumpkin off the couch and set her on his stomach…
“OK, cat,” he said, “it’s time to do your job.”

And… back up to church.
Judah was in Iowa with the Pies, so Evangeline and Hesed joined their table for the evening. This made Puck happy. So did the tables laden with chocolate mousse, pumpkin pies, shortbread, brownies, cookies, and Andes mints.
For the rest of the meal, Hesed followed Puck around the sanctuary until 7:30 when it was time to call it a night.