Happy Joe Day
Saturday, September 3, 2011
In which adieus are made to an old member of the original youth gang…
Joe — 23.
Carrie had plans for birthday breakfast: bacon and pancakes.
Of course the only day Collette could sleep in: 6:17 wake-up. No return.
Pretty sore left arm from the immunization…
The floor of the bedroom that morning was covered in pocket change, bangles, and other odds and ends that had taken refuge under the dresser.
“What happened here?” Collette asked OLeif.
“Oh, when I woke up, the spiders were dancing. That’s their party.”
Like son, like father.
Over to the Silverspoon’s where…
Izzy was supposedly at Jiu Jitsu class.
After lunch, Theoore, OLeif, and Curly left for Music Folk.
And Gloria went out to bathe the dog while Puck hit up a bowl of Cracker Jack and some Shaun the Sheep.
Puck had a surprise for his mama. Gloria had helped him.
“Look what I got for you, Mama!” he declared, holding up a new full-length mirror. “Wasn’t that nice of me to get that for you? Now you don’t need your green mirror anymore, and I can have it!”
Later in the afternoon, after Puck had been playing around in the lawn sprinkler, Izzy arrived to dress for work. He and Puck did their usual rough-housing. After a time, Izzy was sprawled out on his back on the floor…
“I glued you to the ceiling, Uncle Izzy!” Puck giggled.
Izzy shortly later left for the Zoo to work for the evening.
And Curly returned with a new guitar.
By seven, it was over to the McCrae’s for Mollie’s going-away party. As they arrived in the early evening, they passed Rose’s former Civic on the road, now a possession of the Rum family. Two violet wispy stripes had been applied to either side of the car.
“They didn’t,” was Collette’s initial response.
So inside where mostly church people were gathered, including the Coca-Cola, Eight, and Rye couples… Stan-o. He always turned up. And Mollie explained her upcoming months in Central America. A sort of missionary school involving studies in prayer and spiritual warfare in the balmy mountains of Costa Rica, followed by further work in possibly Guatemala and Panama. Though Mollie did happen to express the preferred desire to be living in a snowy cabin surrounded by her paints and sewing machine… or a cave. She had earlier, in water-color top, wood beaded necklace, and braided pigtails — classic Mollie — escorted Puck around the ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’, as her father described it. Puck was excited about the 80 or so goldfish and Koi. When asked, Mollie explained to him that the fish could not easily swim down the waterfall…
“We’d have little sushi balls falling down here.”
After presentation and prayer circle, Puck chowed down on the feast table, including cheese and crackers, grapes, and watermelon.
Back home.
OLeif messing around with his new software, ibuprofen for the increasingly sore arm. Asleep.