Has the Mail Started Running Again?

7:30 saw us crunching down the driveway, El Oso behind the wheel, animals fed, thirteen of sixteen water-able house plants: breakfasted. The roads were still coated with sheets of slushy dirty snow, inspiring Joe to leave the Miata home and once again drive in to work with El Oso.

A plate of thick peanut butter chocolate chip muffins waited under glass at the Big House (they pulled apart very nicely; I guess that’s how I judge a good muffin) where Carrie rummaged through Grandma’s old sewing basket for spools of colored thread: reception decoration mock-ups for Jaya. The fact that my younger brother will be getting married in four months has still not registered with me.

“So Dad went downstairs to wake Francis up today,” Carrie told me. “And he said, ‘Francis? Are you awake?’ And Francis just lay there with his eyes closed and said, ‘Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip …” (He might have actually intended to say “yup-yup-yup-yup”, but anything that compares Francis to a Sesame Street Martian muppet sounds much funnier to me.)

While Linnea was informed at her orthodontist appointment that they had plans to laser through her gum to get to an obstinate molar, Mom, Carrie, and I picked up groceries across the street. Aldi, where little $1.99 green table plants, gnocchi, and boxed gyros all live together in German-designed harmony. Then we dropped by Twin Oaks. Turns out it was a good thing we did, because the office still hadn’t booked the wedding on the calendar. Cited “communication issues” between pastors and staff. We three sisters waited in the lobby, adjusted crooked Jerusalem watercolors on the walls …

While we were gone, Francis let Puck watch “Wall-E” and “The Incredibles”. Sometimes it pays to have an 18 year-old uncle. This same uncle was staring at himself in the mirror flexing his muscles when we walked through the door with four armloads of groceries.

We polished off the morning with a pot of bean-less-chili-Velveeta dip and tortilla chips over the old family vacation home videos from 1999: Michigan.

Old Church had been canceled due to “mechanical issues”. Francis left to work out with his buddy. Dad worked the exercise bike in the basement watching apologetics videos; Puck watched too, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket on the couch. Mom had Bible study. Linnea was assistant coaching volleyball. Heavy meat soup on the stove.

Finally back for the night in front of the fire, El Oso and Izzy chatted online about wedding photography budgets.