Headaches, Cats
Saturday, December 10, 2011
In which a headache day incorporates festal services and brown bear…
Sigh… things were strange. Adding to the list of St. Louis’ recent-years downfalls: Classic 99, Tony LaRussa, Albert… it just wasn’t right.
Collette woke up with a decent sinus headache on the floor.
Mom had a friend over from Illinois to shop in Old St. Charles.
Joe was out at the Pepper’s for the next several days, dog sitting.
Linnea was participating with the youth group for service day.
Francis had a lunch appointment with Henri and the boys, which was then canceled.
And Rose was out sorting toys for charity and cat shopping with Benedict before returning to the house to begin refinishing an antique chest once belonging to Francis…
“She can’t have it,” Francis protested. “Besides, I wrote my name on it in permanent marker.”
“Francis!”
“Well, it was a long time ago,” he grinned.
“Couldn’t be that long ago. You just did learn how to write.”
Linnea was wakened at Carrie’s suggestion by Collette…
“Go back there and cuddle with her. I usually flatten her and sing Elvis’ Steamroller. She’ll think it’s me.”
True enough…
“Uuuuuh… Carrie…… Collette!”
While Mom waited for her friend to arrive, she shared old tales of her 60’s Barbie doll…
“She ate her share of rock salt in the day. Every time the salt truck would go by, we’d go out and gather up all the salt for our Barbies to eat.”
And the time they had watched that classic old film where the man’s face is eaten by ants…
“So we’d collect lady bugs and put them all over our Barbies’ faces.”
The good old days…
Then Francis joined the discussion, being remembered from his older, less mischievous, days, like when he spoke at Great Grandma Jewel’s funeral or when he lost his dinner all over Wally Sr. at the Christmas concert…
“Bluebell went on with everything and just said, ‘The flu waits for no man.’”
Francis left a message on the Hobcoggin’s answering machine the following day, apologizing for losing his groceries. They kept it for months.
And Carrie was envisioning all the buns dressed up in Christmas sweaters peeking out of a little red wagon on their trip through Soulard, which brought reminisces of the pet shop…
“All those poor little bunnies,” said Linnea.
“They’d better not be poor little bunnies,” said Carrie, “or I won’t be able to control myself.”
Meanwhile, Earnest had been chewing up the manger scene under the tree.
“It’s so cute!” was Carrie’s reaction.
But she was getting down to business with spreadsheets and needed a writing utensil.
“Joe, could you get a pen?”
Joe, who had returned to check out the scene, looked up from where he was busy texting Collette’s dentist from her phone: I HAS A CHEEZBURGER!!!!!!…
“Is this for writing business plans?”
“Yes.”
“OK, I’ll get it. But I’ll be needing five stocks of your company.”
Meanwhile, the internet was bust. No one could get any work done.
In the afternoon…
Rose returned from cat-shopping, Chinese, and stories of her company Christmas party where the featured entertainment of the evening included a lasso-hopper, yodeling Freebird. She had also chosen a black with splotchy brown, cat, to be adopted on Monday.
Memorial followed shortly later where Collette met Dr. Who and conversation centered around many topics, including Persian culture, Doctor Who, and the function of the brain before death.
Back to catch up with Joe (who had just dropped off Wally in Clayton to scuba in the mines) and Rose with OLeif and Magnus at home for movie night: survival in the Alaskan wilds and bears. More specifically: man-eating bear. Yuck.