Home's Heaven

Friday, August 24, 2007

Puck was off to his fourth doctor’s appointment for his four-month check-up that morning.

Sheets of rain fell before the light of the morning sky as OLeif drove them. The cascades came from the north and south and met in the middle of the eastern horizon. Almost Collette’s kind of day.

After a bill of good health, a chunky reading of seventeen pounds, one and a half ounces, and some bright orange and yellow band-aids later, Puck was back on the road to visit his aunts and uncles.

Over at the house, Rose, once again bedecked in an odd variety of lounge clothes and a bright knit cap that made her head look like a dipped red ice cream cone, greeted Puck with her usual grunt:

“Hi, Puck! It’s your crazy hat aunt.”

Meanwhile, Mom was on a basement cleaning rampage. When Joe returned from class, he aided in the completion. Francis, benefiting from the throwing-away-of-no-longer-needed-items process, helped himself to a mostly broken particle board table. He had plans for it, before it hit the garbage, and before the next set of rainstorms arrived. Shortly later, he returned with a highly damaged table top.

“I totaled it! It’s dead!”

It did, indeed, look like a very dead tabletop, like a ripped piece of giant cardboard. What exactly he had done to arrive at such an effect, Collette was uncertain.

Meanwhile, Puck, who was not inclined to take a nap, watched “The Picture of Dorian Gray” with his Aunt Carrie-Bri, who had just returned from work.

The storms rolled in as Mom, Collette, Joe, and Puck headed out for groceries before returning Collette and Puck with a small trampoline and Rose’s (once Ivy’s) papasan chair for the basement. Joe stayed with the napping puck in the van while Mom and Collette picked up the groceries. Upon return, Joe had given him a tiny stuffed white kitten, whose paws Puck was vigorously gumming to death.

The skies were full of blues and grays. The clouds were fashioned in such a manner as to make them look like the devil’s ribcage hanging in the sky.

Home was back underneath a blue rainfall – the warm gold glow of walls and lamps, music of mandolin and fiddle, OLeif in the kitchen. While dinner baked, OLeif picked up the giggling chubby and played him like a violin. Puck thought this was very funny and laughed away his evening.