Hours Around Town
Crackers threw herself across Puck’s open yellow homework folder, sprawling like a damsel in distress. I don’t know. Sometimes I think she wants attention. Puck wasn’t buying it though.
From the window, I could see him smashing chunks of ice on slabs of frozen puddle in the street with Eddie, waiting for Anna’s bus to get back. A few extra moments stolen away before homework.
And it was cold enough for that ice. All week, barely scraping into the twenties, looked like. A few dips into the 0-degree range.
Anyway, I found myself out in that cold for most of the day.
Starting with a 9:45 appointment with the secretary’s desk at school. The usual phone calls, sick child with 100.5 temperature waiting for pick-up, children reading books in the office because they can’t play outside due to asthma, refill Expo white-board spray bottle, answer questions I don’t know how to answer, etc. Even got a little reading done.
By eleven o’clock, I was ready for two of those crunchy honey-oat granola bars in the parking lot while reading a book of quotes before driving to Ditto. While I wrapped up the lunch break, I watched Puck on the playground, his bright orange coat leading the way up the stairs to the slide, a large pack of kids following.
Ditto – my standard two hours. First thing I do after clocking in on the way to the sorting room is snag any available pairs of track pants in Puck’s size. This is a highly rare commodity. My guess is that Puck isn’t the only seven year-old boy performing turbo slides on his knees across carpet and cement on a regular basis. Today – bingo – three pairs just waiting for me. Then I sorted shoes – nasty business – I don’t care how many hundreds of dollars they cost or how fine the Israeli leather is. And finally, hanging and tagging a rack of women’s tops where I casually check on any high-end pieces for the girls such as Billabong. Today it was a sapphire Hollister hoodie. Clock out.
Great Harvest Bread Company. Two loaves of honey wheat.
School parking lot, twenty minutes reading.
Pick up Puck. Happy. Behaved. Full up pep and zip and lunch.
Library: The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy for “Mama”. Ripley’s “Believe it or Not” for Puck.
Home.
Although, I second-guessed letting him bring home Ripley’s when all I heard while I prepared dinner was … “AAAH! OOOH! GAAAH! WHAT?! WOW! AAAH! THAT’S DISGUSTING!!”