Joseph & Minnie

Joseph the Blue-Eyed, at 22, was getting married that night at The City Museum.
But Friday also didn’t start off the best. Puck wouldn’t eat his rice cereal for breakfast and OLeif had destroyed Collette’s lilac bush. She thought he had been outside an abnormally long amount of time Thursday evening, fixing the headlights on the car.
“I pruned the bushes too,” he said when he finally came back inside. “I might have gotten a little carried away.”
He did get carried away. Collette wasn’t pleased with the scraggly bush that was once large enough to be a shade tree.
Over at the house, Frances gave the Puck a tahn-tahn ride around the backyard while Collette looked over his math homework. It was already warm and muggy. Storms were coming again.
Carrie had her interview in the valley with an old friend of the family, Saul Chalke, who had lived in Taiwan for two years and spoke Mandarin. He had ideas about several types of security jobs for her, and joked about contacting his friend, a bounty hunter, for further prospects.
Things continued to shape up for the rest of the day. Puck learned how to say the word “roses” after Collette and Carrie-Bri pointed at Mom’s blue vase of red roses from the graduation.
“Roses!” Puck crowed, twice, and reached for the velvety redness.
After Puck’s week of grumpiness had been diagnosed as being the result of an ear irritation, (according to Dr. Box), Mom, Collette, and Puck dropped by Walgreen’s to fill Puck’s prescription and find a dinner of macaroni and cheese, pizza, and Italian ices for Linnea.
Shortly later, Mom and Linnea were at OLeif’s and Collette’s to watch the Puck, and OLeif and Collette were off to the city.
The grand old City Museum. What could be described as a giant carousel of colors, bobbins, gears, cogs, and sculptures shaken together and upside-down. Up to the third floor where most of the guests were already seated: candles in frosted cups and silver candlesticks flickered along the line of windows looking out to the coiled staircases, high-wire passageways, and tiers of metallic puzzles. From the ceiling hung rows of great lighted white Chinese lanterns. Collette couldn’t see much of anything during the ceremony, but from what she could hear, a trio of electric piano, clarinet, and violin played a collection of eclectic pieces from the front of the hall. The bridesmaids carried bundles of dark orange roses and sapphire blue flowers. Anne was looking very pretty as one of the bridesmaids. And Magnus was best man, in a black tux. Joseph was looking a little nervous as he walked down the aisle with the pastor. But the crowd was relaxed and the setting was casual. Echoes of children laughing and yelling to each other outside, and the chatter of the crowd, drowned out the usual tense atmosphere of most wedding ceremonies.
Then Minnie entered the room: petite, dark hair pulled up behind her blusher, smiling at her guests. The ceremony was brief and to the point, always a plus.
Then the crowd mingled on the various levels of the museum for the next hour. OLeif introduced Magnus to the climatic shaft of caverns. And then it was time to gather for the reception where a crepe table had been prepared, tables of fruit and desserts, trays of champagne around a wood dance floor. Then Magnus hurried over to give his speech.
“He’s loving this,” OLeif whispered, “He’s going to start telling everyone about how Joseph always beat him up.”
“So, Minnie,” Magnus was saying, “Welcome to the family. It only seems appropriate, now, for me to share some very personal stories about Joseph with you… in front of a room full of people…”
In the end, however, there were no embarrassing stories. Magnus congratulated his brother and his sister-in-law, told them that he loved them, and that when they were 75, (fat), and had their grandchildren and great grandchildren running around, that their love would be at its greatest.
What made the wedding just perfect, was the lightening in the west, a rainstorm blowing in hard. As OLeif and Collette walked off to the car in the sharp winds, Collette looked back to the hall of lights and thought that, all in all, it had been one of the best weddings she had seen.