Keeps Me Young
The wind was up today. It pushed against the house, all quiet except for the silk of Crackers stretching out over the linoleum. Somewhere, I heard wind chimes.
From 7:30 to 2:20, I was busy. Busy, busy. Typing, researching, cleaning, typing, typing, and more typing.
By the time I walked through school doors to write in Puck’s carpool number on the clipboard, I saw one of the other 2nd grade moms, also the lady who ran the cafeteria.
“You’ll like this,” she told me. “My son asked me the other day, ‘Is Puck’s mom twenty yet?’ And I asked him, ‘How old is Puck?’ ‘I think he’s eight.’ ‘Well, if his mom isn’t twenty yet, how old would she have been when Puck was born? Do the math here now.’ So he thought about it for a long time and then he said, ‘Twelve?’ ‘Right. Doesn’t quite work, does it?’”
These school kids make me feel pretty good about myself.
Puck found himself entering a three-day weekend, which meant no homework and passels of neighbor friends, running around as long as they wanted in the fresh, cold late afternoon air.
As soon as the kids left the school bus there was a frantic pounding on the front door.
“PUCK! PUCK! ARE YOU MOVING?!”
They pointed to the Open House sign in our front yard. I guess they didn’t read the rest of it.
“No, no. It’s for my school,” Puck assured them. “I’m not moving.”
“Oh good!” the girl in question replied. “We were like, ‘NO! I DON’T WANT PUCK TO MOVE! I DON’T WANT PUCK TO MOVE!’”
Some time later, I saw the yellow cat in the tree and texted Carrie-Bri.
“Oreo’s over here again.”
“Why the heck do they call him Oreo?”
A confusing description given his dirty golden coat. Half an hour later, I was holding the purring bundle in my lap while Carrie administered an at-home feline leukemia test. For being such a good sport, Carrie loaded him up on kitty treats before preparing the sample for mailing. She also brought Puck a mini orange Tootsie Pop. The always-prepared aunt. And drove away just as it was getting dark.
I drained my eyes out over the laptop that evening while El Oso pizza-ed it up with buddies in South City. Work, work, work, work, work, work… ZZZzzzzzz…