Last Days
Sunday, August 21, 2011
In which the usual matters of Sunday commence around a good dinner and hot afternoon…
After dreaming extensively about tsunamis in Hawai’i that morning, Collette woke up. A little dazed…
At church, Anneliese came over shyly with her grandma to give Puck a handmade chocolate whoopie pie stuffed with frosting and colored sprinkles. Puck thanked her, opened the bag, split it, and handed one of the halves to her. There was something so funny about watching their interactions.
Judah was sounding nearly operatic that morning, in a pleasant way, while singing a song that Mollie’s grandmother wrote. It had a rather beautiful melody. A strange thing not to hear Judah’s voice anymore. Not after the following Sunday anyway…
In children’s church, the kids learned about kindness. As part of their exercises, they served lemonade to the adults coming out of the first service. Puck, however, was not too keen on standing in the heat…
And OLeif was called the usual ‘rabbi’, with the long hair and beard. But this time he had graduated to ‘cult leader’ as an additional descriptor.
Time was running out. Sinai and Judah would be gone after the following Sunday. Not a good way to end it all…
Back on the ranch, to catch up on current events…
Joe was in Kirksville with Aristotle.
Carrie had prepared a beautiful spread of fish garnished in a dried-tomato-goat-cheese-sauce, homemade rosemary bread, and salad. Mom and Dad continued to follow the Tim Ferris diet. And the usual samplings of conversation…
“You know what Rose and I did yesterday?” Carrie asked. “Listened to Andy Williams’ love songs together.”
Rose immediately wrinkled her nose…
“You did that. I read about the weather.”
Some sun under the persimmon trees. Still too hot for comfort.
Francis’ new position as lifeguard was more vital than Collette had originally realized. An extensive part of his lectures seemed to cover the warning signs of child abuse. He was also to instruct swimming classes, and was given a full membership. He was then teased by Mom and Dad about having to sing the YMCA song while on duty, or something silly like that.
Sometime after lunch, the girls could be seen sprawled out like beached whales: Rose on her back on the kitchen counter, Linnea on her stomach on the opposite counter, and Carrie with her head in her arms at the kitchen table.
“Whoa, what happened?” OLeif asked, walking into the room laughing at them
Sometimes that just sort of happened… Until Francis walked in with a bag of ice for Mom’s tea and set it on Linnea’s bare legs…
Meanwhile, Rose’s car had been delayed another week. They were to replace the leather on the seats.
“In the time it’s taken them, I could have found a cow, killed it, tanned the hide, and installed it myself,” she stated.
Calls to and from both grandmas. Grandma Combs had apparently been having a bad day… something about wanting to ‘blow up the organ at church’…
Puck busied himself drawing chalk circles around the ants to confuse their scent trails — who knew how he figured that one out — and riding his tricycle on the sidewalk singing at the top of his lungs about ‘Pharaoh’s blood curdling scream, lambs, and flocks’ and other biblical stories…
Rose transferred to the driveway to work on gluing the fender of the red Civic back to its original position.
Francis returned with the pizzas and coveted cheesy bread.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” said Francis with the signature Snicketts-Boy-I-Just-Got-Away-With-It grin. “I paid for the cheesy bread myself.”
Shortly later, he was off to youth group. Rose was considering heading downtown with church friends for a birthday celebration. And Carrie-Bri was contemplating a pick-up by Lucia for The Loop or Forest Park.
And given the current price of gold, Collette briefly skimmed her boxes in the basement for her gold nugget with embedded diamond. To no avail.
Home for some randomly-discovered filmage about a deaf red-head and her displaced half-Puerto Rican sister, Mongolian high school football star, two more redheads, and Native American/Korean…
And so the beginning of ‘Anniversary Week’ had begun.