Last Thursday

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Collette was reminded that morning of a hot day in late spring six years ago. She had to sneak out of the house with Rose and a book bag over to the Office Depot. Why she had brought Rose with her, she couldn’t exactly recall. But it was her mission that afternoon to photocopy just about half of her calculus book, half of her trig book, and half of her German book. Once she and Rose had copied the many dozens and dozens of sheets, enough to weigh several hefty pounds, Collette counted up the total and waited in line at the register. Rose, who was only ten at the time, saw the rack of sweets while waiting at the check-out and asked a little pleadingly for something to satisfy her sweet tooth. Collette obliged and then took a cherry Coke out of the little fridge for herself as well. Why had Collette needed to sneak out her books to Office Depot and photocopy most of their contents? She knew that if Mom had found out that she was planning on bringing a three-ring binder of schoolwork to finish on the plane trip to and from Hungary and during her stay, that she would never have heard the end of it. Even Diana was suspicious that Collette would try to bring along her books. Hadn’t she already warned Collette:

“Collette, if you try to bring any school books with you to Hungary, I am going to throw them out of the window of the plane!”

And Collette was pretty sure that she had meant it.

But Collette had taken the risk and photocopied the texts anyway. In the end, there was practically zero time for anything academic on the trip and she had to give up her grand enterprise. The three-ring binder of math and German was used for future occasions that summer.

That Thursday morning the wind blew in strong. And the lilac was fading further still in the front of the house.

It was an odd day to be at the office. It was Collette’s last day to ever work with Ivy again, after four and a half years of working together. Ivy gave her a card signed by all of the office staff and a hug before Collette left. How strange it would be never to drive in to work on Thursdays and Fridays again. Times were definitely changing…

For the evening, OLeif made up some more cheddar Ranch burgers for dinner and they were able to sit around at home.

Come that night, however, Collette was feeling pretty awful: fat and full to bursting (due to the fact that her stomach had been finally reduced to the size of a marble and eating anything more than a potato chip was often pushing her limit), terrible sinus headache, a stomach that had been itched into a bad rash, and various sharp pains all over her body… whether these were mostly due to the pregnancy or not, she was not entirely sure. But it was enough to make for a miserable hour or two. By 8:40, she felt like crashing to sleep for the next forty hours or so, due to a combination of all of the “miseries”. There were just some days like that.

And in other news, Joe had apparently been punched in the mouth by Wallace. It was reportedly an accident according to Joe, but either way, he came away with a mouthful of blood. Collette had not yet inquired as to how the accident had taken place. Likely they were swinging things around and not paying attention as to where their targets were landing.

Also, snow was predicted to arrive that weekend.