Left blooming alone
Saturday, September 23, 2006
September 23rd – the day of cousin Bristol and Nerissa-Christianne’s wedding in Mexico. Collette wondered if it was stormy there too. Or would it be all white sands, blue waters, and sunshine? She would hear more at their St. Louis reception several weeks later.
Saturday was also another concert choir concert for AWANA day. And Rose hurried home to pick up an application from a new Office Max, after having failed to be hired at Target and Best Buy.
Meanwhile, OLeif and Collette had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and later hauled over Great-Grandma Combs’ old spooky rocking chair to the house. (Rose wanted to repair it after Judah had broken the seat). Collette remembered it always having been in her living room in her old home in Florissant. That, with the vase of peacock feathers, the ceramic candy dish with the lid carved into a sow and piglets in the kitchen… Every meal they had eaten at Grandma’s had been heavily salted and buttered. And despite the fact that Grandma had always eaten that way, she had still lived to be a day before her eightieth birthday.
“I never want to live to be eighty,” she had always said.
And she didn’t. But all sides of the family lived long. Great-Grandma Jewel was nearly 93 when she passed away. Great-Grandma Norse had been in her eighties. Although Collette had never met Great-Grandma Snicketts…
But there had also been little pink shell-shaped soaps in Great-Grandma Combs’ bathroom, zoysia grew in the backyard around a small pine or two, a top drawer of old silk scarves and brooches in the bedroom, sun-catchers in the kitchen window… A cuckoo clock hung on the living room wall, which was always a treat to watch when it cuckooed on the hour. Once Grandma let Collette and Carrie play with marbles on the sidewalk out front with the neighbor children. Sometimes they played whiffle ball in the basement accessed through the garage, or chased squirrels under the front porch. Sometimes they visited the park on sunny days with a picnic lunch (including a big bag of cheese curls) and play by the pond. Another time while Mom and Dad had been in the Caribbean for their anniversary, Collette had stayed with Great-Grandma Combs and one afternoon they picked up Great-Grandma Jewel and Carrie-Bri and went to McDonald’s for lunch. Grandma also shopped at Save-A-Lot and sometimes they went with her to pick up groceries.
Meanwhile, Collette had heard rumors of Diana visiting a friend in grad school over England’s way, perhaps over the Christmas holidays. Opportunity knocked.
After delivering the chair, OLeif and Collette became trapped in an afternoon marathon of Lost, which Collette predicted would occur as soon as OLeif entered the basement. Rose had fallen asleep on the love seat upstairs, feeling poorly. And Joe had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs, feeling poorly. Carrie was at work. Mom and Dad went out to look at a Honda Civic and returned with Simple Simon’s Pizza.
The later part of the evening was spent for a short while at the coffeehouse set up in the barn at church. A prerequisite of Christmas with the white twinkly lights still hanging on the walls. Lamps were lit on tables and baskets of unusually flavored cookies and biscotti were set out next to the coffee. Collette had a bottle of water, most of which OLeif drank following his coffee. And there was music by Judah’s friends from seminary, including guitar, harmonica, keyboard, bongos, and even an accordion.
Joe and Rose mingled with the youth out by the silos, grouping closest to the smelliest silo, still full of decaying cobs. Dad had opted to stay home with Frances and Linnea who were put to bed early to overcome their early autumn colds.
And in other news, Rose had decided not to apply to Office Max.
“I decided that I don’t want to work with paper,” she said.