Life
It was much colder by Monday morning. The skies were gray from start to finish.
Over at the house, Puck was busy eating banana while everyone else had a hot breakfast prepared by Mom: ham, fried eggs, and buttered toast.
Later, Linnea sat in the kitchen with the Puck while Mom ran errands and Collette taught Frances the usual.
“Collette, Puck’s waving at the dish washer,” said Linnea, giggling, feeding him more banana. “Now he’s eating my pants!”
“Puck, stop eating Aunt Linnea’s pants,” Collette told him.
“Linnea, I need you to run out and get the mail for me,” Carrie-Bri said sometime later.
“But it’s sleeting…”
“Just hurry and get it, and I’ll give you a surprise.”
“Will you play LIFE with me if I do?”
“Okay, just run out there as fast as your little paddies can take you. Then I’ll play LIFE with you, alright?”
Linnea returned with the bundle, which contained nothing interesting.
“So you can play LIFE now?”
“I’ll play life with you. This is life, so we’re already playing.”
“But I already got it out of the closet,” said Linnea, dejectedly, with slumped shoulders. “And my pants got all wet from running outside.”
Carrie couldn’t resist her cuteness, and decided to play.
Back at home, OLeif was laughing about work.
“I was telling Simon how you sometimes say that you’re too fat. And so I said to Simon, ‘Collette must think I’m totally obese. She must imagine me eating entire turkeys, popping back cornish game hens like peanuts!’”
Collette laughed. OLeif was a goof.
Collette’s walk through the neighborhood that night was almost frigid, the kind of cold that somehow got through the coat into the skin. She was glad to return to golden lamps and two happy boys.
After the Puck went to sleep for the night, OLeif took off for some groceries in preparation for the great dumping of snow, about to commence.