Making Stuff at Home
If I wrote a paragraph for every night I remembered my dreams, I would clearly have a fat book in my library right now. This time, I was on a little excavation in the street just outside the Big House. Whether it made sense in my mind or not at the time – it did – I quickly unearthed a Greek artifact. A metal piece with writing. Maybe a piece of a coin. I wasn’t sure. As I began to parade it around – what did it matter whether or not the Greeks had actually set foot in Missouri – I realized that my dream was becoming unrealized as the metal object transformed into a banana peel. A rotting banana peel.
When I got up at 6:30, it was raining. Raining and still very dark for the hour. It took awhile to get the boys moving.
It didn’t get much less gloomy as the morning continued and I worked up homemade chicken nuggets for dinner, including made-from-scratch breadcrumbs. I congratulate myself.
Puck and I made a stop after school at the local Schnuck’s. We needed cookies for Puck’s chapel reception the next morning. And because I didn’t feel like spending any more time in the kitchen than necessary that morning – I was already patting myself on the back for those homemade breadcrumbs – we bought a tray of sugar cookies dyed red and green. And also chocolate. For myself.
With Puck’s second book report on the year just about wrapped up, he focused on other homework that evening while I got out the chicken nuggets and Shirley Temple in: “The Littlest Rebel”.
He’s still warming up to that dimply little girl with fat sausage curls. But when I tell him that Linnea always reminded us of Shirley Temple when she was a little girl, he suddenly becomes more interested. Plus, soldiers and spies on horseback are a little more manly and acceptable, so he stayed roped in for the whole 73 minutes.
When Puck joined me at the kitchen table with his homework folder, he had a little business to take care of first. Off came his yellow Chucks. His still-socked feet went up to his nose.
“Smell it, Mom. They smell like chicken nuggets.”
It wasn’t long after dinner that a mist rolled in, sort of quiet and heavy, dark and cold. It was winter before it was winter.
Good night to wrap up warm beside the Christmas tree for a little light comedy with El Oso and some chocolate cookies. Good man.