Meetings of Various Kinds

Francis drove us to Ladue to pick Puck up from school.

“Shot gun!” Carrie declared. She hit the radio for some driving tunes. “Wake Me Up Inside” – Evanescence. Simultaneous head-bobbing from the front seat.

“Yeah!”

“Righteous!”

“Speaks to my heart!”

Then they couldn’t take it any longer and switched the station.

Earlier that morning, Mom, Carrie, and I had used the same trek downtown to Busch Stadium. We had an appointment with a friendly fellow in the publications department.

“I really really think it’s a good idea,” he said again, flipping through our mock-up book.

Advice followed; information exchanged. Plus, we got a view of the street scene below and a look around at a little Cardinals paraphernalia on the walls.

“I guess it’s just like any ordinary office,” he told us on the elevator to the lobby.

“Except you have Cardinals stuff everywhere,” Carrie replied. “But then again, so does our dentist’s office.”

That set him off laughing hard enough, he ended our conversation in a coughing attack. “Nice to meet you, ladies!”

Puck’s second birthday party of the year – bowling and laser tag. Pizza, soda, cupcakes. Overload. Not to mention his very first “beanie boo” as party favor. Velvety creatures with sparkly pastel eyes, ten times bigger than they should be. The rage with all the kids at school these days. The boy kids. Puck’s beanie boo came in the form of penguin.

“His name is Waddles.”

About ten minutes after he came in the door with Waddles – bedtime.

“When your baby brother comes, you may move to the top bunk,” I told him.

Privilege.

“No…”

“You don’t want to move to the top bunk?”

“No … I’d have more cover down here if a meteorite comes.”