Midnight Nonsense

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Wednesday evening had finally brought the rain again… Beautiful, cold rain.

Puck cuddled up in bed with OLeif and Collette the next morning, and fell back to snoozing. After awhile, he opened his eyes.

“Keep those little peepers open, Mama,” he whispered to her.

At lunch…

“Mama, my muscles are dancing,” he said.

Luke and Leia arrived in the cold afternoon. Almost too cold to stay out for long. Back inside, Collette read a big picture counting book to them. A photo of chattering teeth came up. Luke thought about it for a moment.

“For Christmas, I’m going to rip out all my teeth and put those in there instead!” he exclaimed.

Shortly after they departed at 3:25, Mom, Carrie-Bri, and Linnea-Irish arrived to pick up Collette and Puck. Puck was to spend the night at the house while OLeif and Collette joined Joe, Rose, and Magnus at the movies: Harry Potter, which, Collette found herself littly interested. But for sake of tradition of all those midnight showings… and because Collette was a sucker for tradition… well, it simply had to happen, apparently.

Meanwhile, Mom had enjoyed her annual birthday lunch with Mrs. English and Gloria, catching up on all the news at the Chinese restaurant, including Bing’s success in grad school, writing musical compositions.

Over at the house…

The boys had taken all the scrap metal from the garage to the junk yard. Or tried to, anyway…

The white board read:

• ‘kewie’ (presumably ‘kiwi’)

• peacock*

• ice cream

Linnea taught Puck how to play Candyland.

Carrie was given a pair of boots cuffed in fur and wrapped up with leather straps from a company called Naughty Monkey.

Quiche lorraine around candles at the kitchen table, for everyone but Puck, who was snoozing, and Joe, who was out with Wally for the night. Jokes, ribbing, Mom shooting Snuggles with Carrie’s water squirter to stop him from meowing…

“I can’t believe you guys are going to a midnight show,” said Dad, shaking his head. “That’s just ridiculous.”

Chocolate chip cookies.

Puck had gone down for the night in Rose’s room with a stuffed penguin and her stuffed Charlie Chaplin.

Sometime later, when Rose checked in on him, he had somehow gotten a hold of Carrie’s light-canceling eye mask and was wearing it, sound asleep.

Meanwhile…

Linnea-Bri, decked out in Aero t-shirt, bubblegum pink track shorts, lace-up Eskimo boots, and skullcap, was clipping items out of Christmas catalogs for her wish list.

Dad brought Francis to Scouts.

Joe returned from Target sometime later.

“Some gray-headed lady just handed me this bag in the parking lot,” he said, giving it to Carrie. “I don’t know. Some grandma said that you needed to have this.”

Two packs of Ice Cubes gum, Ice Breakers mints, S. Pelligrino, and the complete expansion pack of Age of Empires. All warmly appreciated.

And they all sat around in the living room together while Collette braided Carrie’s hair and Linnea’s hair and discussed politics and fashion, etc.

9:30 found them leaving for the theater. Magnus had double-bought his tickets, and so they had to find someone to take the other.

“Hey, Francis…”

So it was, in the end, OLeif, Collette, Joe, Rose, and Francis headed out to the theater.

On the way, there were discussions.

“So you don’t really want to come, Francis?” Joe asked.

“Not really.”

“Don’t you want to live life on the edge?”

“Naw.”

“If you really wanted to live life off the edge, you’d come cliff-jumping with me.”

“Isn’t that living life off the edge?” asked OLeif.

When they arrived at Chesterfield Mall, they watched The Cheesecake Factory pass by.

“I heard that place has the most unhealthy cakes ever,” said Joe.

“That’s because it’s cake made of cheese,” OLeif replied. “They might as well just call it Fat Cake.”

Nothing like sitting for two hours on popcorn-saturated carpet, Collette thought. And then she was completely surprised to find that there was no line. They went right to their seats in the partially-filled cinema.

Collette almost dozed off once. Joe tried to nap, pulling up three of the armrests and lounging on his red couch with his hoodie pulled over his face…

“Rawr rawr rawr,” he said to Francis, waving his hood up and down at him. “I’m a shark.”

Francis made a run for sodas and slushes for himself and Joe. OLeif picked up a Cherry Coke and Junior Mints. Then Rose arrived from small groups.

And then… two and a half hours of… well, nothing very much, really. Other than some very nice shots overlooking barren country…

And a crash into bed by three-thirty…

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