Mishaps on the Baseball Field
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
OLeif and Collette spent several hours at the Spinnings Monday night while OLeif and Ecclesiastes talked music over their violin and guitar, and Collette and Aubree discussed the junior high girls in preparation for Aubree to lead their discipleship group in the fall. Aubree had prepared peach cobbler and for a short while they talked outside in front of the cool green glade of the woods in the backyard around the pots of impatience, which Aubree still needed to plant. Little blue-eyed Juniper Pinwheel sat up with them as well, being only several months old, and not quite sleepy enough to enjoy the thought of hitting the bed feathers.
Back at the house, Tuesday, Mom had taken Frances and Linnea to the Zoo for the morning. And so Collette forced Rose back to the books after Rose had passed out her birthday list once again (even though Collette had already told her four times that she had already bought her birthday gift). And Collette made apple juice while she waited to grade Rose’s math.
Meanwhile, Diana had an article printed in the Journal. And Carrie drove over to Elizabeth’s in her almost most-feared enemy – the mini van, to wait in the waiting room while she had all four wisdom teeth removed. Collette wrote a letter to Travis out in San Diego, and OLeif was to have Ben-Hur and Augustus over for the evening after OLeif and Collette had watered the plants at Judah’s and Evangeline’s home.
Mom, Frances, and Linnea returned later that afternoon after having dropped by Trader Joe’s for a sack of tart green apples, a wedge of good Brie cheese, and two pounds of dark chocolate (for health reasons only, of course), and two helium balloons.
“Ready for launching!” Frances shouted upon arrival, weighing the string of his balloon with a piece of cardboard from his matchbox car package. And off it went. “Whoo hoo!” He cried triumphantly as it sailed off slowly into the hazy blue.
Shortly later, Linnea came running up to Collette on the porch swing.
“Collette! Frances popped my balloon and sucked in all the air and then he started talking,” she protested.
“I asked you first!” Frances called to her from the lawn. “But it didn’t work. I think I swallowed all the helium.”
And Rose continued to squish the kitties and hide from her math book for the remainder of the day, as usual.
Worst news of the day – Chester Hobcoggin had his face smashed hard at batting practice – a ball straight to the teeth. The poor kid was isolated to liquids for a solid week and then soft foods for another week after, seeing as his front four teeth were knocked in. It seemed a possibility that they might have to come out completely. Hearing of it fondly reminded Collette of the perfect evening at the lake six years before when she had been catapulted through the air on a trampoline to land teeth-first into the top of Joe’s head. Perhaps the scars from her braces were still in his scalp. That had been a bummer of a way to end a day.