More Animal Issues
Monday, April 9, 2007
The day after a holiday – usually a little more quiet. And Collette found herself at the doctor’s office yet again. There was talk of inducing and centimeters and such. Dr. Brazil seemed to be a little on the more tired side that afternoon.
And during the whole of the evening, Collette was becoming steadily uncomfortable; she figured that the end must be near, even if that “end” took another two weeks or more to be completely finalized.
Earlier, Mom had let Francis and Linnea sleep in longer after having stayed up later the night before with Izzy and Chester. By the time they finally awoke, Linnea decided to spend the first part of her morning brushing Pumpkin and thinking about things. Sometimes those thoughts came out at random.
“Collette, how do you train sea lions?”
“I guess they learn from habit,” Collette told her, not knowing any exact procedures, herself, for training sea lions.
Rose was in her usual way that morning, bringing out Toad (or Buddha) during her morning session of tutoring. She put him on the counter, where he sat quite smugly, his beady eyes popping from time to time. He rotated his pudgy self to stare at Collette for awhile, his throat puffing in and out.
“He doesn’t like you,” Rose told Collette, interpreting his body language.
And whenever Rose nudged him on the side, he closed his eyes and rubbed against her finger, much like the cats, as though he were enjoying a good scratch. Then Rose set a blue marshmallow from her cereal bowl on the top of his head. He sat paralyzed until she removed it, and then began to explore the counter top, sometimes a little too close to the edge for Rose’s ease of mind.
“Get that toad off the counter,” Dad commanded, walking through the kitchen sometime later that morning.
Toad was quickly removed.
Pumpkin soon took Toad’s place until Collette also ordered his removal. Later, when Toad threatened to once again distract Rose from her studies, Dad threatened a gigging if she didn’t replace him inside his cage. Rose decided to follow instructions despite her resentment for the comments against her fat little friend.
Meanwhile, Francis walked around the house between lessons, quickly beheading an unfortunate chocolate bunny named “Flopsy” from Sunday.
And during the rest of the morning and afternoon hours, ants continued to invade the kitchen, steadily moving themselves further into uncharted territory, as far as the laundry room. Dad went out for a six-mile jog. Carrie returned home early from work because some piece of machinery had blown up and all of the customer service phones had gone down, except for her own, somehow. She was so happy that her day had ended early, that she arranged for an evening out with friends. She also talked about finding plane tickets for Australia and consideration of a doctorate’s degree at a university. Wally and Curly were over later in the evening with Joe to lift weights and run two miles before dinner.
On the way home that evening, a hot air balloon sailed across the hazy sunset in the cold of the early night air. Outside, the lilac was a little wilted from the freeze. But it had been a cool, refreshing spring afternoon.