More Like Spring
Monday, January 16, 2012
Aftermath was usually rewarding in its own way. Puck’s forever-to-keep blue-penned cowhide was spotlighted at the top of the piano. In theory. Collette was awoken to a little, still somewhat pudgy, hand giving her a back rub. OLeif was out the door after a quick hunt for his slimmy (wallet). And the day started with OLeif’s and Puck’s traditional departure…
“Love ya see ya bye!”
“Love ya see ya bye!”
St. Louis was bizarre, really. The weather patterns made so little sense, that they made perfect sense to any true native. And so, it was with little surprise that the high for MLK Day, was 63. And for Tuesday: 38. It was too hard to say whether they might get another big snow yet. At least, Collette figured, she had so far paid a dollar a minute for Puck’s second-hand black snowsuit with the unraveled hem on the right strap.
A little wailing Merchant of Venice soundtrack to kick off breakfast… Puck marched out of his room, apparently in the process of changing, in his blue robot undergarments. He had a report about his current intake level of sugar. And as usual, emphasizing nearly every word…
“It was Uncle Joe’s fault. He gave me the gimme-gimme of two sugars.”
Irish ballads around studies. A packaged ream of Roman Candle Red paper added to the wishlist for future notes and letters. Puck still had a bit of tacky cough, but not too bad. He was progressing in his memory and list of recognized words, now somewhere in the range of the 70’s.
With the arrival of the afternoon, lunch was prepared for the Puckster, during which Collette read chapters of his second red-bound sibling sleuth mysteries: The Happy Hollisters and the Castle Rock Mystery. And the wind was really kicking up in the mostly gray/partly topaz light of the early afternoon hours. They were pretty fantastic, actually. Those winds. Puck was also curious about the contents of his luncheon plate…
“One hundred and fourteen hams? That’s ridiculous. Mama? Did you give me one hundred and fourteen hams?”
It was turkey.
And Puck spent a cozy hour bundled in the electric yellow glider chair cushions reading endless strings of books.
“Ok, Puck, Quiet Hour’s over.”
“Alright, Mama. I’m almost finished.
He emerged shortly later with his personal Mead notebook and the pack of twist-up crayons.
“I did a lot of hard work, Mama,” he said with an important sigh. “I want to show you. May I sit on your lap?”
He had colored every single sheet. And he sort of had his own theme going…
“They all look like eyeballs,” he explained. “But they’re just families… I’m gonna be in Art someday. Someday I’m gonna color all the colors of the rainbow.”
Dried plantains for the little man, which were saltier than banana, while Collette took her hour walk, and Puck occasionally joined in for his own exercise. Collette had still kept him indoors from the cool winds, due to the hack of his cough. As the wind struck the house from the west, dark clouds mixed in with the sun.
Meals weren’t the quickest orchestrations in the little Silverspoon abode. But they were, at least, times for catechism, questions and answers, speculations, and usually some light entertainment before dessert… when there was that, which was a very rare thing indeed for the young whipper-snapper, provided that he was dining in. Puck’s questions ranged from…
“Where do apples come from?”
To…
“Why did people watch Jesus when He died?”
He wanted to thresh out this one in further detail. Who was mad about it. Who was happy. Was the world mad?… And he continued piecing together his plastic snap-together set from Wendy’s, constructing various bike-forms, while keeping up the following Javanese-Aborigine chant…
“Oo-ee-ah-ha-ha. Oo-ee-ah-ha-ha. Oo-ee-ah-ha-ha…”
Wind, sun, and cloud through the trees…
Puck went down for the evening, still coughing, the poor chub-chub.
OLeif returned from a big launch at work, with Collette’s reading collection from the library and a case of coconut La Croix for the week’s soda bread. Carrie knew how to find a good recipe. And there were other matters to be attended to: proposal letter to seminary for officially switching to the MDiv program, recommendation letter request letter, and of course Monday’s traditional three loads of laundry… that was always a joy ride. There was also more John Adams.
The cold tugged at the loosened seal of the front door.
It was going to be another game-changer with the weather.