New Set-Up

Those pan rattles of thunder Wednesday night had left little damage other than some neighborhood trash tumbled across the front yard, heavy and soggy with rain water.

The boys pulled down the driveway at 7:20AM, leaving me at home for a full day of hard work.

Thursday was about making lasagna. It was about laundry and cleaning the stove and organizing the kitchen cabinets. It was about all those things that no one ever wants to read about, for any reason. Unless it’s out of archaeological records for the sake of clarifying human history. But even that’s mostly a yawn.

Puck seemed pleased with his day again, relaying reports that included another encounter with a girl in his class who managed to bother him for the second day in a row. Probably didn’t help that Puck was wearing, “You Want a Pizza Me?” t-shirt.

“She kept saying, ‘Pizza man! Pizza man!’ And I got really annoyed so I plugged my ears with my fingers and she pulled them out so I jammed them back up again.”

Elementary difficulties.

And a minor rope burn finger injury from the playground that included a band-aid.

Eddie was ready to play after Puck’s spelling homework. They began practicing what they thought were pretty good Irish/Scottish accents, twirling bow and arrows in the living room.

“’Allo, mate!”

“Fousand!”

Eddie joined Puck for lasagna and Andy Griffith at five.

Puck stared at him going through his plate and finally asked, “You want to know a trick for chewing?”

“Sure.”

“Did you ever try chewing with your mouth closed?”

“Yeah, my mom always says I don’t, but I do.”

Puck paused to process this apparent contradiction. “You have sauce on your chin … you still have sauce on your chin.”

Later I heard Eddie schooling Puck on death. “It takes people three weeks to die without food, three … days, to die without water, and three … um, minutes, to die without air. … That’s why people turn purple.”

Rose arrived before seven to read some Garfield to Puck. Then we caught up on life and a sack of various chocolate, including my favorite Symphony (at just the right clay-structure temperature) and Andes. I practiced my baseball swing in the reflection of the window for awhile. Rose laughed that the neighbors would think I was on the warpath.