Nine

“OPEN THE BOX OF PERDITION! OPEN THE BOX OF PERDITION! AAAH! … I WIN!!!”

Puck doesn’t know what “perdition” means. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t even know he was saying it. But Legos didn’t care. And that’s where Puck found himself at the breakfast table early on a Thursday morning, creating games and worlds out of brightly colored plastic blocks. Before complaining about another round of scrambled eggs.

He always has a minimum quota of questions to offer me on the day. Sort of a smorgasbord of pick and choose which ones you want – or have time – to answer. This morning’s winner became:

“Mom? Why are clowns not appreciated?”

Well I don’t know, son. Why should clowns be appreciated? But I didn’t have time to go into it.

It was a typical Thursday afternoon. School just about wrapped up for the week. With the wedding, we wouldn’t have many more opportunities to push in an hour of math here and there.

Fortunately for both Puck and myself, the weather had decided to celebrate early for us. And a few minutes into Quiet Hour, that perfect sound of spring and summer. Rattling sheet metal. At just the right initial timbre to make you question if a truck had run off the highway. But, no, there it was: big, beautiful, loud thunder. I could hear Puck, cleaning his room:

“Now that’s what I call FUNDER!”

Half an hour later, a gusher. Soft, gravel-sized hail. Just at the right time to miss hitting a Wacha-winner down in the city.

It was getting late on in the afternoon now. Puck “scootered” up and down the street with Anna. Eddie wasn’t feeling well and had stayed home from school. Then Puck joined me back inside for another Disney movie night (some musical box office non-hit about the 1888 election; go figure, but Puck remained interested in all 110 minutes of it).

Crackers has been such a baby lately. Every time I sit down, ten seconds later she’s stashed in a heap on my torso, while I’m trying to type over her fuzzy fatness. I try to pawn her off on Puck, but she’s not taking it.

Gold light shining hard on wind-rolled green trees, pressed against dark clouds. This is the right way for the season.

El Oso drove home from another crazy day in time to tell Puck bedtime stories, leaving him inspired and humming himself to sleep. He also bought me cookies. He’s a good man.