No rosebud is nigh...
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
After work, Tuesday, Joe picked up Collette from work so that she could attend the home schooler’s meeting where she would sit on a discussion panel with Idlewild Redcoat, Louis Tecumseh, Carrie-Bri, and Cala Fregalistic to answer questions about college experiences.
Meanwhile, while she waited to leave, back on the home front, Dad was escaping from Carrie in the kitchen, who was determined to rub some hair wax on his hair.
“Come on, Dad!” She called after him, giggling.
Joe jumped on Dad’s back in an effort to stall him and Frances grabbed onto his shoulders.
“Come on, Dad!” They called out.
Dad drug them both into the living room laughing in his exertion before Carrie rubbed the devastating daub on the back of his head.
“Got ya!” She laughed triumphantly.
Later that evening before the discussion, Cala told them all about her Harry Potter hard core fan-ism, and the Harry Potter robe patterns and robes she had made from watching the films in freeze frame to get the right stitching.
And following the hour and a half of answering questions, led by Mom and Mrs. Tecumseh, Carrie was greeted by an old cast member from Whale of a Tale. Then Louis began discussing with her his new Brazilian martial arts class and his World War II reenacting with actual weaponry.
“…and the grenades are exploding everywhere! Pow!”
Louis bit his fingers in excitement.
Meanwhile, plans had been made to visit Iwo and Strawberry at their apartment down in the city, Saturday night.
Collette remembered the old days working at the Kirk food pantry. Those were the days. There was something exciting about loading up in the station wagon with Mom and the kids and following Mrs. Pumpkin (the coordinator) to remote places of the city. Most of the times they would visit plants such as Pepperidge Farm or Entenmann’s and for hours and hours they would load paper grocery bags with loaves of bread, boxes of donuts, bags of goldfish crackers, rolls, buns, cookies, pastries… items only just having been removed from the shelves, as much as they could carry in the cars. Large empty warehouses where only they would be working, gathering the food. And then they drove it back, barely able to find seats among all the wealth. At the pantry they would sort the food for dozens of families among all the other donations from various places. And as there was always too much food, Mrs. Pumpkin never forgot to give them a large bag or two of goodies. What a thrill to have a lemon pastry for breakfast from the freezer.
Back on the ranch Wednesday morning, Linnea was busy scratching Pumpkin in the exact spot on her back that made her compulsively lick whatever lay right in front of her face. Unless someone was being particularly cruel and put their foot in front of her, she generally licked her own paws and stopped as soon as the scratching stopped.
And during school break, Frances and Linnea were busy “reenacting the flood of ’93” as Linnea put it but constructing more mud dams and canals by the old rope-swing tree in the backyard.