Not Bad, Not Bad

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Due to some fancy apple cider swigging, vitamin popping, cotton swabbing, Collette’s chronically pain-swollen throat was now mending. But an elephant cough had taken its place, which was ok. Collette could handle that. Meanwhile, she opted to stay home and clean house instead of potentially infecting all the swarming kids at church.
So OLeif picked up Puck for the both of them to rehearse for the children’s choir program, followed by Hesed’s 2nd birthday party at the park for the early afternoon. Collette wrapped the gifts in Trader Joe’s paper bag material – non-corrodable-washable-possibly-sticky Crayola finger paint and a package of space-themed goldfish crackers.
OLeif departed shortly after eight.

So Collette cleaned the house, tossed out four sacks and/or boxes of rubbish, baked chicken for lunch, and caught the next game at noon.
Sweet, sweet drops of rain were headed to St. Louis for the entire week, according to the impossible-to-predict-predictions of local meteorologists, who were next-to promising thunderstorms as well.
The honeysuckle was burgeoning, tumbling off all the fences in thick tangles, like lanterns in a garden.

Meanwhile, there were received reports from the ranch that Dad was heading out for the first church softball game of the season, Mom was attending a lecture on Amelia Earhart with Mrs. O at the Chesterfield YMCA that evening, and Francis was hitting up an early season Six Flags Saturday with Zuñi.

Two red paper plates of cheeseburger, chocolate cupcake, and bag of veggie straws, some of which Collette ate, in the watery green glass light of the just-before-storm, as Puck waved happily to her through the basement window. They joined OLeif on the porch to watch the squall break heavy waters on the neighborhood.
OLeif’s first hour and a half afternoon was spent in studies, as the afternoon began to gray in nicely again after the first pour, shaded in like a drawing pencil, the rain-chirp of birds and budding of roses.
Puck’s next Donkey wardrobe request came in the form of a Dell cord binder, to which Collette affixed a tin name plate from an old Target card set, labeled with permanent marker, affixed with bread ties.

Dinner was “wig-em-out” on leftovers – so quick-heat chicken in oil, crumbled bacon, and Chick-fil-A sauce. Oh, yeah.
Puck got a chance at the popcorn pan after a pick-up library edition of “Rio” at 5:30, just breezing past the previews, until…
Clack.
Out snapped the lights.
Clack… clack clack… clack clack clack clack…
Collette and Puck went out to the porch, joined shortly later by OLeif, who dodged out to collect a few, definitely face-busting, possibly concussion-inducing, hail stones, to store in the freezer for later. Clatter like mah-jongg tiles down the cement drive.
OLeif was back inside rescuing his computers from the water forced through the library window, whose outer window pane had not been properly shut.
And…
Oh, yeah. The sirens – in the heavy quiet yellow-dark of the sky.
Routine:
Wellies.
Bicycle helmet for Puck.
OLeif gathered the violins and mandolin.
Basement.
But the siren was only whirring for a few minutes. Always the lethargy of move-it-move-it-move-it, but still that zip of possibility…

OLeif spent the next three hours randomly snapping his fingers to coordinate with the resurgence of electricity…
“What do you think everyone else in the neighborhood is doing without their jumbo TVs?” Collette asked randomly.
“Probably reading commentaries on Jude,” OLeif replied, reading a commentary on Jude.
A minute later, he was snoring.