November 1
Monday, November 1, 2010
The cold seemed to have come to stay by that first day in November.
The spoils had come in: York peppermint patties, Whoppers, Reeses peanut butter cups, big Crunch bars, Hershey’s bars, even pretzels and a small container of bright orange Play-dough. And, true to her intentions, Collette had not touched a piece of it. During the day anyway…
OLeif left late, after the busyness of the week had caught up with him. And after work he was to meet Scot Pie, who was back in town for a few days.
And Puck played with his ‘resurrection set’ five months too early, while Collette saw to chores.
After ten in the morning, Collette and Puck headed out into the cold, cold to the library. It sort of whistled right through the striped parka.
And Puck had happily unwound the strand of toilet paper from around the mailbox. The whole street, it would seem, had been hit. Fortunately, none of the trees at least…
The wind was up, and as they arrived, two of OLeif’s old co-workers drove by to say ‘hi’. The old NAWS days seemed quite long ago in the past now…
As Puck snuggled down in Collette’s bed, he heard from the other room, Collette working through her Spanish and Portuguese lessons on Livemocha. And he would repeat whatever the program said, in rather good accents.
“I’m doin’ Spanish!” he said happily to himself.
And when it was over…
“Turn on the service, Mama!”
The baby did not nap that afternoon.
The afternoon was somewhat warmer. And somehow, the roses everywhere were still blooming.
Puck’s ‘school’ that day was little more than reading words written on index cards and learning about the geography of Moldova. Plus the usual devotions, readings from the book of Luke, and catechism.
In the afternoon, Puck was making calls on an old black phone with no cord.
“Hello? Jesus? I’m gonna call your grandma… Mama, does Jesus have a grandma?”
“No, he doesn’t have a grandma,” Collette replied.
“Why?”
“Because he made all the grandmas.”
Puck seemed satisfied with this off-the-cuff reply… he returned to the phone.
“Jesus, I love you too. Bye, Jesus.”
Later, he got busy calling his daddy on the phone, which was mostly a muddled composition of the highlights of his day, which was half-audible, given the excitement of being able to hold the cell phone that truly worked.
In other interesting news of the day… the library had started printing off receipts at check-out.
That night…
Collette easily broke down by seven-thirty. Kit-Kats and Crunch bars… tisk tisk… and ice water to fill up the remaining craving of the chocolate madness.
Plus more Monarch of the Glen, out of order, as Collette typically watched television series to orchestrate the watching of the anticipated ‘best for last’, this time with the legendary once-Doctor, Tom Baker.
And OLeif looked up more houses in the city, breaking a bit of his own diet for the temptation of Kit-Kats from the freezer.
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