November 16

Rain.
Throughout the night.
And into the next day.

Over at the house:
Mom drove Frances to his orthodontist appointment.
Carrie was laying out plans to build a giant telescope in the backyard, learning shorthand, and looking into a Russian operatic/pop man-singer who reached the most ridiculously high notes Collette had ever heard.
Then she passed on a Russian joke from her Arabic teacher:
“Some Americans are in a ship off the coast of Russia, and the ship starts to go down, so they call the Russian Coastguard. And the Coastguard answers. And the Americans say, ‘Help! We’re sinking, we’re sinking!’ And the Russians say, ‘Eh, please repeat?’ ‘We’re sinking, we’re sinking!’ ‘Eh, yes. What are you sinking about?’”
Half a groaner…
Joe was attending a concert at Lindenwood that evening.
And Linnea was busy researching the Crusaders for another paper.

Around eleven, Carrie-Bri cracked open one of the large bags of Jelly Bellies.
“I’d like to give Puck his first margarita,” she said, joking, and handed him one of the greens.
Puck was intrigued, and asked for more Jelly Bellies later on in the day.

That afternoon, Puck was becoming more interested in the Russian operatic singer. So Carrie put her old black work tie on Puck and slicked his hair over. And he tried to imitate the singer’s crazy voice. He squeaked some pretty high ones and thought the whole business rather funny.

That evening, after sitting on the couch with OLeif for his nightly sippy of milk, he lost his footing and tripped backward.
“I fell,” he said. “Aw. Poor Puck.”