Of Geckos & Diving Competitions
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
It would be the night of a full moon, and as Collette prepared to leave that morning, she heard a train off in the distance and was briefly reminded of Colorado. The pine forests, cold mountain streams, reading with Grandma Snicketts (who read Tom Brokaw’s biography) up in the Time-Share while Dad, Mom, and the kids took a hike in the forest… There was the magnificent Grand Canyon which rivaled anything Collette had ever seen before… it had been a spectacular vacation.
At work the previous day, an enormous generator had arrived at the church, after having been dropped three or four feet to the ground. Collette saw it pull in with a great crane, just as she had replaced the jar of hydrogen peroxide back in the little white cabinet. (Her wasp sting had flared up again during the afternoon.)
“Oooooh!” Ivy exclaimed, poking her baked potato in the microwave. “This little bugger is making some noise! Oh! He’s hot!”
Meanwhile, Judah, (having been hit by the fatal love bug), sang and danced his way through the day, banging on the keyboard back in his office. And on Wednesday afternoon, he pulled on the great green gecko suit, complete with googly eyeballs, webbed feet and hands. Although he needed assistance in the end, pinning up his green neck and taping on his feet. Everyone had to admit, he made a fabulous gecko.
Upon making his grand appearance to the Vacation Bible School kids, he was greeted with a chorus of:
“Frog! It’s a frog!”
It was a hot tamale outside, and Collette was glad to be in the office for the day. She felt sorry for the Vacation Bible School kids who were running around in the sweltering heat. However, they didn’t really seem to mind. She did invade the outdoors at one point, upon helping Plato Buckle carry an enormous cooler of lemonade out to the red and white striped fire fighter’s tent on the parking lot.
Collette also found it amusing, while sorting through the attendance sheets from several Sundays before, that seven year-old Richie Plum had posted his home and work numbers as “9-1-1”, his home address as “the white house”, and as a side note he had scrawled, “I want candy!” next to his address.
Mom dropped in for several minutes early in the morning and told Collette about their swimming trip at Libby’s – Mom, Carrie-Bri, Francis, Creole Coca-Cola, and Linnea. Carrie became the judge for their diving competition that afternoon, (anxious to soak in as much sun before the infamous potential meeting with Ernest January). She first gave Francis the award for the longest dive.
Upon giving Creole a 2.5 on one dive, he cried:
“What?!”
“Sorry – wasn’t what I was looking for,” Carrie replied.
And on he went to his next dive, ultimately winning the highest-dive competition. Linnea was also apparently quite excited to win the stealthiest dive award. After Francis and Creole did their best pencil-dives, Linnea slipped up, creeping around the diving board, and plopped in all casual-like. Carrie presented her with the award. And in other news, it seemed that Libby had a new fella, as Mom put it, who seemed a great deal like Grandpa with a mustache and blue eyes.
“It looked like he had been in a pool his whole life, tanned brown,” Mom had said. “He looked a lot like Dad.”