Oh, Boys...
Friday, April 13, 2012
Maine.
That was Collette’s first thought out the window. Wind whipping up the trees, dark spread in the southwest. Perfect. Except…
It was a local holiday in St. Louis.
Opening Day.
It was one of those unexpected rarities. Puck was spending the whole day “at Grandma’s”, so Collette would have a few hours to catch up on everything before switching on the television and radio to keep tabs on everything.
Meanwhile, Collette could hear all the construction noise from tent building in the living room while talking to Mom on the phone.
The rain broke in again, mid-morning.
Pork steaks in the oven.
House cleaned.
BANG.
In crashed that thunder at 11:10.
The rain was steady, delaying the game by an hour and a half. Of course it didn’t keep away the Sea of Red.
It was… pretty bad.
Poor Adam Wainwright summed it up best…
“Today… was the perfect storm of horribleness.”
Collette’s boys returned in the early evening with the spoils of a shoe sale for Puck – red Chucks, blue and white superhero Chucks, and dinosaur face slip-ons… except that they were both left-footers.
Movie night brought in guest appearances by Aristotle George and Carrie-Bri, who had toted over a copy of Cary Grant and Sophia Loren in “Houseboat”. Collette fried up the donut holes and there was Arizona green tea. Magnus had forgotten it was Friday. And Rose drove in late, having completed a huge install at work that evening.
Aristotle had never heard of Sophia Loren. As she made her first appearance on screen, Joe quickly stamped in an opinion…
“Wow. She looks like a hot bat.”
“Speaking of hot bats…” Aristotle added.
As Cary Grant’s youngest son slipped out a harmonica to improvise with the on-stage orchestra, from the audience, Carrie laughed…
“I am so going to do that when I go to Powell Hall again.”
While Cary Grant’s oldest son was busy calling himself a “lame brain” and moping through most of the film…
“’I’m going to listen to My Chemical Romance’,” Joe whined.
“’I’m going to go to my room and put on some make-up now’,” OLeif added.
“Wow,” said Aristotle after awhile of Cary Grant, “He’s not very sensitive. He walks back in a second later, ‘JK, JK.’”
“Yeah, there’s a camera behind that mirror. You’ve been punk’d, lady!”
“So who’s he going to kiss first? The blonde or the brunette?”
“Yeah, let’s get a poll going here,” Carrie added.
Around this time, for some forgotten reason, Joe got busy doing his usual “bum-wiggling”, as the family was known to call it. After awhile of this fiasco ensuing, Aristotle called it off with a…
“Joe, you just look dumb.”
“That’s the best insult ever!” Joe laughed.
“I’m just a lame brain,” the kid on the TV moped.
“Yeah, your brain needs crutches.”
As Cary Grant escorted his ladies around the party, Sophia Loren glazed over in a gold dress…
“He’s just comparing the merchandise right now.”
“Wow, she’s really studying his eyebrows,” OLeif noted.
Lightening regularly lit up the window wells as the night progressed, and Rose departed early around ten, due to “server issues” at work.