Oh, the Silliness
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
OLeif had managed to keep himself up until three o’clock the previous night. By 5:44 the next morning, when Collette got up, he was still dead to the world.
Meanwhile, Lucia was beginning her first day at NAWS. Being somewhat apprehensive about starting a new job, she had called Carrie-Bri the night before to tell her that she would not be coming. But Carrie must have convinced her to not be “so tense” (as Lucia would always say), because by the time Collette arrived at the house that morning, Lucia’s car was parked in the driveway and both girls were on their way to NAWS.
Inside, Rose was sitting next to the kitchen sink with a large green potted plant in front of her. Collette decided not to ask her why she had still not taken a shower and was in her pajamas and a knit cap, plucking old leaves off of her plant in the sink at eight o’clock on a Tuesday morning. Some things were just really not worth asking.
Linnea had her monthly American Heritage Girls that evening, so Mom ironed her new vest, adding a few patches to the front, including her troop number. And because the eight little girls who attended would be very hungry by that time of the evening, it was Linnea’s turn to bring snacks. While Linnea took a math test at the kitchen table, Mom whipped up two dozen chocolate cupcakes and iced them. Then she called in Linnea to drizzle mini chocolate chips on the top. The volume of chocolate chips varied from cupcake to cupcake according to Linnea’s knowledge of how much each girl loved chocolate, some more than others.
Rose’s first work of the day lay in the land of English. Her first course assignment was to write a letter to a particular audience discussing the various forms of writing which she most frequently used. Rose decided that this letter would be addressed “to the world”. Half way through, Collette was embarrassedly obliged to point out to Rose that “educated” was not spelled with a “j”; but the rest of the spelling was tolerable.
After Rose had written a particularly ridiculous, albeit clever, piece, giggling with Francis and Linnea while reading the final copy out loud, Collette attempted to steer the tutoring session back to more sensible ground. This, of course, was usually a fruitless endeavor when any audience was present.
Come mid-morning, Dad decided that there was too much silliness going on from Rose’s tutoring station at the kitchen counter. And because she was distracting Francis and Linnea from their math tests, he moved her downstairs to sit at the old school house desk while Collette had a seat on the couch.
Rose’s concentration, while mostly fixed on answering psychology questions, was soon split. The next time Collette looked up from the textbook from which she was quizzing Rose, Rose had dragged over an ancient pedestal plant stand from the corner of the basement and was tightening the screws at its base. Somehow Rose still managed to answer most of the questions correctly. There were some people who learned in unusual environments, and Collette could only assume after teaching her those several years, that Rose must be one of them.
Sometime during that particular psychology session, Joe and Rose decided to entertain Collette with a “lightening storm”, using the typical old trick of rapidly flashing all of the basement lights off and on for several minutes. Collette waited out the storm until Joe was called upstairs for some reason or other.
Later, while Rose ate lunch before choir, Collette was reading on Mormonism. From time to time, she caught snatches of conversation.
“We’re going to have a cat party,” Collette heard Rose tell Joe.
Joe, as usual, just laughed at her, baffled. This was happening at about the same time that Mom discovered that her kitchen was still rather black from the night before, when Rose had dyed several pieces of clothing for the madrigal dinner and every day use.
“It’s not my fault,” Rose insisted. “Carrie made me do it.”
Mom wasn’t going to buy it. Rose had to clean it up anyway, due to one of Mom’s more famous mantras: “You make a mess, you clean it up.”
Dad had meanwhile escaped to the car dealership where the vans were being serviced. He was probably appreciating the quiet during an especially loud day back at the house. Soon Joe and Rose had left for another choir rehearsal and things suddenly and oddly seemed to be a little more quiet.
While waiting for Rose to finish choir, Collette found herself snoozing on the love seat with Kingdom of the Cults in her lap. She too, had gotten very little sleep – perhaps four hours – the night before. Collette greatly disliked afternoon naps; they made her feel sluggish and odd upon reawakening. But occasionally they did unintentionally take place. So to revive herself, she took a ride over to choir with Mom and Linnea to pick up Rose for more teaching.
Rose was grumpy.
“Everyone gets to dance this time except me,” she said, referring to the period dances which were to take place during the madrigal dinner.
On the way back, Mom decided to treat them all to slushies. Collette stayed out in the minivan with Linnea (who was wearing capris and snow boots several sizes too large for her feet) while Mom and Rose went inside.
While they waited, a landscaping pick-up truck pulled up next to them, crammed with six Mexicans.
Linnea was stretched back in her seat with her big boots propped up in front of her.
“Collette… they’re staring at me,” she said.
“Well, are you staring at them?”
“No… now they’re laughing at me.”
“Well, maybe it’s because you’re watching them too.”
“He waved at me! That guy waved at me! What do I do?”
“It’s OK, Linnea,” Collette laughed. “They’re just waving.”
Then the Mexicans in the landscaping truck left.
“Whew!” Linnea watched them go. “That was almost the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
Collette figured that if that was the most embarrassing moment of Linnea’s nine years, she was doing pretty good.
There were just some silly days…