One More Time Around the Sun
I started my birthday morning with a 1:17 wake-up call from Puck.
“I’m thirsty, Mom.”
I knew forgetting him a glass of water for dinner would come back to bite me.
Later, at a more leisurely hour, I camped out on the couch with him to watch a pink and blue sunrise between the folds of the curtains and the wall. He lugged out a heavy basket stocked with magic markers and poster markers. We drew pictures on pieces of cardboard and boxes left over from a recent Lulu journal shipment. Lava apple trees doubling as secret passageway maps, longhouses, obstacle courses… We have our fun. Of course, Puck can’t go too long without capturing his silky feline once more for some games and tackle…
“I! Am! The cat! From Jupiter!” he crowed.
Or… running with plastic grocery sacks to go… “parachuting”…
And after that – slinky stair-walking.
The Bear decided he would try to fool me. He left for work then pulled back up the driveway twenty minutes later. A dozen red roses, and a chocolate long john. The sprinkled version for Puck. And a Simply Apple juice. Crackers immediately began gnawing the garnish. I turned around, and Puck had already turned the kitchen upside-down to wash the windows… again… My sweet boys.
Mom and the kids sang me a garbled and pitchy version of “Happy Birthday” over the phone…
“Haaaaaaaapy biiiiiirthdaaaay…”
“Guys, guys, sing it nice!”
“…tooooo…”
“Nicely!”
“Yooooooou!!!!”
I also learned that Carrie had landed the Cessna [I think it was the Cessna] on one wheel. This, of course, is intentional during severe crosswinds, as Dad explained. Or maybe not even in severe ones… I don’t really know. All that flight material never crossed my desk when I was sixteen. Life was just too busy, I guess.
The crux of The Bear’s IM to me that evening, basically read…
“PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA!”
I guess we were having pizza. I wasn’t protesting. I looked back into the kitchen where Puck was supposed to be getting ready for dinner. He had covered a laminated counting chart in tin foil, which he had placed on the floor, and was sitting on the rocking horse, rocking back and forth over it. He anticipated my question…
“I’m just flattening it.”
Then Dad called me from some place in Pennsylvania on business to wish me many happy returns. He had arrived in the early afternoon – after a 3:30am wake-up call – only after witnessing a medical emergency on the plane right before landing for layover in Atlanta. Apparently a female surgeon had experienced a seizure, the first one she had ever had, actually. But she seemed to recover. Seizures and careers in surgery don’t mix too well, unfortunately…
Puck fell asleep, snoring as usual, with Crackers tucked warm beside him under the eggplant blanket.
The Bear did well and brought back packages of square pretzels, Hershey’s kisses, and M&Ms for Monday’s dessert recipe. If it can be called a dessert. And pizza.
Thought of the Day
My dad sends out daily devotionals to all of us kids – a pre-set 5AM email every morning for the last four-plus years now. Lately he’s been writing about the “larger picture”, to quote a common cliché. That’s a thought I remember often, too. All life long… It’s like trying to package a galaxy in a marble. Or looking at a square inch of beach sand, instead of seeing the whole universe. Because we can’t, yet. Even so, that square inch of sand is phenomenally amazing.