Opening Day
“HMM-MM-MM! That applesauce was delii-ii-ish!”
Puck wasn’t actually eating applesauce for breakfast. I think he meant apple juice, which he was downing with a Tablespoon. When I turned around next, he was sprawled on the floor wrapped in three blankets:
“Puck, sit up at the table like a man. You can’t eat breakfast on the floor.”
With absolute innocence, he replied, “Why not, Mom? Sometimes Chinese people eat on the floor.”
“Not like that, they don’t.”
Of course I canceled school for the day. Maybe the government didn’t feel like acknowledging Opening Day as a national holiday, but I did.
We ran errands in the late morning before the game. Puck needed jeans, socks, and one last staple he simple couldn’t do without:
“MOM, LOOK! LEGO T-SHIRT!”
When we stopped for groceries, he reluctantly left the new shirt in the car:
“Mom, can these Lego shirts be sold again for lots of money?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I just don’t want anyone to burglar it while we’re in the store.”
Our Opening Day was windows opened, a spit of rain, wind, Puck munching goldfish crackers from Grandma, chugging his fist-sized pomegranate juice on the couch, smothered in Garfield books while KMOX crackled out a tense 1-0 Cards win in chilly Cincinnati. Starting things right. And maybe a little Bruno Mars on my part; I knew I shouldn’t have got started on that one. Too late.
The game had run into the dinner hour. Puck and I played dominoes through the meal, crunching celery sticks to round out the courses, conjuring different April Fool’s jokes Puck could pull on El Oso. Crackers startled herself with wind, squirrels, neighbors in the street. Puck yelled loud nonsense at her as she scattered over the linoleum:
“Puck. Why the loudness? Really?”
“Just trying to get the sugars out of her,” he reasoned, turning back to the dominoes.
Rich evening of wind, dog barks, sinking light, violet clouds in the east. The black Toyota pulled back up the driveway just in time for the ding-dong music of the ice cream truck. Puck tore out to the mailbox with a dollar bill while El Oso hustled out with more back-up. Bedtime read. Gold glow, low lamps, dark spring night.
Puck’s Weekly What-do-You-Want-to-be-When-You-Grow-Up Status:
“I don’t know.”