Or give sigh for sigh

Friday, September 29, 2006

Cold days.

Collette wondered if Mom and Mrs. Lord-Welches would end up spending a rather frozen three days around the lake the following week. Perhaps Mom should have brought her ice skates, if she had had any. But no doubt they would spend half of each day talking in front of the fireplace over cappuccino and biscotti.

Meanwhile, Diana was home for a brief visit with the family that weekend to host Velvet’s wedding shower and attend her bachelorette party. And Dad and Frances were heading out to the Daniel Boone home for a weekend Scout camp out.

The office was dull that day, making up for the irritations of Thursday. The fields behind the church were harvest yellow under an autumn rain. Dark red ivy climbed up the old silos. And the thermostat had been lock to 68 degrees all morning.

Early in the afternoon, Rose and Georgia Owen dropped in to fold the bulletin. By that time, Collette was rubbing her hands together to keep warm. By two o’clock, the locked thermostat had risen one degree all by itself. Rose hurried in half an hour late with wet hair in a shirt that made her look like a bumblebee.

“Sorry I’m late,” she muttered.

She dragged back the radio with her. And so the 81 year-old and the sixteen year-old folded bulletins together for the rest of the afternoon as the sun popped out against the gray for awhile before hiding again.

After the 275 bulletins were folded and put in the box, Rose chatted with little Meg Saint about all things three year-olds loved to talk about:

Questions.

“Why are you sitting there?”

“Because I like to sit here.”

“Why do you like to sit there?”

“Because it’s comfortable.”

“Why is it comfortable?”

“Because the chair’s comfortable.”

“Why is the chair comfortable?”

“Because they made it comfortable.”

“But why did they make it comfortable?”

And so on…

Meanwhile, it was a waffle night.