Party

Saturday, February 26, 2005

There was little in the news the past few days. The pope was hospitalized during his tracheotomy and there was a flu epidemic in China, from birds. It was lethal to seventy percent of those who acquired it and they were attempting to isolate it within the sectors it affected.

Grandma Snicketts had sent her a lovely card and check for her graduation.

Collette set out the fondue pot and a deck of cards for the youth, as they were coming over for a movie night and perhaps Chinese, if everyone felt up to it. She placed some of the slatted chairs (a gift from Grandma back earlier in the summer) in the living room – she had brought them when they met (Mom, Grandma, herself, Carrie, and Rose) at Miss Aimee B’s for lunch. Collette had also purchased a big red book of fairy tales from the boutique upstairs, direct from France – rather old.

And the chairs reminded Collette of their recent visit to Maine – summer side beach chairs from the early nineteen hundreds, sunning perhaps on a grand hotel porch in Canada right near the ocean breezes of a late afternoon.

Meanwhile, there were other things on her mind – good things, and many things. Even the sun did not bother her that afternoon.

While making pancakes that morning, Carrie had called with the latest news concerning Peter. It was good news and they were both happy for his change of plans.

“Well, you know,” Carrie was saying, “I was really worried that him living in the dorms was going to start corrupting him, you know, like everyone else. But instead, he was saying just how disgusted he was with what he saw going on. And so, he wants to stay at Lindenwood till the end of the semester and then he’s going to transfer back to MoBap and major in religion. Then he wants to go to seminary!”

“Wow! Seminary!” Carrie was surprised.

“Yeah; it’s good. He’s just completely turned around he says.”

“Well, good. I hope he sticks with it.”

“Me too. Here – listen to this.”

Silence.

“Did you hear it?”

“No – what was it?”

“Pumpkin purring.” Carrie giggled. “She’s been following me all over the house today. She’s been very snuggly.”

And then they discussed the lead actor, playing George, in Vanity Fair, who was scheduled to play Elvis (which did not surprise them) in a television mini series. (No doubt the BBC). It promised to be interesting. Then Carrie said she would bring her gypsy costume over that night to work on while they finished her bio pages.

And with that, there was a trip to the post office before they closed for a sheet of eighty cent stamps – all of Mt. McKinley covered in snow, and then a double-sided sheet of thirty-seven cent pieces, each one depicting a creature from the Chinese New Year calendar. Collette decided to save one side for a collection. And then there was a pink lemonade as she completed her study and cleaning.

In the afternoon, there was a trip by the library for a short novel on an Irish village, Chinese workbooks, and a manual for reading Egyptian hieroglyphics. Then they whipped by China King for a menu.

As the word got around, the list of “guests” grew to be ten. Collette wondered how they might fit inside the little apartment, but she left it for them to figure such things out. At least she and Carrie would keep the list from becoming twelve, by working on the computer in the bedroom. OLeif had also run downstairs to warn their Canadian friends about the get-together, and to apologize in advance if there was any excess noise. However, she smiled, saying it wasn’t a problem as her husband would be singing at church that night anyway.

Soon the crowd had gathered, and Joe was still full of energy for the evening after a long day of watching speech tournaments at the Pillar Foundation. While Carrie-Bri and Collette worked on her yearbook pages, Joe catapulted himself onto the bed.

“Oh, your mattress is comfy,” he sighed, putting his hands behind his head. Several minutes later he called, “Hey, Collette, look!”

Collette and Carrie turned their heads to look. And there were Joe’s legs and bum sticking straight up in the air at all odd angles.

“I’m doing Tai Chi!” he announced, continuing to hold the position.

“Yeah, very nice,” Carrie laughed and rolled her eyes at him as she continued to search for a good header picture for her bio page.

She finally discovered a good copy from the Steve Davis concert (number one Elvis impersonator) during Rose’s birthday that past summer. The camera caught her while she was leaning over to hear something Collette was telling her, Carrie laughing off into the distance as if she had just heard an amusing secret. Collette did not remember what she was telling her at the time.

But she did remember the concert and how angry Carrie was that all the little screaming annoying girls in the front were tossed all the scarves during the concert, and Carrie couldn’t catch one. She still had a red scarf and a turquoise from previous concerts. But that time there were to be none and she instead comforted herself with the fact that “Elvis” had smiled directly at her several times in his songs, in the past, during particular lines.

And then the chaos ensued as a total of eleven packed the small living room for “Equilibrium”, Chinese, and home videos while Joe and Wallace plunked on violins and OLeif’s mandolin.

Collette and Carrie-Bri continued to hide in front of the computer while the discussions and laughter continued reverberating from the living room. In the end, the soda was all chugged, little white boxes littered all the flat surfaces, and Collette decided to leave the mess for the following day.

It was all relatively satisfying, having guests, but she was tired and soon enjoyed the nice comfort of a warm bed and promise of a relaxing number of hours the following afternoon.