Plans for the World
Monday, January 22, 2007
This time, OLeif was home by eleven-thirty Sunday night. He and the rest of his crew had ordered Bandanna’s barbecue for dinner. That boy had certainly been fed the tasty stuff over the weekend. Collette was pretty much certain that she would be sending him to work with vegetables, fruits, and peanut butter sandwiches for the entirety of that week to make up for it.
(It didn’t work in the end, however. He ended up with Taco Bell for lunch and Hobbe’s chicken for dinner.)
Back on the ranch, there were the usual plans afoot in Carrie’s day – calculus, degrees in Arabic and philosophy and space sciences, software development, the Japanese police force (where a female had never been able to complete the program)… There had been more emails from the Moss’ regarding the girls coming to Australia – plans for kayaking, barbecue, watching the starry starry night through Mr. Moss’ prized telescope… Elazar would even be enlisted as their personal tour guide through Sydney and to the National Parks and great hike sights.
“This is just going to be so awesome,” Carrie kept saying. “I can’t wait.”
Collette was still also hypothetically debating between Morocco and Turkey for the fall. Her plans were many and varied.
The early afternoon brought word that Rose had been hired at Subway. She would begin training that week.
“They must have been desperate for help,” she said. “All they asked me was, ‘Have you ever worked at a sandwich shop before?’ and I said, ‘Nope’ and they said, ‘What’s your shirt size?’ and then they hired me.”
Collette could just see Rose standing behind the glass case, slapping together sandwiches, lettuce and olives flying, with a grumpy,
“Do you want a cookie with that?”
…at the end of the line.
Meanwhile, Frances was finished with school and was in the front yard perfecting his military snow man.
“Is that a Cutco knife?” Rose wondered aloud, watching him detail the sides of the snowman with some form of long blade.
They deducted that it was the cake server and not a sharp blade, upon further observation.
Late in the afternoon, Collette worked through psychology with Rose after Rose had raided the s’mores box and munched through three chocolate bars in one sitting.
As Collette prepared to leave that evening, Rose began to paint the little birdhouse that Joe had bought for her. She pulled out the blue and black paints while talking to Collette about an article interview in National Geographic with a Christian, and one of the top scientists in the country. She appreciated many of his responses regarding religious extremism, scientific advancement, and the problem of pain.
And Collette had been reading a lot lately – L’Abri (Edith Schaeffer), Bring ‘Em Back Alive (for Sunday School), various works by Luther, Don’t Waste Your Life (John Piper), The Problem of Pain (C.S. Lewis)… Much wisdom found in those books.