Popples, Polka-dots, and Peach Fuzz
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Wednesday afternoon was very nice. Collette was picked up by Carrie with Francis and Linnea, which they shoveled off to choir. Carrie was set comfortably for the day in fire cracker red gym pants, and Collette soon discovered why, upon arriving home later after Chinese study and a Sunkist soda, which Francis retrieved from the vending machine in the church basement.
There was an all-new roller rink constructed inside the garage, which explained the entourage of cars piled up at odd angles all over the driveway. The garage had often been used for such athletic events: bike track, scooter track, blading, pogo-sticking, and even Friday afternoon plays. But this time, wooden blocks, planks, and thick boards had been arranged into an oval path for jumping and sliding upon.
And then there was a break for Collette as she drank her Sunkist and readied Carrie’s high school transcript to be faxed to the American Military University. As she brought over the paper for Carrie to sign, Carrie was intent on preparing soup and grilled cheese for dinner.
“Sauce it up! Sauce it up!” She declared to the grill in halting tones, as she glazed it’s burning surface in butter.
“OK, Carrie, I need your signature right there,” Collette indicated the spot beneath Dad’s, (signing as the principal), on the sheet.
“Oh, asking for my autograph?”
She flourished her bohemian John Hancock and dated it. She held up her hand upon setting the pen down, in recognition of the great favor she had just extended.
“Yes, your holiness,” Collette acknowledged. “Thank you. She turned, speaking as if a newspaper reporter might. ‘The Dali Lama is now retiring to eat vegetable soup…’”
“I don’t have a phone, by the way,” Carrie called after her with a serious face.
Collette laughed back.
Meanwhile at the table, there was an uproar, as usual, about something. This time it centered around Rose, poor girl.
“Rose,” Dad bellowed from the head of the table, where chaos had already begun to break loose. (Mom was out shopping.) “Those pants are entirely too short. Go put something else on.”
“Wha?” Rose was baffled. “They are not too short.”
“Yeah, just every time you bend over…” Carrie began, which was all that was needed to bring it on.
“Francis, Francis!” Linnea was suddenly inspired. “Rose got new underwear and it has polka-dots on it!”
Uproar commenced.
“I never thought I’d see the deep sea trench,” Joe started.
“More like the Mars canyon,” Carrie helped him out. “Or the Grand Canyon, times ten.”
Dad had smile lines which he was desperately trying to hide. “Stop everyone. Francis! Linnea!”
And before very long, things were settled again and they got back to normal stories with bouts of insane laughter, as the soup and sandwiches were soon polished off, with aid from the dog who always had puppy eyes for scraps.
But soon Mom had returned while “Mulan” was playing and Francis and Linnea were working on Legos and Liberty-Belle. Joe was cleaning up the kitchen while Dad worked on the computer. And Carrie and Rose were watching music videos on the computer from Cake’s “The Distance” and “Comfort Eagle”.
And then Mom and Carrie were able to take a leisurely half hour at Target, selecting gifts for Idelwild Turtle for her wedding shower that Saturday – a very late wedding shower, as her wedding was in two weeks.
On her list she had a white-washed clock, a hydrangea wreath of spring green blossoms, a ceramic white milk bottle for a vase, white and red checkered throw pillows, a white-washed picture frame with spring green linen matting, and various other country cottage touches, which Mom loved of course. But in the end, they settled on a knife set and a clock, and Linnea would give her the frame.
Then the evening was nearly finished as Collette talked to Ivy on the phone while she made fried Italian sausages with herb red potatoes and buttered corn. There was a bit of a cat fight on Ivy’s end, and Collette told her to tell them to behave.
“Aunt Collette says, ‘Behave!’” She yelled back at them, over the line.
And after that, they seemed to calm a bit. But it was all in all a pleasant day and Collette was happy in it.
The next day had gone by speedily as predicted. At work, Ivy had come in late after driving her brother to and from his eye surgery. Then Rosemary Popples, a mom from the church, had dropped by to pick up Vacation Bible School materials for the summer. And so she and Ivy talked for a spell while Collette typed up a flier for Easter lilies, capturing snatches of conversation here and there.
“So when my brother got married,” Rosemary was saying, “he decided he wasn’t going to have his car decorated or tell anyone where he was going for his honeymoon, which was dumb. And so he ordered a helicopter to take them off, which landed on the top of the hotel where the reception was… And so we decided this just wasn’t fair, and he deserved something to happen to him… We went over to his condo after I stole the keys from my dad… My brother hadn’t canceled the newspaper while they were gone, so there were two weeks of the Chicago Tribune just waiting for something to be done with it. So we crinkled up every sheet and just filled all the rooms with these wads of newspaper… We blew up balloons and stuffed them under the couch cushions and the bed mattress, pulled all the sheets and blankets back over, so they couldn’t tell… Made Jello in all the sinks…”
Collette laughed as she zoned out again, beginning to think of the Italian sausage and cheddar burrito downstairs and the ice cold soda waiting for lunch.
“… There’s nothing between Oklahoma City and the North Pole,” Rosemary was now talking about something else. “The wind blows… right through you… So you’re sitting there shivering with your hot chocolate steaming… while the girls are on the soccer field… Susie broke a finger while she was goalie, it was so cold…”
Collette zoned again thinking of the mysterious winds that must blow down through such uninhabited lands. The lilies on her page were looking a little too bright, and she adjusted the clip art.
“That was the only big argument we had over my wedding,” Rosemary went on, talking about her mom. “She just had to have the fine china and silver and a nice garden reception… She would set out the breakfast table each night before she went to bed so we could… dine together in the morning…”
And by this time, the clock was at two and the afternoon was nearly finished. At the house, Collette found that Carrie had made delicious hot soft pretzels in the oven earlier and that Trooper had been seen running around the neighborhood with a pink tutu around his neck, courtesy of Rose. On the way to return her home before Joe’s Red and Green Banquet, which only Mom and Dad were attending that cool February, they saw a small flock of wooden playhouses at a shop off the highway.
“That’s what I’ll have if I ever get married,” Joe told Wallace, sitting in the seat next to him.
“Stand up and you’re in the second floor,” Mom chuckled.
“Yeah, I’ll have like twelve of them,” Joe slapped on his slightly beach boy drawl. “One for my winter home, another for a spring home, and a fall home…”
“Summer home,” Mom interjected, no doubt recalling the lovely snug-bug cottages in Maine the previous summer while on vacation.
“And one for my shrine,” Joe continued. “One for my wife, one for my kids… one for my dog… and cat…”
They discussed the cross-over ceremony for the younger scouts where Joe would once again act as the Indian chief, as he had for many years. His face paint had always remained the same – full white face with a solid red hand-print, cock-eyed across the face. The complete feathered headdress and buckskin completed the effect. Chief Joe – leader of the little Scoutlets into the realm of the Boy Scouts, boldly leading where no scout had lead before.
Then the subject reverted to how Wallace and Curly had redesigned Joe’s facial hair on the computer.
“Yeah, the sideburns didn’t really work,” Wallace was saying. “We decided that you looked best with the shaved eyebrows and a Hitler mustache.”
Joe laughed. “I’ll grow sideburns for you right now.”
He smashed both fists into the sides of his face.
“Doingk! Doingk!” He exclaimed, as he popped out one finger from one side, and then one from the other.
This was always a popular impersonation of junior high peach fuzz, and they all laughed.
There seemed to be a lack of luster in the air at the apartment that evening. Perhaps it was because there were too many directions to look in at one time. Whenever Collette focused on all the other people in her life at one time – all the family, friends, acquaintances, and even those she had never met before – there was a time of multi-dimension that proved to be frustrating. She could not possibly focus on them all at once without becoming bewildered by it all – so many different stories and situations – each one different from the other. She couldn’t hope to imagine what their perspectives on life might be like, just what, exactly, they thought from day to day. It was at those times that Collette was happy to be simply, Collette.