pour Diu, qu'ele le deignast avoir de mi!
Saturday, October 21, 2006
A sunrise greeted October 21st in the early morning on floats of puffy pink candy. OLeif and Collette had decided to join the family on the trip to Kansas City that day for Aunt Rebecca’s 80th birthday party after all. The poor fellow seemed to slowly be recovering from his bad cold. So Collette packed his pillows and vitamin C and several books. Carrie, once again, had to work in the afternoon and could not attend.
Collette wondered if, while Carrie-Bri and Rose were in Egypt, Carrie would want a photo shoot of Rose fluttering large pieces of cloth in the wind (should there be any) over the sand dunes. It seemed a likely idea. After all, weren’t Carrie and Kitts the ones who one day several years before, on a misting cloudy day, had OLeif video them walking around the lake with a large piece of cloth held out between them attached to two logs? They were a great white walking pennant – a very large one at that. Collette wondered what their neighbors had thought, watching such an spectacle.
And so the ride commenced to Kansas City. Grandma Snicketts was also with them. OLeif and Rose immediately began causing trouble before the van had left the driveway.
“Are you causing trouble back there, OLeif?” Grandma called from the front. “Why I’m surprised at you.”
“You are?” OLeif said. “That’s right; you all had no idea what you were getting into when Collette married me.”
Collette figured that he must not be feeling all that badly any more.
And OLeif and Rose continued to cause trouble most of the four hours there and the three hours back. The most common methods of annoying one another were poking fingers, cat fight hand-slaps, and taking pictures of everyone in the van for no reason whatsoever (the last part being chiefly Rose’s doing).
On the way, the sun was still shining and many cars sported tiger tails on their way to Mizzou, which caused a good bit of traffic congestion. By the time the rain had begun, they were backed up for awhile. And the rain continued in steady gray sheets for the rest of the day into the evening and after they had returned home.
Meanwhile, Joe and Frances were bundled high in pillows and blankets and Rose kept telling everyone about her bag of sour warheads that Mom had not let her purchase at Walgreens that week.
“225 pieces in a bag!” She announced. “Only six dollars. And Mom wouldn’t let me have it. But if Collette had asked for it, she would have gotten it.”
This sort of whining continued while she licked another blow-pop.
At a break for lunch in Concordia, there was a scramble at McDonald’s where a good number of people were scattering quickly to get to the game. All the monopoly pieces were gathered for Carrie. And Rose blew a spider off of her chair.
They arrived at 1:16 in the afternoon at the United Church of Christ in Kansas City where Aunt Rebecca already had several guests mingling at tables in the dimly lit reception hall. The cakes were cut and being served with cookies and punch. And Uncle Balthasar was even there by himself as Aunt Tuuli was at a sort of blood-drawer’s nurse’s convention in Florida. And the boys, of course, were busy with military proceedings. (Although Bristol had still not received his commission). Later, Uncle Hilario and Aunt Corliss also arrived and told OLeif and Collette that Brit and Lilli were very sorry that they could not be there to see them. Their house had just sold in Columbia and they were moving to Kansas City that very day.
So there was chatting amongst the people. Rose found another spider of similar looks on her chair and ignored it. Linnea tried to sneak downstairs to explore the halls. And Frances decided not to take off his Arctic coat because he was too embarrassed with the shirt he was wearing, which wouldn’t quite tuck right into his pants.
By 2:45 when they had to be going “to beat the football traffic”, as Dad said, there was a good crowd of people present and eating cake. They made their goodbyes while Uncle Balthasar began commenting on why, when the big green slug had arrived, it took so long for the crew to actually exit the vehicle.
“You were all in there for like fifteen minutes,” he chuckled. “What, was Martin giving them the usual talk – ‘Now I want everyone to behave when we get inside. No running. No fighting. Just behave yourselves.’”
“Well, no….” Mom laughed. “We had to wait for some of them to get their shoes on.”
“Oh, did you have to tie Mom’s shoes?” Uncle Balthasar pointed at Grandma.
And then they were off under the beauty of several trees that had decided to burst into red and orange and gold, with the rain still drumming.
In the mist of the van windows, Joe, Frances, and Rose began drawing messages, such as “I heart ?” and “OLeif hearts Collette” and such.
Around six o’clock they returned to the house. Dad had already ordered Simple Simons before he drove Grandma home. And Joe soon returned with four boxes of good steaming pizzas in time to watch the game.