Proceedings

Puck woke Collette that morning with his signature sounds which resembled very much Imperial robots from the ice moon Hoth.

Over to the house… OLeif and Collette listened to Radiolab’s imported show regarding UK soccer goalies.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch…

Rose and Linnea-Irish were arguing about the existence of black holes.

Francis displayed two of his birthday gifts: a green laser pointer and a buckyball.

“He’s been playing with it for hours,” said Linnea. “That’s so he doesn’t take apart everything else.”

Francis next proceeded to tag the green laser around the floor whereupon Puck chased it, just like the cats, laughing like a hyena.

A large black box of various Mementa teas in brightly colored packages sat on the counter, including strawberry tea.

And Rose’s grow-your-own-prince (from Grandma Combs, of course), resembled more of a crusted sea-weeded creature in his glass of water in the kitchen window.

“I’m just going to say that he had too many rocks in his shoes and he sunk and got all moldy,” Rose explained.

Downstairs to Dad’s office for math. Linnea pumped up her inspirational music to illicit concentration, while Puck watched Passepartout ‘dance with the bulls’ in España. And Snuggles surveyed from the ancient Diet Coke box on top of Dad’s filing cabinets, still half-filled with Coke glasses.

Afternoon.

Puck helped his Sun serve tea at one o’clock, with German rock sugar or honey.

Collette worked on establishing lodging and sights in Lisbon for Mom, including a market day and visits to the Gulbenkian Museum and the Monastery of Jerónimos.

Carrie baked a cherry pie laced with cut-outs of stars.

Then she and Rose got some sun in the backyard, soggy and ice-patched,

while Puck squished his bare feet around in the mud bog.

Rose got camera happy again, like the old days.

Francis had been joined earlier, and unexpectedly, by Creole and Puff ‘o Lump on a bike ride down the Katy. The boy was terrible at remembering his schedule of events. They returned some time later to throw frisbees in the street.

And Carrie soon got to work baking whole chickens while she and Rose caught up a little on the Barcelona-Arsenal match and giggled from time to time over silly things in the game.

Back to church.

Dropped off by Rose on her way to Home Depot to look for discounts to finish the various basemental projects.

Things were rather calmed, considering that the children had received chocolate hearts wrapped in purple foil from Isabella Swiss, and powdered sugar or chocolate donut gem from Idelwild. After which, Puck began playing a sort of hide-and-seek game with Elder Richard behind the classroom door.

“I’m thinner than Puck,” said five year-old Marilyn, and wedged herself behind the door as well.

The two began to giggle hysterically as the game continued.

After events had subsided, the kids were busy chasing each other around the sanctuary as usual.

“Excuse me, but you can’t run in God’s house,” Puck ordered, mirroring Francis’ original command.

This did not, however, stop either one of them from their own match of ‘tag’ once the others had begun to leave for the evening.

And the wind struck up around eight o’clock.