Red Robin & Doctor Who
Saturday, May 14, 2011
In which another date commences, the first since winter…
It had been ten years.
To the day.
In that cold, gray, rainy morning, it was an early departure to bring OLeif to the coffee house with his buddies, where they would meet with Judah, via Skype in New England, for their bi-weekly study.
Then Kohl’s with a ten-dollar gift card for a navy collared shirt for OLeif, who somehow still managed to gather flocks of holes in all of his clothes despite sitting at a desk for nine-plus hours every weekday.
An hour sitting in the parking lot with Doctor Who and Puck untangling the collections of Tic-Tac boxes, books, bouncy balls, etc., condensed under the pilot seats, between making calls to Doctor Who.
“Calling Doctor Who… He said, ‘Why are you not coming in Heaven yet?’”
When he found the Kleenex box and began to pull out the tissues one by one…
“Mama, is this wasting Daddy’s money?”
As the rain continued to speckle the lands, both of Dad’s softball games were, of course, canceled.
After a drop by the post office for Renaissance angel stamps and the bank for eighteen dollars’ worth of formerly free checks — there was conspiracy to join on at Dad’s credit union, invitation only, of course — over to the Silverpoon’s.
Theodore was out and Izzy at work. And there was a fat watermelon sitting on the counter.
“I want to eat that watermelon!” Puck exclaimed with a grin.
Tangled.
Cheeseburgers.
Slabs of heavily addicting watermelon.
Theodore shortly returned to show OLeif his new hand-tooled leather belt. And everyone was busy playing with Theodore’s new iPad.
Around banana, watermelon, orange juice and organizing band-aids for Puck, Theodore read him the funnies.
And on the fridge was an invitation to Relevance’s graduation from the Austin Graduate School of Theology with a Masters in Theological Studies, monogrammed in… seashells?
And while Puck excitedly prepared to spend the night with his Nana and Papa, it was date night for OLeif and Collette.
Trader Joe’s: rather amazing cream-filled maple leaf cookies.
A drive down the rolling green French-German fields and hills of Strecker Road.
Red Robin, the land of campfire sauce, ladders of onion rings, the screaming red zombie, and hand-crafted burgers, where ads reading ‘Give your mouth hula lessons’ and ‘Taste as big as a rodeo belt buckle’ were displayed in the booths. Royal Burger for Collette, unlimited fries with homemade Ranch for both, and the Bleu Ribbon Burger for OLeif.
And they discussed the debauchery of all societies throughout history, childhood, Native American legends, and budgets, while their blonde-hair-glasses-German-Dutch-1950’s-looking waiter proffered further refills on OLeif’s unlimited freckled lemonade.
Then home for the last three episodes of Doctor Who Season 6. And the addiction began again…
“…this Messenger would be God’s own Son. He would be called ‘The Word’ because he himself would be God’s Message. God’s Message translated into our own language. Everything God wanted to say to the whole world – in a Person.”