Redbirds, Fly

Wednesday, October 12, 2011
In which the sweet rains of autumn return and the post season continues…

Finally.
A thunderstorm.
Early in the morning, hardly acknowledged by a dead-to-the-world Collette, and more than acknowledged by a migrained-OLeif…
“Here’s what I think,” he explained later. “I had so much information yesterday, it was swelling out my eyeballs. It doesn’t happen to you. You don’t have a knowledge intolerance.”
Sometimes it was still an effort. Getting up in the mornings. Puck aided by whipping off the covers as Collette prepared to rise…
“Nothing like a shock of cold to get you going,” she groaned. “Just pretend I’m a Colonial person. Go to break the ice in the water pitcher. I’ll bet Colonial people never had adrenal fatigue…”
OLeif laughed.

Back on the ranch…
The skies were still heavy rain-gray.
Collette scrambled up the eggs.
“Well, Puck,” said Carrie, “you know what we have to do if it storms again, right?”
Puck looked importantly at her and said, “Make a tent, find a rainbow, dig up treasure, bring it home, keep it forever, buy money, buy stuff, then you’re all set.”
The neighbor from across the street, having returned to set up their house for the next tenant, came over to visit Dad about a possibly loaned pair of old leather gloves. He had caught a skunk in a trap with half a peanut butter sandwich. Dad left with him to set it free down by the river.
“Aw,” said Linnea, “I’m going to miss that skunk. I was gonna get his stink things removed.”
Meanwhile, considering that scratch paper had somehow become scarce in the Snicketts household, Collette was obliged to use the blank scraps from her insurance renewal policy for algebra that morning.
Pumpkin-Reeses Muffins under glass.
And Carrie had convinced Puck that she was magic because she drank tea. Puck was enthused, and participated in these magic shows off and on for throughout the remainder of the day. This included slapping Uncle Francis on the back to dislodge any unsuspecting chocolate pennies stashed in magical places.
Somewhere in the toddle of the day, a short mockery was made of the similarities between Dad’s and Carrie’s personality types…
“What is he? An I-M-B-U?” Mom threw out some random letters.
“No, I’m a B-O-S-S,” Dad replied.
“How about W-I-D-E,” Carrie retorted, having been chastising Dad for his candy-intake.
“You shouldn’t buy that stuff so far before Hallowe’en,” was Dad’s explanation.
Linnea was mournfully watching the day behind windows, and the algebra…
“These are days we should be outside… up on the roof… playing the ukulele.”
And Earnest had come down with a case of the fleas.
Carrie blamed Snuggles.

As the afternoon crept onwards, Carrie and Puck were busy in the kitchen mixing Morning Glory Muffins (stuffed with prunes, carrots, and oatmeal), followed by two shepherd’s pies. Carrie rolled out the door, muttering something to herself again about… ‘what a mess I make in here’.
It didn’t help that Francis was listing off all of the foods he would not eat…
“I told you,” he held up one hand to count the fingers. “I won’t eat red sauce, pea soup, or corn. Everything else I’ll eat.”
“Yeah right.”
A package for Rose in the mail from the ever-inevitable VS: rose-ish-pink soft turtleneck tunic, and cream-shaded lace tunic.
Francis returned from working with Creole, preparing for his evening at the YMCA…
“So when Mrs. Coca-Cola came to pick up Creole, she was saying, ‘Thank you for employing my son,’ and he was saying, ‘Well, thank you for lending me your son. I enjoy working with him.’ And just then Creole crashes through this wall and knocks stuff over, and… yeah, it was pretty funny.”
And Samwise, deep into law school, had found a case example written up about his dad in his textbook.

At church that night, the cooling rain came in perfectly as the sun set, swallowed golden, lending a rainbow to the children who caught their quick glimpse in the east before resuming activities.
And the Ryes, back for only a day, were off to Alberta, Canada, for two weeks.
OLeif arrived to pick them up, toting his new phone upgrade. He was very excited about it.
On the way home, Collette cranked up the game on the radio. The Cards were up at seven ‘o five with an amazing first inning. Wild crowd.

Back home, Puck took Collette by the hand…
“Let’s take a trip, Mama,” he said, gently leading her to the bath where OLeif was waiting for their spaceship capsule to lift off to unknown worlds.
“Take off your shoes,” Collette instructed, trying to get the little man ready for bed an hour past his bedtime.
“Don’t take off my shoes,” he replied, “’cause then I can’t bounce around on Jupiter.”
The game was tapering to another win.
OLeif ran up an outline for class.
Good days for St. Louis.