Rose's 19th

Friday, June 26, 2009

Rose, good old Rose, was 19 that day.
To celebrate, she went to work.

Meanwhile, everyone had returned from Florida.
They had brought back two books about weather for Puck, which he enjoyed. Especially the picture of the fire truck driving through a flooded street.
“Fire truck take a bath!” he said happily.

And Linnea had won a beautiful peacock pearl worth about $120, which she had made into a necklace.
She had also spent a lot of time swimming.
“She’s a regular fish!” said Mom.

Mom had done some shopping in the little ‘piratey stores’ and picked up a glass and silver lantern.
Carrie had taken a few snapshots of the big, blue bridge that had once, a long time ago, been featured in a Reading Rainbow episode.
She showed the film role of the trip to Collette on the computer, which consisted almost entirely of — surprise, surprise — telephone poles.
“Carrie, you didn’t get a single picture of you guys!” Collette laughed at her.
“I know. Mom wasn’t so happy about that…” Carrie grinned. “But I got some good telephone poles. A few new designs I liked.”
More photos to add to her expanding collection of various ‘Carrie things’, also including: the Egyptian white desert, ghost trees and red sand dunes of Nambia, ‘perfect’ green hills, HAARP, space cities, MUSE, Dr. Who, The Vines, Top Gear, nebulae, space ships, Salvador Dali, white couches, etc.

They had also seen a wedding take place on the beach in the evening, with tropical flowers, starfish, and a huge rainstorm that came in shortly after the wedding party had departed.

Back on the ranch for the morning, Collette and Puck joined Mom and Carrie-Bri on errands.
First, to drop off the kids at Vacation Bible School, where, on the way, Carrie handed the Puck a little cherry tomato, which promptly exploded all over him when he bit into it.

Then, to find a mirror with glass etching materials and decorative wood pieces for the white shelves which Mom was going to hang behind the wood burning stove. One of which, Curly had made.
While at Michael’s, Puck hurried around, looking at all the bright and shiny and fuzzy things, including a metallic helium-filled balloon, which Carrie got for him and clipped to his pocket. He walked around the entire time, tossing it up in the air with a big smile on his face.
Upon returning to the car, Carrie squirted some hand sanitizer on Puck’s hands, which also ran onto his shorts.

Then to the grocery store.
Carrie found a large bouncing ball — clear and filled with swirling sparkles in water, of which there were green, blue, pink, gold, and silver.
Puck got the blue one and kept tossing it out of the cart, where he was smashed in the back trying to open the butter, crackers, cheeses, etc.
When they arrived at the check-out, he carefully instructed the checker lady not to ‘throw it’. She laughed at this.

When they returned, Carrie immediately began to make large chocolate-covered strawberries for Grewe’s mom, who was recovering from surgery. She dipped all of them in milk chocolate, lacing some with white chocolate, mini chocolate chips. and crushed white chocolate.
When Puck received his sample of the chocolate, or: ‘choh-qwet’, he dribbled enough on his shorts to add to the ensemble of tomato and sanitizer.

And Carrie pondered the pros and cons of her several unique job offers.
“Why can’t I just be an astronomer in Australia?” she asked.

That evening, Collette joined the family.
First, for Linnea’s performance with the other children at church for the VBS closing ceremonies.
And second, for Rose’s principal birthday celebration at the house which included Cecil Whittaker’s pizza and root beer floats, which was served after she opened her gifts, including:

the first season of Midsomer Murders
a silver cat ring (from OLeif, Collette, and Puck)
a Chinese version of Charlie Chaplin DVDs
Charlie Chaplin stuffed doll
three framed Charlie Chaplin prints
a pair of teardrop blue glass earrings

“Those things were melted by Tibetans with giant magnifying glasses, or something like that,” said Carrie.
And…

a box that looked like a book

“Rose was poking her presents this week,” said Collette, “and said, ‘I think this one is a false book.’”
“How does she do that?” Carrie asked, as Joe also looked on in wonderment.
“This is the best birthday ever!” said Rose happily. “Come here, Snuggles, my best friend.”
The cat protested a little, but eventually cooperated because it was Rose’s birthday.
“See if Buddha’s back, Joe,” Rose commanded. “He always comes back on my birthday. But Dad saw a smashed toad outside, so I think he might be dead.”
Unfortunately, Buddha was not back.

And then they turned on Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush, with everyone gathered in the living room.
“I always want to eat a shoe after watching this,” said Francis.