September 10
Friday, September 10, 2010
Collette and Puck made an early arrival at the house that morning. 6:30, and all was quiet on the Western front, though everyone, but Linnea-Irish and Joe, was awake.
“Good morning my little pumpkin!” Mom greeted Puck. “You just make yourself at home.”
Puck looked at her seriously, and replied, “But, Grandma, I can’t go home! I just got here!”
An hour later, Puck was busy making his rounds, including checking out the battery-powered lightbulb with drawstring that Mom had affixed to the wall in the old coat closet, which was now, at Dad’s suggestion, Puck’s new play world.
Then Puck marched into Carrie’s room and handed Collette a book for them to read.
“Hey, Puck,” Carrie called to him. “Want to earn twenty-five cents?”
“Hmm mmm,” Puck replied nodding his head.
“Why does Sun want to give you twenty-five cents?” Collette asked him, to see if he knew.
Puck thought for one moment before he answered, “For my own glory.”
And as it turned out, the twenty-five cents was in exchange for cuddling with Carrie.
But then Puck was busy stuffing a brownie and candy cane into his puffy cheeks, both of which sort of escaped Collette in the preparations of the morning.
Later, while she worked with Francis on his algebra, she could hear Linnea-Irish singing Jesus Loves Me with Puck in the living room.
“Can you sing that?” Linnea asked Puck.
“I doubt it,” Puck replied.
There was laugher from the living room where Carrie was busy editing her Arabic students’ grammar on the couch.
“I was teaching him American idioms,” she said. “And I just explained to him, ‘You’re a sharp cookie’. So he wrote back, ‘Yay! You sharpening cookies very well too!’”
During lunch of Carrie’s lasagna and enchiladas, not to mention the cookie dough truffles, Linnea watched some Tales from Avonlea, in which an old sailor man lighthouse keeper was drawling on in his Northerly brogue. After a particular of his exclamations: “What stinky wind blew ye in here?”, Carrie teased Francis, “Hey, I should say that to you too, whenever you come into the room.”
Meanwhile, Puck had a nap. Lately it was a good toss-up as to whether or not he would fall asleep, especially if he hadn’t experienced the Carrie treatment, involving cuddling into a blanket, wind chime soundtracks, and David Tennant bedtime stories.
And while he napped, Collette rode with Francis down the street to the neighbor’s house, where he had a load of old equipment to pass on to the Boy Scouts. Then the van died, and it took two attempts with two different mini vans to jump it. It finally worked. Fifteen passenger vehicles that had carried hundreds of youth and Scouts and family on vacations over fourteen years, did not stand up well after such abuse.
And the afternoon was still cool and gray and misted.
It was movie night at church. Puck came early to the barn basement, their own personal movie theater, which worked very well as such, where he watched two Donald Duck features before OLeif took him home. Then at seven, the small crowd came for their own Donald Duck, followed by popcorn and soda over Meet Me in St. Louis. It was just half the family, with Grandma Combs (who had also brought pretzel-stuffed M’nMs), and the two Rum ladies. But they enjoyed it, had some good laughs, and the evening was a nice one.
Afterwards, Rose dropped off Collette as they discussed archaeological sites and Marco Polo’s travels.
Meanwhile, Grandma Snicketts was still in the hospital as the doctors discussed the possibility of surgery, screws, bolts, and cement mixtures… but at least the pain had receded. And Grandma kept the lights to a minimum in her room so as not to ‘run up the hospital’s electric bill’.
And Collette’s right knee was acting up again, as usual after the rains. Or before.