Similar Things
Sometimes dreams are too residual. Last night’s waking someplace before 2AM left me in a world where polar tornadic storms apparently suck you up the basement stairs at your parents’ house, leaving you grabbing at the railing and your son while the rest of the family hangs on. And only a half-inch snow dusting to show for your heroics. Or ratty hill ledges scooped out and labeled as various archeological layers, some of which carry your name, and you wonder how you got there at all, and end up chasing down someone after dance classes in a winter, gray-white small town maybe somewhere between England and Korea…
Shaking that weirdness off, as usual, Puck was already begging to dress his tree. Mom had laced up most of the glass-like [but clearly plastic, thank goodness] shiny, matte, and sparkling red Christmas balls, gold stars, and tiny light houses from Grandma Combs. I finished up the last of them while Puck carefully chained them on the branches under the shiny red star at the top. We set the burlap base on his dresser and decided to add tiny LED lights later. We also decided we should watch Crackers and make sure she didn’t continue gnawing on the crispy branches. So tempting.
I worked on explaining role responsibility and heirarchy within the family. Things were going pretty well, even with some snags…
“So who’s in charge in the family?”
“The dad and mom,” Puck replied beside a bowl of salted and roasted almonds.
“Yes, and who is the most in charge? The mom or the dad?”
“God.”
“Well, yes, He’s in charge of everything. But who’s the most in charge – the mom or the dad?”
“The ruler of this land.”
“What now?”
“The person who owns this land.”
We kept working.
Puck tossed in some jokes in the afternoon…
“How do you get one million hamburgers out of the lake?… By saying, ‘Please get out of the river!’ Ah ha ha ha ha ha!”
Not mention that he was a walking techno party fashion show all day long…
“N-ss, n-ss, n-ss, n-ss…”
The Bear returned from an all-day work meeting with another whopper of a headache to hang out with his best bud for an hour until he cajoled the youngster away from the Happy Hollisters and…
“Into sleepy time’s bed.”
Thought of the Day
Sometimes I’ve pictured the return of Jesus being something like the last scene in Return of the Jedi – this big party in the woods. Absurd, of course. It’s not going to be this woodland vapor of an intergalactic star-plunged landscape, serene and dreamlike. But I still can’t help thinking that sometimes. When I’m sort of feeling like a nerd.