Smile Lines
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
It was another night of fine mist – as thick as winter soup all beyond the fields and hills. The streets were covered white as they had been the night before. And there had been two lovely evenings at home.
Monday afternoon was spent helping Mom and Carrie-Bri purchase groceries, where she found several oddities as usual, including a shelf of tall glass bottles of clam juice, as clear as water. And then another rack where sat two rows of small packed tepees of sugar, hard and maple brown, labeled: “Fiesta”. There was also a fantastically shaped red squash hidden behind several rows of normal green squashes.
At the house, Mom and Carrie prepared an Olive Garden dinner, Joe cuddled the cats, Francis ran around with the dog, Dad was off to get sour cream for Carrie to finish the meal, and Linnea and Rose watched “Peter Pan”. Soon after dinner, Linnea led Collette off to play Clue FX, one little chubby hand in hers, and the other cradling a bread stick from the delicious meal. And before she left with her plump basket of laundry, she followed her out to the lovely white mists.
“Echo, echo!” she cried into the night.
And, “Echo, echo,” it replied right back to her.
Back inside, Mom, Carrie-Bri, and Rose were doing pilates on the giant braided rug in the living room. Dad soon came in to warn Rose about her bedtime.
“It’s past your bedtime, Rose,” he told her. “Don’t make me send you to bed early tomorrow night.”
“I don’t care; I’m going to exercise,” Rose began to joke as her limbs flailed in a most unlady-like fashion all through the air.
“Rose.” Dad looked at her sternly as he stood there in the kitchen in his new slippers, “You’d better go if you know what’s best for you.”
“I see your smile lines, Dad,” Rose urged, laughing aloud.
And that was usually the way it was when it came to urging Dad for a later bedtime, or for some small tidbit. The girls could always get away with it by mentioning his smile lines. Or sometimes there were small bribes involved, which of course, Dad never fell for.
Tuesday afternoon Collette involved herself in teaching graphs once again, reading Shirley Temple’s biography, and discussing CLEPs and Spanish with Carrie-Bri while Carrie busied herself dyeing Collette’s hair a dark cherry brown.
And that very night, Dad was delighted to have his bag of cashews from Grandma Combs while Linnea and Francis served up a lovely meal on benches in the living room (Chinese-style, as Dad mentioned), while Shirley Temple sang on the television, and the sparkling New Year’s cups dazzled at each place-setting.
These were good days.