Snowmen, Confetti, & Broken Faucet Handles
Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Tuesday night provided some sort of tortilla Mexican soup with sour cream and blue corn chips, which was quite delicious, at the Silverspoon’s. OLeif and Collette had just come from Trader Joe’s and came bearing gifts: a pound of milk chocolate, double-creamy Brie and crackers, and a bunch of bright red-orange tulips for Denae, whom also set out a bag of walnuts to go along with the chocolate. And OLeif and Theodore talked over views of charismatic doctrine while Wally wrapped a gold wire around itself and attempted to saw through a piece of the chocolate with the coil. Later, Denae and Collette left to drop off a friend of Isaac’s who had been working on the robot and they discussed various things. Upon arriving back at the house, there were two episodes of the Twilight Zone for Denae and Collette with blankets under which to snuggle, while OLeif put together Curly’s new computer.
Collette awoke that Wednesday morning to news of church fires in Alabama, set by unknown causes, and of a certain gentleman who had just left the Kennedy Space Center to fly around the world non-stop and then across the Atlantic to London before landing. Collette wondered how he managed to keep himself awake on such a journey, particularly when he was flying with the rotation of the earth which made the journey all the longer. And once again, another anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts – year 96.
And lo and behold to Collette’s utter delight, as she pulled aside the living room blinds that morning:
“Oh, OLeif! Ho, ho! Look outside!”
A veritable fairyland of feathery sugar dust against a gray-blue sky. Beautiful.
Collette headed out early to start the car as usual, which was fully covered in white fluff. She didn’t remove the snow, as it kept insulation. Instead, she looked through the holes between the snowflakes and watched the other side of the street. There was the small shopping plaza, whose stores of which she never could remember, as she sat there in the car burrowed like a bunny under the snow. There they were, lined up one after another, equally spaced and equally cut signs: Insurance, Nails, St. Louis Pizza & Wings, Salon Stage, Granny’s Donut Shop, and Cleaners. A red Coca Cola truck pulled slowly onto the quiet street as she went down the line.
At the dentist to have her dressing changed for a second time, the office was just as quiet, the whole building, except for the whistles of the Andy Griffith show beginning to air in the background. Collette walked over to the window to watch the quiet white world while OLeif began to play with his latest toy from work. It was a beautiful and silent world, the snow falling from three stories. And inside, there sat an Eiffel Tower lamp on the chest to her left and a potted silk ivy. On the registration clipboard on the front desk, was a name before hers and someone else’s which had already been highlighted out. And yet there was silence from the back rooms. The same thing had had happened on Monday. She rather wondered if the nurses didn’t write a random name and time on the sheet and highlight it out before anyone arrived, so that it appeared to the patients when signing in, that the ball was already rolling and they would not become impatient, despite the quiet and the absence of both surgeons. For Collette saw them both walk in several minutes later in their overcoats. Soon, though, she was called to one of the rooms and the procedure was done yet again. However, when rinsing her mouth with a cup of mouthwash, she commenced to turn off the faucet. When the water did not completely shut off, she pushed the handle further back. It was too far, apparently, for the whole handle snapped off. The metal must have become brittle over the years although she couldn’t quite tell how it could have cracked off so easily.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she told the nurse who was laughing.
“Wait till I tell your mama on you!” she chuckled, a friendly Hispanic woman who apparently thought Collette was much younger than she actually was, “pretty strong there.”
“Yeah, what a way to start the day,” Collette guiltily set the handle back on the counter.
“Don’t worry. It only cost five hundred dollars,” the nurse joked. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Better you than me.”
On the way back, OLeif and Collette passed a forest grove set behind a small field, with the snow still falling. It reminded her of the old New England poets.
Back at the house, Collette was greeted by Frances and Linnea escorting her back to the closed door of Rose’s room.
“They’re studying,” Linnea giggled a toothless front.
Collette somehow got the feeling, however, that they were not studying.
“Don’t come in yet,” Rose screeched from behind the closed door.
Collette waited, her back to the door. And suddenly the door was thrown aside with shouts of surprise and handfuls of homemade construction paper confetti were thrust towards her while the Mashed Potatoes song blasted from Rose’s CD player.
“Thank you!” they both chorused loudly.
“Look!” Joe pointed to a sign which read “thank you,” hanging from the top bunk.
And they both continued to catapult handfuls of confetti through the air, which had now caught fast in Collette’s hair.
“Thanks, guys,” Collette laughed, removing the confetti pieces.
Sometimes all those hours of tutoring and frustration, paid off. She looked at the now-telescopic floor of color.
“We tore it up ourselves,” Rose said proudly.
“I can tell,” Collette said, figuring that about thirty sheets must have been used.
“Frances helped with the little pieces,” Rose added as the boys continued to scoop up piles from the carpet and throw them up in the air.
Rose was dressed equally colorfully in an old pair of Collette’s mint green plaid pajama pants, Carrie’s bright orange running shorts over that, and an old cherry red shirt of Collette’s. Her hair was pulled up under a black U.S. Army Veteran cap, and she wore her scholarly glasses.
“Mashed Potatoes rocked the house!” Joe exclaimed as they exited the room on their way to breakfast.
As Collette tutored later, reading a lecture to them both, Rose doodled pictures of “evil doctor peanuthead.” And during the afternoon, Linnea quizzed Collette on how well she remembered Latin words from grade school, after she had come inside with a full salad bowl of snow to save in the deep freeze for the summer. Meanwhile, Frances was busy constructing 2/3 of a snowman, which somehow, during the day, managed to lose its middle half. He was seen later doing some type up war dance on top of the lower third around the dinner hour.
Later, Rose and Carrie worked in the gym downstairs while Joe expressed his first interest in learning the bass guitar. And Rose’s room still looked as though she had thrown a fiesta and forgotten to clean up.
“when my steps were washed with
butter,
and the rock poured out for me
streams of oil!”
– Job 29:6