Some Days

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Another two hours at the breakfast table for Puck. He was also about an hour or more short on sleep, and still had the last part of his cough/cold, which didn’t help. The little man was teary-bleary-eyed. Collette gave him a glass of water…
“Here. Replenish your tears.”
“It’s ok, Mama. My tears have already left.”
Some days…

Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia were back in town. They had Christmased on the beaches of Florida, and were ready to reunite happily with Puck. There was the occasional call-out from Collette to make sure everything was alright…
“Boys. Don’t take the bed apart.”
“Ask before you unravel the lights.”
Or…
“Luke,” said Puck seriously. “You better watch out. That’s a gorilla puzzle. And gorilla’s tear you up if you get in their way.”
“It’s just a puzzle…”
“Yeah, but you’d better be careful. ‘Cause in your dreams… They might come right out of your dreams and attack you.”
“If you see a gorilla sleeping on a rock, get off of it immediately, before it wakes up.”
“And bears can always catch you.”
“So you’d better watch out for the gorilla,” Leia said quietly to herself, having been amply forewarned.
And when the afternoon had come to a close, and Luke and Leia were returned to the white mini van in one piece, and two ads from the St. Louis Symphony were all that arrived in the mail, Collette was substantially tired.
Some days…

As the early part of the evening arrived, Puck amused himself with a fat book of penciled illustrations: The Invention of Hugo Cabret over the conclusion of his bowl of salted plantain chips and some Scottish Moors on Lifescapes. Collette took over reading the novel to him until he spilled a cup of Vitamin D milk all over the red couch…
“You don’t like it when I spill milk,” said Puck later. “You get as frustrated as a storm cloud.”
Some days…

Dinner came with the realization that Collette had consumed only about 360 calories… Scrambled eggs, salted, seemed to be the answer to this substantial deficit. Puck perused his plate with some skepticism, as usual…
“Those are air-infused scrambled eggs, my friend,” Collette explained.
“Ohhhhh… Delicious!”
Some time elapsed…
“Mama? Could I have a ‘puter ring?”
“What’s that?”
“It tells if you are happy or sad.”
“A mood ring?”
“Yes. I want one of those.”
The evenings were always a little purple and fawn after five.

OLeif was out with his buddies again after a few weeks’ break. So Collette read up to Chapter 8 to Puck in Hugo Cabret. And completed further projects into the evening. There was really never enough time in the day to accomplish what needed finishing. O, domestic life. And her throat was a little hoarse from the end of her already two-week cold compounded with all the reading loud.
Some days…