Someone's Second Anniversary
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Iwo and Strawberry’s second anniversary – hard enough to believe. Collette was certain that their wedding would be the only wedding she would ever attend on a Monday. And who could have guessed that that particular Monday in late May would have been practically the hottest day of the year. And only on Sunday’s dress rehearsal, where OLeif played violin in the parade, did the clouds threaten rain and a cool breeze blew over the wedding party. Collette still wondered if Iwo and Strawberry planned to attend the L’Abri in London soon, as an extended honeymoon, or if they had decided to gloss over it and travel later in life.
And somehow, Rose had managed to convince Collette to take the Hurling Whale to hang on the bathroom wall at the apartment. Perhaps it wasn’t that Rose had convinced Collette, but that she had pushed it into her hands at least four times before she left on Tuesday, as Collette had already forgotten to bring it back with her, several times.
Carrie and Clover had spent the night before taking psychedelic pictures, using Joe’s room for a backdrop and root beer bottles, with his sub woofers, woofing, and a viewing of Bride and Prejudice after Carrie and Elizabeth had taken a trip through the mall, collecting jackpots of watermelon-shaped gumballs (Kosher gum as they called it) from the gumball machine.
“We put in so many quarters, that the cell phone guys were looking over at us weird. And whenever we put in a bunch of quarters at once, we’d sometimes get an extra one. So Elizabeth’s like, ‘Bonus! Bonus! Bonus one!’ I was so embarrassed, I wore my sunglasses.”
And after the academics of the day, Mom returned with the kids temporarily for Frances’ and Linnea’s end-of-the-year Kids Choir Connection party and to make gifts of soup-in-a-jar and cake-in-a-jar for Isabella Swiss, Rosemary Popples, and Starr. Relevance and Kitts dropped by just before Collette left for the day, to check out the tree house. And then Carrie and Kitts took off for the afternoon after Carrie had speed-packed for the next morning, to leave at 6:30 after completing her last assignment.
The day had suddenly become warm, as May sometimes unpredictably did. And as four o’clock came around, Collette looked out the window to see a fantastic storm coming in from the west. And after some good tomato soup with basil and grilled sandwiches, Collette talked some more with Diana on IM, who was still in classes at 8:00.