Sometimes Things Happen
Sunday, April 29, 2012
“What’s for breakfast?” Puck asked.
“Fried tomato and crushed frog,” OLeif immediately responded.
While Collette prepared apple slices and toast for the young sheriff, Puck tried to reign in questions about the verboten-ness of the library, occasionally removing items he was certain were once citizens of his own spring green room…
“Mama, can you think in your mind if this was once in my room?”
“Why was God not made?” Puck asked, passing the movie theater near the Catholic church.
“Because that would mean someone else would be more powerful than God, and God is the most powerful.”
“Oh… Well, is Goliath taller than God?”
Baby Solomon was baptized in the misty morning.
Invited to a Settlers of Catan party with baked potato buffet…
“I should just warn you,” OLeif had replied. “We just don’t play that game… we’re the worst about that game. So… just so you know…”
Giggles.
Puck trying too hard to play deputy to the sheriff in Sunday School again… typical.
Carrie had a Red Robin lunch salad prepared – grilled chicken, black refried beans, diced tomato, lettuce greens, bed of shredded colby-jack topped with green onion and fried onions, with hand-fixed cheesy bread topped with green onion.
And cold homemade peanut butter pie.
Rose read up the disaster reports from the previous day in the city. High winds, including one casuality in a destroyed giant white tent outside Busch Stadium. The McDonald’s where Puck had got his chocolate birthday shake – destroyed.
“Thirty double-paned windows…” Rose said.
Busted.
“Softball-sized hail,” said Carrie.
“A cow went through 30 panes of glass?” Francis asked.
“Yeah, Francis. Yeah.”
“Or make that 30 cows through one pane of glass,” Mom suggested.
The girls had their own experience at church. When the sirens began revolving at the end of the service, Carrie had checked the skies…
“The sky was all green and it was just pitch dark. No light at all through the stained glass,” Carrie was saying.
Texting Joe for updates. When Joe told them about a possible tornado five minutes north of Forest Park, Carrie informed George, who herded the congregation from the potluck in the basement towards the nuclear fall-out shelter, where communion was held.
“We knew Dad was nervous,” Carrie said later, “because he sent three text messages. He never sends text messages.”
“Yeah, he sent them to me,” said Rose.
“He didn’t text me,” Carrie said, disapprovingly.
“It was the worst potluck ever, by the way,” Carrie added, still at the table.
“Oh, yeah,” said Rose.
“Everyone brought the exact same pasta dish.”
“What kind?”
“Pasta surprise,” Rose replied.
“Yeah. Mac ‘n cheese mixed with sliced hot dogs and chili. Disgusting.”
“And George made vegan meatballs,” Rose added. “Blech.”
“I just kind of covered my plate with my napkin before I threw it away,” said Carrie.
“I didn’t,” Rose said proudly. “I just dumped it!”
And Mom explained the possibility of Amelia Earhart, as alternative ending – safe landing in Philippines, POW in Japan, traded to U.S. as unlisted POW, buried in a remote log cabin gravesite. Something about detached earlobes…
“Whatever those are,” said Mom.
“Like what OLeif has,” Collette nodded towards him.
“OLeif is Amelia Earhart!”
“Aged well, didn’t I?” he asked.
Puck made toothpick patterns on the floor to start the afternoon.
Francis was falling asleep on the loveseat, in front of his laptop.
Puck was on the hunt after Earnest…
“I think I saw a black figure!” he declared anxiously.
Grumbling skies.
“Oh,” said Carrie, snuggling Ketseh. “My hair still smells like smoke. When I opened the barbecue, a big old fire ball flew up in the air at my face.”
More severity was in the atmosphere for the afternoon.
“Francis, we need to bury my cat now,” said Rose.
– She looked out into the backyard. –
“I know which tombstone I’m going to use for it. This old rock I found in a riverbed a long time ago.”
Poor creature.
Francis dug the hole and Rose laid the stone.
Collette caught OLeif and Puck on the last quarter of their walk while the boys played some rounds with the badminton in the rained green grass.
And Francis and Linnea, the stylish little volleyballer, left for Steak ‘n Shake with the youth group, but not before the hawks got a good-natured piece…
“Linnea, you can’t wear that. You look like an octopus.”
“You look like a floozie.”
“I’m ready to dye my hair dark,” said Carrie. “Really dark.”
“You can’t,” said Rose. “Because I’m going to.”
“You stole my idea,” Linnea protested.
“Well, you can’t dye you hair,” Rose informed her.
“Sure I could. I could dye it at a friend’s house.”
“And then Dad would shave your head.”
“Yeah, just like his head,” Carrie added.
“Then I’d wear hats.”
“Yeah, but then your ears would stick out.”
“You’ve been practicing your angry face, Linnea, haven’t you?”
Linnea had trouble hiding the smiles.
Children’s Concert – always a yawning possibility of a laughing disaster. Theodore and Gloria joined the ten in the sanctuary at 6:30.
Trees were the subject of the sing.
And Puck did pretty amazingly well, props included.
Henri debuted as a rapping wood cutter.
And cookies.