Spoiled Day #4
Monday, November 14, 2011
In which another day of relatively minor responsibilities ensues…
At breakfast, gray November had brought the sun and temperatures already in the low 70’s.
Puck was busy thinking…
“Mama, when I have bad thoughts, that’s not the devil makin’ those bad thoughts. It’s not his fault. It’s just me thinkin’ bad things…”
“What kinds of bad thoughts?”
“Like a tree dies…”
Not long after, Puck called from the other room…
“It seems to me I have a cold!”
He didn’t.
OLeif was gone for several hours to obtain his motorcycle license and a block of raw cheese. Or the attempt at it; apparently Dierberg’s no longer carried unpasteurized dairy products…
So Collette and Puck played ‘Tardis’ outside in the wild, mild winds.
And a live eleven o’clock press conference with Mike Matheny. Four of his kids attended Westminster Christian Academy. And when asked about having lived in St. Louis for some time, he had this to say…
“You marry St. Louis girls and they don’t give you much of an option.”
Collette liked him already.
During lunch, Puck handed Collette a book from across the table…
“You’ve got to read to me, Mama. It’s sensitive.”
Collette wasn’t sure, but he might have mean ‘imperative’…
The afternoon grayed over again, and the winds were still high. The sun was still there, but had the strange, perpetual feeling of being underwater.
Four hours after initial departure, while Collette was busy speaking with their next-door neighbor about her 95 year-old mother who still lived on her own, and her grandmother who had passed at 99¾ because she decided it was time to kick the bucket… OLeif returned.
Meanwhile, it was Gloria’s birthday, so OLeif sent out a happy wishes call while Puck climbed the jungle gyms of the park with three small girls surrounded by rings of woods resemblant of The Village. The boys also took advantage of the trails for Puck to bike around with a batter’s helmet on his head for good measure. He returned to watch the dad of two of the girls fly a kite in the parking lot.
“That was a great flight!” Puck congratulated him as he pedaled past.
The man laughed, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome!”
As they left the park, Puck (who had insisted on being called Doctor Who all afternoon) reminded OLeif to lock the car doors.
“Thanks, Doctor Who.”
“Sure pleasure, Dad.”
Groceries were to follow, including a package of goldfish crackers, goldfish space crackers, including: red planets, purple spaceships, and yellow stars.
And Joe was IM-ing something about a cruise for himself, Tor, and Wally. Collette had never even heard of any group of boys in the history of boy-dom somehow still managing to do the things that they did together, like a pack of twelve year-olds.
Grass-fed burgers for dinner, courtesy of Gloria from Saturday, another space-age pillow of popcorn, a package of red-frosting-filled Oreos, and Wall-E to end the four day weekend.
And in a day that had been initially created for thunderstorms, not a drop of rain fell.