Spring

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Ash Wednesday.

It was a beautiful day. Inside, Mom worked with Francis and Linnea on their studies, Linnea figuring all problems and writing all papers with her eternal pirate pencil. She had a whole cup of pirate pencils waiting to be used behind the love seat in the living room – her private little world that Mom had allowed her to set up awhile ago.

Linnea’s experience at the Pasta House had also gone well. She had ordered her macaroni and cheese and had a small bowl of ice cream for dessert. She had finished all but about five shells of the macaroni and had taken them home in a small Styrofoam box, with a little bit of her leftover bread. She would also be given her grade later, perhaps at the next American Heritage Girls’ meeting.

Meanwhile, Collette worked with Rose around class and Subway. During the quieter moments, Collette read on existentialism and Finney, including one of his sermons pertaining to the sinfulness of fashion, back in the day.

“This is ridiculous,” Rose complained, coming back from Subway later in the afternoon. “It’s not worth it to only come in two hours at a time. I’m not making any money this way.”

She had been grumpy all day because she wasn’t making enough money to pay off Egypt, back to Dad. But once she had changed out of her work clothes, she calmed down a bit, and proceeded to open every single window in the house, including the garage windows.

“It’s too nice outside,” she said more cheerfully. “Let’s hurry up and finish so I can go outside and take pictures of things.”

And they did finish in time for the sun to still be out for an hour and a half or so. The cats were also scratching and mewing at all of the doors, to get out into the spring breezes and sunshine. They had to be watched. Snuggles in particular was crazy for some spring-time freedom that afternoon.

“No, Snuggles,” Mom told him while sweeping the kitchen floor. “I have to remind you every spring that you’re an inside cat.”

Collette left shortly later to return home and get OLeif from work. After he scarfed down his dinner, they returned to the house where OLeif and Joe headed towards The Sheldon, where they would meet up with Wallace, Curly, and Izzy. And Collette went with Dad, Mom, Francis, and Linnea to the Ash Wednesday service at church.

OLeif returned late that night, singing to his iPod. Collette had left Travels in Europe with Rick Steves (from Mom’s and Dad’s DVD collection), playing on the television, although she had already fallen asleep to the sights and sounds of Etruscan Italy.

The rest of her night was filled with dreams of charioteers, forests and woods, great fighting birds, and journeys.