Storm Season

A patch of storms raced through that morning after church. Puck watched the rain splash down in awe while Joe and the girls kept an eye on the weather news filled with very excited weathermen, trying to dampen their enthusiasm for the rotation of the storms as they discussed back and forth, the possibility of tornadoes. Then it hit, barreled through, bringing surging winds. Always exciting. But then quickly followed by sun and singing birds. It was always inevitable.
After the disappointed of the brief storm had passed, everyone else returned from church in a much cooler later morning, just in time for Carrie to split to tribal fusion.
“Creole and me were just laughing,” Francis had said around the lunch table, with his hopeless case of poor grammar. “’Cause Jimmy was still going on with the lesson and there’s this huge wind outside, and we’re thinking he should end it ’cause the rain was coming. And then we ran all the way back to church and then it hit big just as the ninth graders were coming out of the office. They got hit with all the rain! It was great!”
Collette spent most of her afternoon continuing to transcribe Mom’s European journal, while the kids ran around outside with OLeif and his camera.
There was a later gathering of the Snicketts women, OLeif, and Puck, around the golden dining room table where half of them were designing logos for the PCA. Rose was munching her way through a bag of pretzels, sharing them with the ever-hungry Puck. And Mom had her eye on a homemade biscotti.
“Don’t you dare, Mom,” Carrie warned, still Mom’s diet and meal coach. “Not one bite.”
Then Carrie was distracted with Rose threatening to stab someone with a pretzel stick. Mom made her move, and the entire biscotti was devoured.
“Mom!” Carrie cried. “That’s it. You just forfeited your dinner. All of it.”
“Well, I couldn’t help it,” Mom laughed. “It was sitting right there in front of me.”
“Your mom deserves it,” Dad would say. “She’s been doing very well with her diet.”
And so there was Culver’s custard in the evening, Mom included, Dad’s treat, while Puck happily bounced up and down in the corner booth cushion next to his Lila. Collette had her custard with Twix bar topping.
In other news, Jimmy Saint was sadly stepping down as youth leader to see to his medical condition. He had been a faithful youth leader, and they could only hope that, in time, he would fully recover and return to his position.