Storms Cometh

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Monday night, Collette was served the best cheddar Ranch burgers she had ever tasted, due to OLeif’s handiwork in the kitchen. This was followed with several batches of his chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies. Collette did not eagerly anticipate standing on the doctor’s scale Tuesday morning. Maybe she wouldn’t look at the numbers. Sometimes it was just best not to know. Up until 19 or 20 (perhaps longer), she had somehow managed to hang at 99 pounds or less, even when fitting into her wedding dress three years before. Such a number was now only a misty memory. Collette tried to console herself with the idea that at least twenty of these newly added pounds were surely due to the swelling, a most unattractive feature of pregnancy. Her ankles had grown to such a diameter as to make the subject of a Renaissance portrait soundly jealous. Once again, she thought to herself – pride goeth before a fall.

Collette couldn’t recall ever before having seen a more brilliant green in the spring. Lawns everywhere were thick and shockingly green, like carpets. Perhaps Collette only noticed it more this time around because they now had a lawn of their own to take care of, albeit still full of dandelions and mud patches and straw patches.

During the morning – another fine appointment. Dr. Brazil cheerfully told Collette that everything looked good.

“Two weeks left? Oh, we’ve still got time here,” he said.

Upon leaving the hospital an hour later, the sky was suddenly darkened greatly in the west.

“Oooh, storms…” Collette said happily.

They got back into Weldon Spring just as the rain began to come in. OLeif dropped her off at the house. And while Rose was at choir, Mom, Collette, and Linnea took a trip over to Trader Joe’s under dark skies.

Linnea slyly filled up her little cart with goodies, including chocolate brownie cookies, raspberry sorbet, Belgian chocolate seashells (her favorite), macaroni and cheese, a bag of blue corn chips, and a glass bottle of Orangina (which she half-chose because she liked the shape of the bottle). Collette also added a blueberry sparkler and a bag of mandarin orange chicken. Some days were just sweet days. Mom also found a little potted yellow rose to put on the table for Easter Sunday and a recipe for fish tacos which the ladies at Trader Joe’s had been serving as samples several days beforehand. Apparently the customers had gone crazy over them – who would have guessed?

At the check-out, the gal looked at Linnea and said, “You look like you might want a balloon.”

Linnea grinned and nodded.

“What color?” She rattled off all of the choices.

Linnea requested the last option – white.

“White? That’s the second request for white today,” the gal said.

She returned with the helium balloon and fixed it around Linnea’s wrist in an adjustable slip, while she talked to Mom and Collette about the baby and about her own five-month old son.

Then, as Mom was finishing with her credit card at the counter, she slipped off to the flower shelves and returned with a beautiful fresh bouquet of pink and white daisies and little purple flowers. She handed it to Collette.

“Good luck with everything,” she smiled.

Upon returning to the house, Francis and Linnea quickly took the notion into their heads to launch Linnea’s balloon into the air with a metal piece attached. A floating lightening rod. Unfortunately, it did lodge itself in a tree in the backyard as it made its slow ascent. And just as it became entangled, it began to hail suddenly. It ended as soon as it had begun.

Shortly later, Rose was returned from Columns and choir. Changing into her usual duds, there was another long afternoon session of psychology with more ridiculous word pictures, while Rose snacked on a large plate of assorted cookies. Trooper, sadly, took care of her leftovers before he could be stopped. He had also grabbed Linnea’s sandwich at lunch.

Come early evening, Joe and Francis were with Wally, Lolli, Bob B., Starr, and Chester at Pizza Street, Carrie-Bri was meeting with Eve after work to discuss Australia, Rose was off to ceramics class, OLeif was practicing music for a recording session with Jo-Jo for her album, and Linnea was sewing blankets at American Heritage Girls. Collette just hung around until OLeif could pick her up and tried to rest her knees which had been aching all day.

Come later evening, Mom was getting Francis and Linnea ready for bed.

“Hey, Collette, watch!” Joe called her into the living room. “I’m going to bench Linnea.”

Linnea made herself flat and as stiff as a board.

“Steady her, Mom,” Joe instructed, and began to lift her up into the air.

She lasted for a good number of bench-presses and then Joe started to tickle her. Linnea’s piercing giggling screams split the quiet evening atmosphere. And Mom and Joe also started giggling.

“Hey, quiet down in there,” Dad called from the dining room.

He and Carrie were going through some of the trickier aspects of her physics-calculus homework. After one more shrill giggle, Linnea hopped off to bed. And OLeif arrived shortly later.

It was a beautiful day of storms.