That's How it Goes
Dad walked through the front door of the Big House mid-Friday afternoon. He and Mom had spent the morning at the Symphony together before he dropped her off at Grandma’s for the weekend.
“So how was it?” Carrie-Bri asked him.
We had recently wrapped up podcast Episode 34 and I was leaving soon to get Puck from school.
“It was nice,” Dad replied. “We listened to Balero, and there was a nice standing ovation for that. Then they had a tuba solo. But he didn’t get a standing ovation.”
“Why?”
“Well, I think he probably recognized that people just aren’t as impressed with tubas.”
“Nice, Dad. And now he goes home to his crumby little apartment all alone, lonely and sad.”
Dad thought that was kind of funny.
Back home, Puck tore around the neighborhood with the sisters from down the street. This provided me the opportunity to get working on those visa applications. About a quarter of the way through, I realized it wasn’t happening. Too much lack of information, not to mention the tedious wading through options en español; let’s just say I’m not fluent yet.
Ten minutes was all Puck required to stuff down three pancakes with genuine maple syrup for dinner before ploughing back through the front door to join the girls for more shenanigans.
That’s when I heard the garden hose turn on and the duck sprinkler start spinning. A stream of water shot through the window screen, coating stacks of books on the coffee table. C’est la vie.
Eventually, Rose walked in with a Cane’s chicken strips boxed dinner. Then Carrie-Bri, Francis, and Linnea-Irish after Puck was tucked in, joining us late for the game. Finally, Oxbear with stacks of sweets, just in time to address a work emergency upstairs. While he was busy fixing things, Francis ate almost the entire bag of Pirate Booty before Carrie stopped him just in time.
Anyway, it was one of those kinds of games that ended up turning some of us almost slap happy. Sometimes I think the lack of offense in a game is capable of pushing it out of people.
But after a tidy Big City style walk-off in the 10th, I got to sleep by 11. I think.