The Calm Before
It was the day Puck had been waiting for the whole week – aside from his new little buddy coming to visit on Friday – which, in Puck terms, might as well be “one hundred fifty thousand years”. He was going to The City Museum. For the first time ever, and with a friend from church. It was a double man date, actually, because both dads would be coming to supervise. Hopefully. I instructed Puck to stock up on two glasses of cold water before departure.
“You’re going to sweat it all out later anyway,” I explained to him in the very popular language of “Boy”.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I will just drink at the drinking fountains.”
“No, I don’t want you to do that.”
Germs. Christmas. Germs. Christmas…
Puck’s eyes grew wide.
“But Mom! My kidneys will be yelling for water!”
I reminded him of the concept of a water bottle.
Puck later joined me on the couch with the bottom piece of a flat mop. He began to tape the image of an arrow to the underside. He offered his own explanation as he poured on the scotch tape…
“This is how many miles Joseph and Mary had to travel…”
“O, yeah?”
“Yeah… to get to the baby Jesus manger.”
9:45 and my boys were on the road to jungles of fancy and whimsy. I, on the other hand, was expecting a little quiet. For a few unnatural hours back home to work things over before the following week. I first organized the bag of birthday loot that Puck had managed to disembowel earlier in the morning, thinking that he would “help”. A red flannel pocket shawl, three-pack of tiny composition notebooks, a pair of my favorite Pilot G-2 07, cardinal bird party lights, and a set of deviled egg boxes for all those holiday gatherings, all from Grandma Combs. A set of World Market Ikat window panels for the kitchen, with marbleized rod, a Byzantine-Mongolian-equestrian throw pillow for the couch, and a jumbo bottle of POM pomegranate juice from the family. It takes 30 pomegranates to fill that thing, apparently, which by my calculations would cost a cool $75 if I wanted to recreate the drink myself. On a good day. So. I raked it.
Down to business, first on my checklist – hanging the curtains. Unfortunately, my sidekick was Crackers. Everything was going pretty ok, except for some studs here and there, until I finally got the panels on the rods. Then she went nuts.
Attack.
Claws flying everywhere, runs in the once-smooth cloth. I lunged for her.
“No, Crackers!”
She looked at me, eyes wild with hanging fabric frenzy. I set her down.
“Don’t do it again.”
When I turned around once more she was sitting right by the curtain, staring me down with big yellow eyes. She lifted one paw carefully into the air, still staring at me.
“Don’t. You. Dare.”
Swipe.
“No, Crackers!”
She disappeared down the stairs as I slammed the door quickly behind her. Just to make a point. She didn’t try it again.
Dishes, genealogy while checking out a sermon from Bel Air “Celebrity” Presbyterian Church [sometimes it’s interesting to see what sort of spiritual guidance Sean Astin and Leonardo DiCaprio receive on Sunday mornings..], spinach salad, egg salad for lunch, 154 M&M buttons for Monday, hunting up the old cans of wall paint to fix bashes and chips on the walls – which I applied with Puck’s sidewalk chalk paint brush [desperate times…], called Nagle’s to check their hours for New Year’s Eve [“Yup,” said the older man on the line, “we’re open 9 to 5 that day… Thanks, honey.”] prepping 2013 finances/home maintenance, and it was already three o’clock.
Puck called me up on the ride back home to announce the wild and wonderful time he had experienced in strange and beautiful lands. He was also very interested in updating me on their lunch at the Baby Elephant Cafe next to the mini circus…
“I had a quesadilla, Mom! It had chicken! in it!”
And so with Puck happily established at Theodore’s and Gloria’s for the evening, The Bear and I could enjoy the Outback gift card from Martha and almost three hours – which I’m not even sure I could handle anymore – of “The Hobbit”. To conclude my birthday festivities.
The manager at Outback greeted us at our table…
“Good to see you both. Again. Like the beard, man.”
I guess he might have a recognizable beard… I’m used to it now, so it’s difficult to say…
I liked “The Hobbit”. I had enjoyed reading it more than the trilogy anyway. Plus all those ridiculously elaborate labyrinth worlds are always intriguing. Mix in one of the actors from BallyK, a pinch of Snow White, and a dash of Indiana Jones, and the recipe was about right. Plus a small box of Chewy Runts, Chewy Sprees, and regular Runts.
We fell asleep at a decent hour, fully unaware of the flu about to descend upon us for the first time in 3.83 years…