The Charm of Spring Storms

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Collette had just realized that Joe only had three choir days left in his career. So did Magnus and Wallace. It was another “end of the road”, another milestone, another “end of an era”. It had already been four years since Collette had been in the same place herself. Sometimes it felt longer. Choir had always managed to produce things of legend, growing up over the years. And arriving at its end had somehow felt like a second high school graduation entirely.

In other amazing news of the day, Collette had just realized that OLeif’s eyes were more green than brown.

It was a day for toting around Puck. Mom and Linnea picked up the both of them later in the morning, and they took off to shop for various gifts for upcoming weddings and showers. They were also treated to lunch at Lion’s Choice by Mom, where Linnea ordered her traditional chocolate shake.

“It’s the best I’ve ever had,” she said, very satisfied with the results.

And for picky Linnea, that was saying a lot.

So they went through Target and Trader Joe’s for the rest of the afternoon. Linnea found a plant-your-own-chives in a miniature terracotta pot, Collette found a mustard yellow top and a mat for inside the front door, dyed in brightly colored stripes made of a straw-like material (which OLeif said hurt his feet), and there were treats such as strawberries, key lime pie, a pound bar of milk chocolate, etc.

Come late afternoon upon return from the Valley, the storm clouds had drifted in across the river. It wasn’t much later that Collette looked out the window at the house and saw a mass of deep blue-gray in the south. She sat on the front porch with Puck and Linnea and they watched the lightening come in. The thunder didn’t seem to bother Puck very much; he managed to jump only once during a particularly loud crash. But he was more intent on his afternoon snooze than on anything else.

Later the hail and the high winds came a little further out west, from where Carrie had just come, returning from work.

Meanwhile, Joe, Rose, Francis, and Chester returned from choir and another eat-out (this time at Moe’s). Rose immediately went off to see to her amphibian friends. Her newly captured lizard was squirming around on a bed of white rocks in the old fish tank with a number of fat toads. He seemed greatly anxious for escape, his rosy head bobbing toward the glass as he slithered madly from one side of the tank to the other. In fact, he had momentarily been lost that evening and was then re-recovered and slipped back in with his plump tank mates. But Rose had little time to bother with her fine pals and was soon off to Ceramics on a very wet night as Mom and Linnea left for American Heritage Girls.

OLeif arrived much later to pick up Collette and Puck from the house, having been involved in a serious conversation with a coworker. On the way home, he drove them through Quail Ridge Park to show Collette for the first time. There were various wide-open green fields and old trees that reminded Collette of visiting Cade’s Cove in Tennessee. It was a beautiful park.

Finally returning home that evening, the air was a cool blue, the lawns were green, and the rain was still falling softly. It was one of those particularly good spring evenings finishing a dreamy sort of day.