The Elephant Ear Plant
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
It was another warm one, though not quite as toasty. It started off with a magnificent sunrise – great puffs of blue and gray over a startling orange burst in the east. And little purple flowers were growing in the front yard; the crocuses had finished blooming.
Back on the ranch, there were the usual comings and goings – Carrie-Bri went to work for an eight-hour shift, Dad (working around his own research of the day) brought Rose to work for several hours late in the morning, Dad also brought Trooper to Petco for an early summer shave (seeing as the fleas were making him miserable again), Mom and Collette picked up Rose from work (who came out wearing a shiny blue tie – Columns had recently decided to jazz up their uniforms) and dropped her off at choir, Joe took off for choir, Dad picked up Trooper from Petco and dropped off Francis at choir and picked up Rose at the same time, Joe brought himself and Francis back from choir… it was sometimes like Grand Central at the house. OLeif was busy as well, already having made plans for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening.
Outside smelled like a garden that day, at least in the early morning. It was still too warm to do much about opening the windows as Mom generally preferred in the spring.
In other news, Linnea’s neck was healing. And instead, she had contracted a cough and was being forced to swallow medicine throughout the day. After several doses, she insisted that she felt fine, although Mom knew better.
Joe was studying for the ACT. Having registered rather late for a test in May, he found to his chagrin, upon receiving his admittance ticket, that he would be obliged to take a forty minute drive north to the only place that had not been already filled with registrants. Sometime in the middle of the day, he took a break from the studies to brush the cats and to talk about how Chester Hobcoggin was always getting Wally into trouble.
After choir, Rose returned to crash into her pajama pants, an old mustard yellow American Eagle shirt of Carrie’s, and her rainbow knit cap.
“I need lunch,” she announced, somewhere in the middle of being quizzed on research design in psychology. “Could I get something?” She asked Collette. “I never got lunch today.”
“Fine, but be quick about it,” Collette was used to such interruptions.
Rose took a bowl from the cabinet and reached into the freezer for the bucket of ice cream and splashed on some chocolate, also covering part of her shirt in the process. Mom, needless to say, was not pleased with Rose’s selection of food.
Then Rose added pennies to her piggy bank while they continued the lesson.
Sometime later during the study session, Rose went back to her room and returned with a large round “thing” which she dumped on the counter.
“It’s an elephant ear root,” she said, proudly. “I bought it and I’m going to grow it in my room.”
The plant would reach seven feet in height.
“The leaves will be as big as place mats. I’ll hide behind them when you come over so I don’t have to do school. I will hang cricket cages from them. It will be a jungle. And Joe and I will have a tiger hunt with the cats.”
Collette could actually envision such a ridiculous event taking place.
And OLeif came home that evening and drank a half gallon of milk with his sausage strada, while designing more logos for work and listening to Cloud Cult. Collette hoped that he wouldn’t feel ill during the night.