The Epitome of Self-Satisfaction - "Just wait till I tell Mom and Dad what I tried tonight!"
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Wednesday evening was great. Before OLeif came to pick Collette up from the house, Elizabeth and Paige Popp had come back with Carrie-Bri (all three of whom had been out and around in Chesterfield for the afternoon) and were ready to head back out to coffee that evening at Picasso’s.
And Paige Popp had been telling Mom about the latest circumstances. Her Israel was still stationed in Afghanistan and had forbidden her to cut her hair (apparently he liked it long). The wedding was indeed set for December 2nd, after Israel would return on November 22nd. For the present, they were planned to be stationed in North Carolina, although Paige was certain the location would change a dozen times before the destination was final.
And there was news of Crystabelle Bun (who was still uncertain as to whether she had Krone’s disease, and now weighed well under one hundred pounds). She and her new husband had been given a house to rent for three years while its owners were on the mission field in Hawaii – a tiny house off of King’s Highway near Lindenwood – a blessing that landed in their laps a mere two weeks before the wedding.
Meanwhile, Paige was busy planning her own ceremony. The deposits had all been placed on the church and reception hall, the bridal party selected including a maid of honor (Crystabelle), two or three bridesmaids (Collette could not remember), including her best friend from school and one of Israel’s sisters who would be eighteen by then, and then one of Israel’s other sisters for the junior bridesmaid, and three flower girls (all Israel’s sisters (who had nine or ten siblings). And Paige would graduate in May, which would give her seven months to prepare for the big day.
But OLeif arrived shortly while Paige and Mom talked, and the two headed towards Trader Joe’s for some groceries along with two bottles of sparkling cranberry and raspberry and two boxes of water crackers, and a cake of double creamy Brie. It was all soon set out with candles lit, the 1920’s radio station playing in the background and everything tidied nicely just in time for Diana and Eve who walked in the door with two types of good cocoa. And for the next three hours they had a wonderful time of conversation over the two boxes of crackers and the entire cake of Brie.
Before the serious theological and church discussion ensued, however, Diana had a crack at the five dollar bottle of wine sitting on their counter. She thought it tasted rather poorly (still not having quite become used to the taste of alcohol), and then….
“Man, OLeif, you have whiskey! No way!”
“Yup. Want to try some?”
“Oh, and rum… I don’t know…. No, no, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, come on… You know you want to.”
“Hmmm…. No, I just can’t.”
But several moments later, Diana still seemed unconvinced.
“Ok! I’ll do it. I’ll try some!” She exclaimed, springing up from the couch, forgetting about her mug of cocoa, crystal goblet of wine, and water goblet of cold water. “Do you have any shot glasses?”
“No, no shot glasses,” OLeif replied and selected another crystal glass from the cabinet as Eve and Collette hurried over to watch the fun. “You wouldn’t want that much.”
“Oh, man… Oh, man.” Diana tensed up expectantly as OLeif uncorked the whiskey bottle. “How much should I try?” She asked, a little nervous.
OLeif responded by pouring the ever-so-smallest smidgen of rubbing alcohol-smelling brownish liquid into the glass.
“What?” Diana seemed surprised. “That’s it?”
OLeif nodded with a knowing smile.
“Ok, guys. Ok. I’m going to do it.” She grabbed the goblet and with hesitating only a few moments more, she downed the dribble in the glass.
The face she made next could have only been described with a camera. She was off with a shot to the sink for water, as Collette thrust Diana’s water goblet into her hands.
“Water!” She croaked and soaked the cooling liquid down her throat. “Aaaaah!”
Needless to say, Diana would not be trying whiskey again any time soon. And Eve, on the other hand, stuck with three cups of blueberry tea.
“Just wait till I tell Mom and Dad what I tried tonight,” Diana chuckled proudly to herself, pulling at her shirt collar in self-satisfaction.
But the conversation soon took a turn for the next hours towards the church, missions, evangelical movements over the years, morals and created rules of the church, etc. and all sorts of wonderfully good and sound and thought-ful things. It was wonderful to have such discussions again, and now that Eve had grown up and was as passionate about such things as well, it was all the better. At one point they began talking over the Emergent Church and some concerns over which Diana and OLeif had stumbled.
“One church there has this, like, well, they have one group that might sing during the service, another that journals during the service – basically whatever they want to do,” Diana was saying, “They can have conversations and talk on their phones during the service. Yeah – ‘Give me Starbucks in one hand and incense in the other. Let me talk on my cell phone anytime I want during the service, and I’ll come to your church.’”
“When in comes down to it,” Eve said later, spreading Brie on a cracker, “We’re all sinners and we have the only truth we need, in the Bible.”
And OLeif contributed many wise thought and analogies as the evening progressed. It was the most nurturing conversation of which Collette had partaken in a long while.
But it was all wonderful. And Eve was off the following morning to get her typhoid shot and malaria medication in preparation for Haiti. Collette was quite excited for her – yet another step towards her anticipated mission trip. It was only a shame that Diana would be leaving so soon, but she was anxious to be off back to school to see Clifford Hershey Moore again. She was most anxious over the situation, having become completely head-over-heels in deep twitter-pation. But he was married to “The Record” (the school newspaper, of which he was editor-in-chief), and Diana was concerned that he would never be interested in her.
“Guys, it’s so hard,” she wailed. “I can’t take it. My love life is a disaster!”
But Collette knew without a doubt, that she would be fine, no matter what the circumstances. She would hear from her soon over the email, once she was again settled back into the apartment.
It was eleven o’clock as Collette watched Eve and Diana pull back out onto Mexico Road. And she found that she felt a strange sadness.
“I’m not going to see Diana for four months,” Collette told OLeif. It was the realization once again that her best friend was moving a little further away, once again.
And yet, as she thought about it, she knew that Diana would one day come back, and that there would one day (maybe soon) be a grand wedding to plan for her and that despite everything, if she were to move away “forever,” that they would all once again be reunited in glorious eternity with Jesus Christ. This reminder always made the stars of night shine a brighter gold in her mind, as promises on the pilgrimage she trekked.