The Fat Cat
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Monday was spent tutoring from eight o’clock in the morning to four o’clock in the afternoon. During the several sessions, Rose and Joe amused themselves with drawing cartoon characters entitled “The Germ” and “The Pill” with superman capes and deviously mischievous faces. And they argued over who was rightfully the first one to copyright the idea. Rose later drew up a contract for Collette to sign as witness while she folded laundry, indicating Rose as the first individual to create “The Germ”.
Meanwhile, Carrie once again declared that she had officially quit school on Sunday. She was bound to make this announcement at least once weekly. And on Monday she whined again from the couch (where she had a habit of reading her texts and falling asleep):
“I can’t do this anymore! I’ve got sand jumping around in my head!”
And so she took a break to aid Rose in her newest hobby: restoring furniture. Collette helped Rose carry the old bookshelf upstairs from the basement, where it likely hadn’t seen daylight for at least eight years. And they placed it face-up on the patio where Rose and Carrie proceeded to scrape off the several layers of paint and wash it with a constant stream from the garden hose.
Monday evening was closed with a lovely meal at Pasta House for OLeif and Collette, as they had received gift certificates from Kitts and Relevance for their anniversary.
Tuesday was perhaps even more interesting. After an apple and a mug of blueberry tea at home, there were several small pancakes at the house. And after a reading of Chosen by God, there were several study sessions, including the newly added biology and physics classes taught by Carrie.
Earlier, as Joe and Rose waited for Collette to mark down their next algebraic expressions on the dry-erase board, they saw Pumpkin sitting smugly and fatly on the high sill of Dad’s office window. So they commenced in singing an original hit to the tune of “Santa Clause is Coming to Town”. Joe would belt out with Rose commenting in the margins:
“Pumpkin is getting so fat
That she is such a lumpy… cat…
It’s all Carrie’s fault
Because she tries to tell her she’s so beautiful and it doesn’t work because it makes her blue…”
“So we should put on a shoe…”
“It just keeps making her fat…”
It really made no sense whatsoever, and so Collette continued to write more mathematical figures on the board as they sang, ignoring the rest.
But September had come in all its beauty, past Patriot’s Day (which they remembered from four years ago). And now it would be Adam-Age’s birthday the next day and the beautiful September breezes had just fluttered in only that Tuesday morning with the whirling of the leaves and the golden brown of the early autumn. Although the temperatures had been uncommonly warm – into the 90’s every afternoon. But storms were due for Wednesday, which was of course, a delectable thought no matter the season.
And while Joe and Rose went to choir, Mom stuffed manicotti for dinner while Francis and Linnea discussed battle plans in the boys’ hammock (no doubt as a result of their hearing the rumor of Louisiana or Mississippi making plans to “secede from the Union”) and Carrie’s new pointy black heeled shoes arrived from Victoria’s Secret.
Later in the afternoon as the warm breezes pulled in the clouds, Collette and Linnea read another chapter of Nancy Drew while Linnea enjoyed a mug of chocolate milk. And Collette read the Lincoln’s newsletter from Hungary, which included an excerpt by Mr. Lincoln about Sierra (their oldest daughter), with whom Collette had greatly enjoyed spending time four years previously in Budapest, with her younger sister, Patty, and Diana of course.