The Giant Bear

It was missions Sunday at church, which meant a sermon delivered by a missionary to Bulgaria, from the old Kirk of the Hills. Ben-Hur was also given a short clip before the sermon to speak of his involvement with RUF.
Collette returned to the house in time to see the girls leaving for Memorial, and to share cocoa-dusted dark chocolate truffles and Welches grape juice with Joe before he, too, left for church. Also waiting for her at the house was a new apple green ski coat which Mom had found for her for Iceland, to cut out the biting chill of riding horseback across ancient lava fields.
And as their departure date arrived at minus eight days, Collette realized more and more how she was going to miss her happy chubby. She had managed to part with him for seventeen days while she was in the Middle East. And she could do it for nine days again. He would be in good hands. But she wouldn’t leave without bringing with her a picture of the stout little chap.
After lunch, Mom and Puck crashed for naps while Linnea enjoyed a “Gilligan’s Island” marathon. And Joe hopped out for a bike ride.
Around the beginning of the afternoon, Dad and Francis returned from the weekend Scout camp out at Cuivre River. Francis had an apple face, perhaps a combination of sun and bonfire. And so after a hot shower, he decided to relax for a few hours, and dished himself some ice cream in one of Mom’s new vari-colored tumblers.
After naps, Mom and Dad took everyone out to Cracker Barrel, where they first waited ten minutes looking through stained glass coloring books, juicy peach candles, wind chimes perfect for incoming thunderstorms, and boxes of maple sugar candies.
Once seated around the table, Puck immediately began to busy himself with crayons, while Linnea worked on the baseball game always at each table.
There was the usual tumble of family discussion, always punctuated with the laughter inevitably appropriate at such dinner gatherings.
“I’m not very observant with some things,” Carrie was saying. “I didn’t even see it until Rose pointed it out to me today. I mean, I didn’t even see that gargantuan ugly sculpture they had hanging from the ceiling for Lent. But anyway, we get into church, and there’s this incredibly huge stuffed black bear sitting in the pew. Enormous, big enough to fill the laundry room, like the kind you’d win at the fair. And Rose thought that it was a mascot who had decided to come to church that morning… So they had the kids’ sermon up front and the elder who was giving it, saw that the kids were going to be pretty distracted by the bear, so he said, ‘Ok, kids, wave to the bear. Now, wave to Pastor Wintershine for putting it there and distracting you all from the lesson.’ And then, of course, there’s the one kid who’s waving to the bear the entire time during the lesson… I always have to bite my tongue from laughing every time I go there.”
While everyone talked, Puck smashed around his mashed potatoes, after cramming himself full of white biscuits and chicken tenders. Collette made a no-caffeine exception for herself and ordered a root beer, half of the reason being because it came in a glass bottle.
And Rose, of course, was busy with her Canon 40D snapping photos of people for her bad picture collection. She would wait just until someone was ready to take a bite of food, and then…
SNAP!
“What is wrong with that girl?” Collette asked.
“She’s so weird,” said Carrie, laughing. “Sometimes she gets home at night, and it’ll be like midnight, and she’ll be just sitting at her laptop going through her bad picture file, just laughing at everything.”