The Laptop
The sky was still a shade of steel to begin the morning… a morning that did not begin so well…
To start, during math with Francis, Collette knocked a glass of ice water over her laptop keyboard. Immediately, she turned the machine upside-down and let the cold liquid drain onto the floor.
“What!” Francis exclaimed, as the puddle landed, inadvertently around his shoes.
“Towel,” Collette commanded, if not somewhat tersely.
Cabobbles and kerfuffles ensued. She kept the laptop upside-down and had Francis run a hair dryer over the keys at Dad’s suggestion, while she continued work with Linnea on OLeif’s desktop. Finally, Francis could at least get the delicate instrument to load at its usual rate of speed. However, the second row of letter keys, A-L, did not register upon command. So Collette left the laptop, still upside town, on a dishtowel on her bed for the rest of the day.
And for some reason, Francis had been discussing how coins minted before 1965 contained silver.
“It’s kind of disappointing that they don’t do that anymore,” he said. “I guess we’ve at least still got silver in Fort Knox.”
“Maybe…” Collette replied absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, watch them open the vault and there’s only a half-eaten brownie in there…” Francis laughed to himself.
Before leaving just prior to noon, Linnea-Irish had also, at first unbeknownst to herself, tempted the temper of the angry stinging creature hidden someplace in the earth. She too had received a blast upside the head from the tormentor. His first, and likely only, warning. Fortunately, Linnea was spared further injury. Although Collette kept Puck away from the front lawn. If it wasn’t mosquitoes, spiders, snakes, or ticks, it was stinging machines.
On their way back out, Mom and Collette briefly discussed plans for the balloon glow in Forest Park the following evening. It was time for another attempt. And after the fiasco of the previous autumn, they had decided it was best to reserve a parking position early in the afternoon, as early as necessary. And Collette hoped that Puck would be able to make his first appearance.
In the afternoon, two youngsters from church, Luke and Leia, were dropped off by their mom (who was working on their own Classical Conversations with her older kids) for two hours and forty-five minutes of semi-squall. No troubles. Just loud and busy and… loud. Collette also quickly realized that her house was no longer childproof. Or, rather, that Puck had been raised around more breakables and antique furniture than the average child, perhaps. They did all seem to enjoy themselves, careening about the house with the pretzel jar of rubber bouncy balls, which Leia, small child that she was, somehow managed to lift and carry herself…
But for at least part of the time, the three were willing to sit, at their own idea, quietly on Puck’s little bed… which Collette was not all too certain would not collapse under the combined weight… and listen to her read to them from Puck’s collection of Little Golden Books.
That evening, OLeif was on the second and third leg of research for his paper. He had already interviewed Pablo. And now it was time to interview first Babe Ruth, at church. And then with Joe over Penn Station.
And because Collette was confined, for the next three hours, to the hypnotic powers of OLeif’s oversized computer screen to cover for the lack of work during the day… she made herself an eight o’clock pancake to pull her through the five pages of type.
To start, during math with Francis, Collette knocked a glass of ice water over her laptop keyboard. Immediately, she turned the machine upside-down and let the cold liquid drain onto the floor.
“What!” Francis exclaimed, as the puddle landed, inadvertently around his shoes.
“Towel,” Collette commanded, if not somewhat tersely.
Cabobbles and kerfuffles ensued. She kept the laptop upside-down and had Francis run a hair dryer over the keys at Dad’s suggestion, while she continued work with Linnea on OLeif’s desktop. Finally, Francis could at least get the delicate instrument to load at its usual rate of speed. However, the second row of letter keys, A-L, did not register upon command. So Collette left the laptop, still upside town, on a dishtowel on her bed for the rest of the day.
And for some reason, Francis had been discussing how coins minted before 1965 contained silver.
“It’s kind of disappointing that they don’t do that anymore,” he said. “I guess we’ve at least still got silver in Fort Knox.”
“Maybe…” Collette replied absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, watch them open the vault and there’s only a half-eaten brownie in there…” Francis laughed to himself.
Before leaving just prior to noon, Linnea-Irish had also, at first unbeknownst to herself, tempted the temper of the angry stinging creature hidden someplace in the earth. She too had received a blast upside the head from the tormentor. His first, and likely only, warning. Fortunately, Linnea was spared further injury. Although Collette kept Puck away from the front lawn. If it wasn’t mosquitoes, spiders, snakes, or ticks, it was stinging machines.
On their way back out, Mom and Collette briefly discussed plans for the balloon glow in Forest Park the following evening. It was time for another attempt. And after the fiasco of the previous autumn, they had decided it was best to reserve a parking position early in the afternoon, as early as necessary. And Collette hoped that Puck would be able to make his first appearance.
In the afternoon, two youngsters from church, Luke and Leia, were dropped off by their mom (who was working on their own Classical Conversations with her older kids) for two hours and forty-five minutes of semi-squall. No troubles. Just loud and busy and… loud. Collette also quickly realized that her house was no longer childproof. Or, rather, that Puck had been raised around more breakables and antique furniture than the average child, perhaps. They did all seem to enjoy themselves, careening about the house with the pretzel jar of rubber bouncy balls, which Leia, small child that she was, somehow managed to lift and carry herself…
But for at least part of the time, the three were willing to sit, at their own idea, quietly on Puck’s little bed… which Collette was not all too certain would not collapse under the combined weight… and listen to her read to them from Puck’s collection of Little Golden Books.
That evening, OLeif was on the second and third leg of research for his paper. He had already interviewed Pablo. And now it was time to interview first Babe Ruth, at church. And then with Joe over Penn Station.
And because Collette was confined, for the next three hours, to the hypnotic powers of OLeif’s oversized computer screen to cover for the lack of work during the day… she made herself an eight o’clock pancake to pull her through the five pages of type.