The Senses of the Day
Monday, March 26, 2007
Doctor’s appointment number twelve or so to take place that afternoon… and a cloudy day, hopefully not with highs predicted at 82, similar to Sunday. Collette wasn’t ready for summer weather; spring had only just begun. But it was good to know that showers and/or thunderstorms were anticipated to arrive every day for the next five days.
Back at the house, Carrie had just come through a sixty-six hour work week – forty hours at NAWS, fourteen hours at Columns on Saturday, and twelve hours at Columns on Sunday. Somehow she still managed to look chipper that morning. She was getting ready to leave for work, dressed in a bright turquoise top and beaded Indian necklace. And she and Elizabeth had been thinking up ideas for giving colored accents to the ice sculptures at Columns.
Meanwhile, Collette put Rose to work in a last great effort to finish preparations for the GRE. Six months of preparation. And there was a skirmish in the kitchen for the mid-morning snack fest, while Rose managed to burn a bag of popcorn and splash chocolate milk all over Mom’s kitchen sink.
Rose had brought back several more finished pieces from her ceramics class, including a graded soap dish which she offered to Collette before leaving.
While Francis waited for his unburnt popcorn to finish popping, he began flying a little doll stool of Linnea’s around he kitchen, making the usual noises of battle and flying objects.
“Francis,” Linnea said seriously, “give that back. It’s my flying saucer with guns.”
During the most of the afternoon, before Rose departed for her eye appointment, Collette worked with her in the living room. At some point during this span of time, Rose had the notion to unscrew every lampshade in the living room and reattach them upside-down. When Mom came back inside from working in the yard, Rose tried to convince her that “Popular Science” had just run an article on how energy could be saved by attaching lampshades upside-down for better heat-flow.
Mom wasn’t going to buy it.
Come later in the afternoon, as clouds piled high in the west, OLeif and Collette waited in the doctor’s office for her substitute doctor. Dr. Brazil was out for the day. Soon, the kindly snowy-haired gentleman walked in and introduced himself to them both.
“Any contractions?” He asked Collette.
“No…” Collette said, realizing that she probably couldn’t tell if she had had any or not. “None that I know of anyway.”
“The womb is broken,” the doctor chuckled. “If you’ve been feeling the baby kind of ball up…”
“Oh, yes, a lot, actually.”
“Then those are probably contractions.”
At least they weren’t painful yet.
This was followed with a trip to the mall to look at various-crafted journals and for dinner, before heading over to World Market to purchase a rug for baby’s room, a huge bag of saltwater taffy (a “delicacy” which OLeif had been wanting to try for ages), a much smaller bag of sugared rosy apples (straight from Great Britain), and a box of French Provence incense. OLeif chose it in particular because the scent was not as potent as Asian incenses, and it was one of six scents taken from different markets in Provence, this one (called “Greengrocer Square”) being chiefly a medley of lavender, ripe tomatoes, blackcurrants, and rhubarb. And there were other things of interest as always: Thai gongs, glass necklaces, swinging pigs on sticks, giant lollipops, and other peculiarities.
After leaving, Collette asked OLeif how he liked the saltwater taffy.
OLeif chewed hard on his banana-flavored piece. “I wish it was more salty.”