The Thrill of the Possibility of Inclement Weather Once Again & Wedged Locks
Thursday, March 9, 2006
[6:18am] National news warned of severe weather for the Midwest that morning, and following that report in the six o’clock morning news, Mr. Radio Announcer said:
“They’re not kidding either,” and proceeded to give the local weather forecast of thunderstorms and rain and then told of a nasty accident he had seen on the way to work that morning. “Be careful out there,” He said. “It’s tricky. So is life.”
And indeed, the dark blue skies were already watering the grounds outside. There was something wonderful about a day of rain with unexpected claps of thunder around the corners.
Wednesday night had been with the youth up in the barn with the wind whipping through the fields. Collette did learn an interesting piece of news – Pablo Honey was involved in fencing and had a tournament that coming Saturday. He must have been near the same age when Carrie participated in the same event. Sometimes she wondered about that… Carrie’s instructor had told her she could make the team to compete in Germany that year, the year before she stopped. And if she continued to do as well as she had at that age, the Olympics were not out of the question for her. But things came and went like that. It was the same sort of scenario with her cello. But she left fencing for a good reason and cello was not what she wanted to continue at the time. And so, that was that.
[4:48pm] Work was nearly the most quiet and uneventful it had ever been in the past three years or so, almost. Towards the end of the day Ivy and Collette were bored enough to start laughing over Sinai’s middle name and one of the elder’s middle name: Hurlburt and Hubert, respectively (which they thought was pretty funny).
“And my dad’s middle name was Harvey,” Ivy was saying. “It always reminded me of a bunny or something.”
“Oh yeah,” Collette thought about it. “I think you’re right.”
“You think of a bunny too?”
“Vaguely. Sort of somehow remember a bunny…”
“Wasn’t it some big sort of bunny talking to a man?”
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was that one black and white film a long time ago.”
“Right.”
“Yes – with, uh, Jimmy Stewart.”
“Oh, was that him? I thought so.”
“Yeah, and his friend was Harvey the big invisible bunny. I think that was the name of the film too – Harvey.”
It was sometimes a dangerous thing to enter the office at the end of the day – who knew what Ivy and Collette would find themselves discussing after seven hours.
And, alas, the severe weather had not made its way to Saint Charles, and Collette was disappointed not to have heard any more thunder. But such was the way of an unpredictable late winter in the Midwest. And partly it was good, because the door became stuck to her apartment, whereupon she enlisted the help of three men from the apartment complex. When throwing their weight against it did not work, the elderly man was sensible enough to have one of the younger guys climb up to the balcony and through the apartment to unwedge the lock. Finally, he managed to open it and the older gentlemen repaired the door knob. Such was her “adventure” for the day.
“Smoking is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” – King James, early 1600’s