Things that Have to Happen
The Bear switched on some old-time New Orleans jazz on our ride out this morning. I’ve learned to accept the Bear’s taste in music. Honestly, I guess most things don’t bother me all that much, even if I enjoy pessimistic studies and/or tirades of these same “most things”. The Bear feels the same, even more so. So put us together, and, at least in that instance, we’re like peanut butter and… peanut butter. But sometimes one of those peanut butter sides is crunchy.
I’ll let you guess which one.
Meanwhile, the backyard down at the ranch was laced over in climbing ropes, nylon cords, cutting sticks, and all other sorts of colorful means to yank down dead tree limbs, where Francis was spraying my son with the hose again.
Apparently Puck had also learned about the wonders of cologne and perfume ads in magazines during my brief absence. He was having an amazing eureka of a time realizing that scents could be located within actual paper pages.
“Yeah, he found a favorite scent too,” Carrie told me. “From Ralph Lauren. A woman’s sport scent.”
Inside the less mosquito-curious world, Linnea was scrambling eggs.
“Hey, Collette, could you grind up some cheese for me?”
We are fluent in all lingo, Kitchen.
Carrie got busy with work, sketching app redesigns on scrap paper with red Sharpie. Orbits, ellipses, ovals, squares, biceps, tape measurers… This is how my sister conducts business. Give her just a shoestring, and she’ll figure out how to run a small country. Maybe Liechtenstein. I might even go as far as the size and population of Estonia. Give her more than a shoestring, and we’re probably talking somewhere in the vicinity of Argentina or Kazakhstan.
This all occurred while I discussed the academic futures of Francis and Linnea-Irish and possibilities of Linnea’s Chinese language program with Mom, while Francis groaned, lying back-down on the kitchen table bench. Apparently the retreat had been a little too much for his body to handle.
Mom also loaded me up with a stack of Kindergarten curriculum for Puck’s official debut in September. Guess it’s about that time… My philosophy is, and already has been – take it easy. Starting things off “with relish”, is just not going to go down here.
Meanwhile, Puck was about as busy as anyone else. He found the garden hose again and was running his own creek into the street. A couple of hours passed with just rocks and water, which is fine by me. Maybe not with Dad so much…
“Look, Mama!” he announced, holding a fat pile of gravel in the air. “Plankton!”
The plankton went in a ziplock and Puck joined Linnea constructing a mammoth tower of rainbow-colored wool in Minecraft.
Carrie and I drove out to visit one of my more favorite places to browse notebooks and pens and stuff this afternoon – Target. I believe I have already lauded its glories in other passages. Got some page protectors and coconut conditioner, while Carrie hunted down more hair dye and bobby pins for Rose, and picked up a box of hummingbird mix.
Before lighting out to Rose’s for the evening with Stinkerbelle to repair the roots on Rose’s hair, Carrie mixed up two rubber balls for Puck out of a concoction of Borax, glue, food coloring, and other flavorings. He got the giggles just holding them in his big paws. The kid gets tickled by almost anything. Again, I’m grateful.
Puck got his fingers closed in the car window after we picked up groceries for the evening. The Bear quickly stopped to have a check. No harm done. At least not as much as the time the Bear got his fingers slammed in a sliding car door as a kid, and I got mine crushed in the old Chevrolet station wagon. Except mine drew blood, a walk to Hardee’s for a cup of ice, and a woozy straggle after Mom in a Hallmark store card aisle before I finally had to sit down. Somehow I still picked up the old violin later that week, if memory serves.
Which it doesn’t anymore as well as it used to…
The Bear enjoyed a fajita fest back home.
It had been a long day for him.
Thought of the Day
Our church has a St. Louis attitude sometimes, I think.
We’re friendly.
We’ll help you even if it hurts us, or inconveniences us. Go out of our way to turn a good deed. We’ll skip an important service or ceremony to watch a stranger’s kid in the nursery. We’ll check on a visitor in the foyer because they leave the sanctuary suddenly. We’ll donate cars and laptops and paychecks to take care of those who just really need another pair of wheels or an un-crashed hard-drive.
But… if you imply in the smallest way – even accidentally – that you don’t want the help, we’ll back off. Give you a wide circle of space that may continue, without intention, a very… long… time…
Friendly isolationists, I guess.
At least… that’s my take on it.
Usually…
Sometimes…