Three Happy Birthdays

As we sat together in church, two half-rows of us, Puck listened to the sermon while sketching monster-robots on his bulletin.

During the rhetorical question of: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?, Puck turned to whisper loudly (and of course seriously), “Fousands!”

Somehow I feel like we’ve been down this road before.

Big House: baseball, storms, birthdays.

Checking out the rolling deep thunder and hovering storm between innings. Grandma drove up with bags of goodies wearing a sparkly shirt entitled: “Who Let Grandma Out” while Dad and Joe chatted on the patio grilling burgers.

When Carrie and I caught some muggy air on the porch, Dad stuck his head out the front door. Always interested in any “news.”

There were gifts:

For Grandma (celebrating 78), decorations for her feather tree and an autumn riverboat cruise with Mom and Mrs. O.

El Oso (30): astronaut pen, Amish beard balm, grill seasoning, Kindle gift card, and single malt whiskey and tumblers from Rose.

And Rose (24 that week): beeswax coil candle, ridiculous multi-faced Nicholas Cage t-shirt, a variety of bubble bath, bar soap, and hand cream in honey and flowers, picnic hamper from Grandma, National Geographic and Argentina picture books, and knit mohawk hat for Stinkerbelle.

Ice cream cake-cake rounded out the late afternoon, Francis still absent due to an unexpected shift at work, one candle for each birthday.

We sat around and discussed Kansas City plans, sleep numbers – Dad always has to one-up Mom on the number:

“Competitive sleep numbers,” Carrie called it. “Dad walks into the store to test it out. ‘So. Uh, how high do these numbers go?’ Dad sets it to 100. The guy’s like, ‘Uh, sir, this thing only goes up to 70.’ ‘Yeah, well I modified it.’”

Out into the warm green of a Sunday evening in early summer.