Thy leaves o'er the bed...
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Tuesday was predicted to become so hot during the afternoon, that Collette sent Frances and Linnea outside for the morning hours before it became too warm. This also gave Rose little excuse to blame her lack of concentration on the noise-level of the house.
The sounds of lunch were soon heard at 11:30 while Rose attempted to listen to her Italian lesson, while giving her old Dorothy doll dreadlocks. Collette repeatedly reminded her to repeat the pronunciations from the lesson.
“Ah, a…”
And she would forget to listen again.
“Rose?”
“I’m listening. Ah, a, Ah….”
And so went the lesson.
Meanwhile, Joe carted a large cardboard box into the living room and constructed it into a hopefully aerodynamic experiment for his bike. He huddled inside the box with his helmet on, to get the correct positioning for cutting the holes. Then he scissored and duct-taped until it was finished, resembling something of an outer-mold for the body of his bike. It later survived Carrie tossing it down the stairs shortly after Joe had left for choir, because he had left it lying around in the living room. His helmet soon followed.
“Slobs!” Carrie complained, scraping dishes into the dish washer and whipping things away into cabinets and drawers.
She left a note on the counter before leaving for work, reading:
“The house is now clean. Mess it up and you’ll wish you’d never been born!
Ellen = toasted ravioli for dinner, not chili
Andy = laundry”
Later while the kids were at choir, Linnea made herself hot chocolate and pounded out pictures on the kitchen floor with Collette’s and Carrie-Bri’s ancient rubber stamp collection (complete with ten year-old ink pads).
And unfortunately, they had forgotten to gather the Plum’s eggs during the morning hours. Joe and Linnea drove up late in the afternoon and found only three eggs. Either the chickens had decided to be stubborn, or the lack of gathering eggs in the morning had produced a zero crop in the afternoon.
Dad returned from work and went for a bike ride while the house that Carrie had just picked up before leaving for work, became messy all over again. Rose loaded all of the ridiculous pictures she had taken at choir into her computer. And the cats prowled.
The tutoring day finished as Collette and Rose put together dinner for Dad and the kids while Rose lay down on the counter and they chatted until the oven was finished baking.
OLeif drove up shortly later.
“So I went to the new grocery store down by the Target today,” OLeif said to Collette after she got into the car. “And I went over to the bread aisle. And it was completely full. And one of the employees comes over to me and says, ‘Can I help you, sir?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, sir,’ he said and smiled, ‘we’re not open yet. Tomorrow’s the grand opening. See you then.” So I’m one of the first persons to see the new grocery store. I’m a celebrity!”
The day ended with rotisserie chicken, waffle fries, cheddar, and barbecue sauce.