Tornadoes & Music
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
In which there is much tornadic exhibition and entirely too much singing…
The morning began with some sort of obnoxious chemical reaction, or Spanish black radish, taking effect on Collette’s face. Red, scratchy, and burning. Carrie offered a pinch off a branch of her aloe vera plant.
Earnest was also in trouble. He had been busy devouring the gluten-free peanut butter cookie recipe that Collette had photocopied for Carrie.
“Well, I used to eat my bulletin at church when my stomach started growling…” said Carrie.
Like owner, like pet.
The morning began with an unexpected visit to the Omnimax Theater for
Tornado Alley. It was crunch-time to catch up on whatever Joe needed to do before leaving for Cimarron.
They all arrived, Dad, Mom, Collette, Joe, Francis, Linnea-Irish, and Puck, eighteen minutes early. So they camped out with an entire trove of Amish at the Planetarium doors until 9:30.
While they waited at the door, Collette heard about Francis’ flub the previous evening.
“So Francis knew that Magnus was coming over at some point that night,” said Mom. “So as he was walking through the house, he didn’t know that Magnus was already there, and he called out, ‘So when’s Baldy getting here?’”
Francis. A nickname for everyone. Bozo. Tubby. Bimbo. Baldy… They all served the same purpose.
Once admitted, Puck tore down the highly tempting carpeted hallway, completely open to his exploration. He went flying.
“Yeah! Puck ate carpet!” one of the boys laughed.
Puck resurrected himself, giggling, and was prevented from doing the same down the space tunnel.
“I went kerplunk right down the passageway!” he declared.
The partially quiet second story already smelled like popcorn, where the cafe was shining and waiting with Pepsi machines, red glass lights, and 1950’s ads.
As they waited in line, Dad watched the promo for Sea-Rex. And although Dad had little problem, theologically, with the idea of an old earth, when the screen spoke of 200,000,000 year-old sea creatures, he brought up a point that Collette had not before considered…
“So death entered the world after sin, right?” he said. “So how could these creatures be alive 200,000,00 years before humans without dying?”
Then he mentioned taking Francis the following week to Colorado to visit the Air Force Academy.
They were the first to enter the theater. As they took their seats in the center, Dad imitated the old long-loved weekend narrator, who had presented the Omnimax films since, well, perhaps the early 1990s.
“Hello… I’m… Erwin Mitchell…? Welcome… to the St. Louis… Science Center?”
Good old times.
The film was good. Thundering footage. At several times during the 45 minutes, Puck turned to Collette and said…
“But God will save them, right?”
And then once during a particularly tense scene, “But it’s still sunny outside.”
He reached his hands up to the clouds several times when they were particularly fantastic.
And on the way out, Puck raced towards the cafe to an inviting tower of cups of mini soft-baked M’nM cookies.
On the way back, Joe helped Linnea prepare for the choir concert that night by singing in a warbling tone…
“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright colored peppers…”
Then Dad swung a tight corner back onto 94.
“Whoa, I think we pulled a G there,” said Mom.
“No, if we pulled a G, your face would be up against the wall,” Dad explained.
Then he and Mom began singing their own duets, Frank Sinatra-like, with as many of the lyrics as Dad could remember.
Back at the house…
Carrie had made a plate of banana muffins topped in oats while they were gone.
Fuzzy crackling of Greek music from Mom’s radio in the kitchen. Mom’s doing; certainly not Carrie’s.
And Puck got busy desecrating the live fruit arrangement of green apples and purple grapes on the coffee table. That wasn’t going to last very long…
Earnest was busy hopping around after being removed from Rose’s room from nibbling on some radio cords. He hopped up on the coffee table.
“No, Earnest,” Carrie commanded. “That’s too high for you.”
“Watch me, Mama!” Mom said for him in her best bunny voice.
He was removed to his little home to be ambianced by a Laura Ashley pumpkin nutmeg candle. Bunny luxury at its best.
And Puck brought out the popcorn to watch his next Reading Rainbow. He had about 150 episodes left to see.
This was followed with readying books about the human body. Puck had questions about the function of the umbilical cord.
“So food came into my mouth and I chomped it?”
“No. You got food through your bellybutton.”
“And it was in my ‘contestim’ (intestines) and I was in the waters?”
“Sort of…”
He followed this by making phone calls.
The evening rapidly approached, with another spring choir concert at 6:30. Mom, Francis, and Linnea-Irish had already been up at the church since the early afternoon for rehearsals. And the rest of the crew joined them and Grandma Combs after a quick Cecil Whittaker’s dinner.
On the way, Dad sported Carrie’s sunnies, as his were lost.
Once arrived, Grandma Combs had brought a bag of animal crackers for Puck. There was a small pack of Skittles from Carrie. And Grandma, as thank you to Collette for typing up the genealogy, had gifted her two packs of Indian-like note cards and a bar of milk chocolate.
The concert was good, albeit quite long. The jazz band was included in the program. Twenty-two seniors, including Charlie, German, Izzy, and Adam-Age, were sent off at the end. And Bing and Carrie were able to catch up at the end, good old friends. In fact, Bing and Yaotl were the only two alumni remaining anywhere near that golden era of choir.
After the concert, OLeif, Collette, and Puck said their goodbyes to Joe. He would be departing early Thursday morning, and it was their last opportunity to say adieu for the summer.
“There was a goblin. Or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. Nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it – one day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.”
— Doctor Who, Season 5