Train!

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

(6:51am) It seemed like a day that should have been someone’s birthday, but no one that Collette could think of in particular.

Meanwhile, Tuesday afternoon, Carrie was still grumpy about the number of papers she had to write. She came into the living room where Collette was reading, The Holiness of God.

“Shoot me, Collette. Just shoot me,” she said, conjuring up a good degree of woe. She then spied an empty Tupperware tub lying by the basement steps and her mischievous eyes sparkled. “Oooooh – train!”

“Don’t you dare, Carrie,” Collette ran over to her, as Carrie opened the basement door.

“Oh, come on, I’ll be fine,” Carrie urged.

“Well, goodbye, Carrie,” Mom called from the kitchen table where she was teaching Frances and Linnea. “You’ve been a good daughter.”

Frances and Linnea tried to escape to watch the fun, but Mom held them back.

“Here I go!” Carrie announced, sitting down in the box with her legs dangling out the top.

She scooted herself to the edge of the stairs and held on to both railings tightly and shoved herself off

“Whoooo!” She squealed for a few steps down. “Oh, no! I’m stuck! Help, help!”

Collette was laughing and hurried down.

“Oh, never mind; I got it,” Carrie said and continued on. “Whooooo! Yeah!”

She finally crashed at the bottom in a nice heap.

“Am I still alive?” She called back up the stairs.

Collette just laughed. “Carrie, this is why you never turn your papers in on time.”

“Papers? Who needs papers? I need a dilly bar!”

And Tuesday evening was spent at the Silverspoon’s with pizza casserole for dinner, garlic toast, and salad, plus peanut butter ice cream for dessert. And there was discussion of theology and music, after which the three boys jammed. And Theodore called up Kitts to listen to the song that Wally had composed. It was a pleasant evening.

In other news, it had been Rosh Hashana the previous day, which Collette knew nothing about, except that security was being handed to the Jews as their people flocked to the synagogues. Even two thousand years after Christ, they continued in their religious traditions. Collette found it so very sad to see them living in rebellion. And yet she was stubborn herself in many aspects of her life and she had no room to judge. Sadly, for the persistent Jews, their stubbornness was a stubbornness that would condemn them forever.