V-Day Under Blue Skies and 7 Degrees

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Another bitterly cold morning – that Valentine’s Day of 2007. The windows in the back of the house were patterned in frost.

Collette began the day unsure of her proceedings. OLeif had scheduled both the plumber and the Charter man to come out during the morning hours, at least that’s when they said that they would be over to the house. And Rose had forgotten to check whether or not classes were canceled at the college for the morning, and had also forgotten to check whether or not she worked during the day. Collette was not pleased with the general lack of foresight.

So while she waited, she began to unpack the study, far into the afternoon.

It was later reported that Rose did indeed have class and would work until four o’clock. However, this still provided Collette several hours in the evening in which she could work with her in preparation for that grand exam of all exams – the GRE in Psychology.

In the meantime, OLeif had been summoned to practice music that night with Judah and the rest of the music people for Sunday. And the Charter man came to hook up the Internet, all successfully accomplished by 11:30 in the morning.

Carrie stopped by during her first day of training with her sack lunch for her two-hour lunch break at one o’clock. The condition of the roads and the many accidents of the morning had brought her in to work forty-five minutes late, despite the fact that she had left an hour before needing to report for duty. Apparently the sunny skies were deceiving; the roads were as treacherous as they had been the night before.

Late in the afternoon, Joe picked up Collette to come over to the house and tutor Rose for several hours. They worked until the evening and then talked about Mormonism and polygamy and evolution and other such things. Then Rose went off to get ready to head to junior high youth and Mom served up a hot dinner, including a cake iced in “strawberry mist” frosting and little heart sprinkles.

Afterwards, Carrie, who had had a long day of training, reviewed her notes by the fire, cuddled up with the fat black cat. Joe had left for another youth group that evening with a friend from choir and work; they were taking a field trip to Demolition Ball. Rose, Frances, and Linnea were all up at church. And Collette was able to view pictures of little Liselotte, which Brit had emailed to the family. She had a mess of dark hair, just like Brit.

After OLeif returned from music practice at church, they headed off for groceries and returned in time for Collette to watch a little of the news for the evening.

Items on the television that evening included: Weldon Spring gaining a six-inch snowfall on Tuesday, $300 bundles of five-foot long red roses being shipped in from Ecuador for the big V-Day, Crown Candy cranking out boxes of chocolate covered strawberries, a wedding taking place that day on a Wednesday (just because it was Valentine’s Day), and a crew chief from NASCAR being suspended from the big race day because an illegal substance was found in his possession – rocket fuel.

And wind chills were expected to hit at ten to fifteen below the next morning, “dangerously cold” as the weather lady predicted.