Walk About
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
OLeif was feeling somewhat ill the following morning – enough to remove himself from work for the day and clock in remotely. But not quite horrible enough to skip class. And so, being the grade A student and dad that he was, he encouraged Collette and Puck to accompany him during the five and a half hours on campus.
OLeif pushed down a tuna sandwich as they arrived in the parking lot before scooting to his first class session.
Puck, meanwhile, started off for the swings, pumping his legs down the pavement, spyglass in hand.
“I want to use it on the swings,” he said importantly. “’Cause they I can see more things with it when I’m up high.”
Collette did the bulk of the work for him as he surged into the sky.
“This swing is not black, Mama. Did they paint the swings? It’s not black like a shadow anymore.”
Collette then joined him on the opposite swing, holding the heavy chains of the two apparatus together so they could soar up to the blue as she had done for so many hours when she was a kid. Puck liked this idea. It had been six months since they had taken advantage of the seminary campus entertainment, and there was no better way to kick off the spring than with a good session of park swing swinging.
Back inside, Puck monitored his germ encounter count while chomping down a sandwich in the rec room.
“Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm…” he hummed to himself with satisfaction as the edibles hit the spot on a warm late winter morning.
OLeif walked off for remote work in the library across campus, followed by his second class – two hours’ worth – at 2:30.
This invited Puck to the vending machine grid across the room for a snack to accompany his Magic School Bus fix of the day.
His lipstick box (i.e. coin box) was filled with $1.60 of quarters, dimes, and nickles, which he had been saving for the past half year should such a snack-spouting-robot opportunity arise once again. 65 cents of this wad went to a bag of plain potato chips, which were immediately snarfed before he continued further explorations into the under-city rings of puzzle-piece 1980’s mustard couches.
Someone had left a book on the table – 50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do). Sounded like a title OLeif would purchase immediately.
They then resumed their match of carpet ping-pong until some of the seminarians roused up their own game.
“That’s so funny!” Puck laughed with one of the competitors, who was having difficulty winning any matches. “That ball keeps hitting into the net!”
The two gamesters thought this was pretty hilarious…
“Yeah. Yeah, it does keep hitting the net, doesn’t it?” the losing student laughed at himself.
When OLeif emerged from class just before 4:30 in the cooling golden light, he whistled to them from across the rows of crabapple blossoms, already bursting white. Puck ran over for a flying hug. OLeif had picked up a lecture series from the library by Dr. Raymond – How to Criticize Your Husband’s Sermons.
OLeif spoke of the two classmates who had preached that day…
“One of them reminded me of a cross between George Wintershine and Chet Danger. And the other… like… Mr. Rogers meets the city, meets Cookie Monster.”
On the way home they hit up Trader Joe’s. Collette gave Puck permission to take a “baby cart” and select his own dinner.
“I just want to see what he does,” she whispered to OLeif, as Puck took off for the refrigerated shelving.
He immediately dumped a fat orange bell pepper into the cart and a large carton of strawberries. Then a box of waffles, this one at Collette’s suggestion, given that he was not tall enough to see very well into the freezer bins.
As he careened for the register, he stood politely behind the current customer in line, and then asked the cashier…
“Excuse me. But is this the place where they give out the candy?”
“It sure is, buddy. Have a piece out of that bag there, if your parents don’t mind.”
Puck selected a dark red sucker for after his meal.
As they drove home, Puck contemplated the idea of “baby grocery carts”, and what a great thing they were…
“You like the sounds how they click clack down the rusty road?” he asked.