Welcome Back, Men
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
“Well, my flip-flops are making the house worser. They have spiderwebs on them,” Puck announced from his car seat, holding up his already worn-treaded flip-flop towards the rearview mirror.
Joe was coming back for a mid-summer break. He was best man for the second time in a second wedding. By six AM, he had already hit Kansas.
OLeif was returning close to midnight.
“I thought it was going to be a special day,” Puck grinned from the back seat.
The buns were causing trouble. Ornery antics. Double ear infections and other ailments…
“They’re making me broke,” said Carrie. “ I had to pay extra for them to mix in Bonnie’s medicine – Grandma’s banana nut bread flavor. And she still doesn’t like it!”
Bunnies were, indeed, exotic creatures.
The Katy Trail access point provided a relatively cool morning walk. “Rabbit’s Ears”. Rocks splashed in the creek. Baby lizards. Clementines. A nice petrified crinoid specimen…
They returned to cheese and butter biscuits for lunch.
Meanwhile, Carrie and Rose had skipped out on part of the birthday last night.
“We got there an hour late, because it was the history museum. So after they checked out the Civil War exhibit, they went through the ‘Underwear Through the Ages’ exhibit. I did not go to that.”
The previous night Carrie and Mom had prepared dinner for Phineas Owen who had arrived for kale and sausage soup, rolls, salad, and Ghirardelli brownies. Mom had been piecing together all the help he would need for the next months, including locating a mud-jacker for his sinking driveway.
Joe beeped his horn in the driveway after one o’clock – thirteen hour drive with no sleep.
“I almost hit an elk,” he explained.
He broke out five large empty saran wrap tubes from the commissary for Puck, which Francis used for Tibetan throat calls. He and Puck then donned them as arm armor and battled it out together, boxer style, until they were sent outside to shoot down the dead tree in the backyard with Dad’s old left-hand bow and arrows.
Meanwhile, Joe related the story of how he almost let a $50,000 – or something – vehicle slip over the edge of a mountain…
“My leg slipped under the front wheel as I was grabbing the front door, and I stopped it about five feet before it went over the edge… I would have been fired.”
And…
“It’s LDS week out there. So at night these Mormon kids’ll start throwing crab apples at our cabins,” Joe grinned. “We can hear them giggling out there.”
He would spend the weekend around wedding activities catching up with friends – those who weren’t training at military forts or Korea.
Meanwhile, Martha had sent Grandpa’s old military and Boy Scout uniforms to Dad in a large box in the mail. The same jacket he wore flying over Japan after the war.
They gathered for more old family videos as the afternoon waned.
Francis lifted off for work.
Collette and Puck built rock towers in the driveway while Puck explained why he wanted to marry Anneliese – “Somethin’ about her makes me happy inside.” – until Rose arrived to convince Puck that she was sending Pumpkin to France for the “fat cat circus”. That, or Pumpkin steak.
Carrie started the barbecue, trying not to squish the tiny tree frogs in the door that jumped inside back to Mom’s and Dad’s room.
So Collette and Puck waited it out till late night before departing for the airport, which included pork steaks, hot potato casserole, and salad. Joe, who had napped for an hour, Frankenstein-ed up the stairs to join the table, which included Francis.
“So how are you getting back to the airport in Albuquerque when your vacation’s over?” Dad was asking Rose.
“I’m going to hitchhike!” Rose pronounced.
“That’s right,” Carrie agreed. “’Want to see some leg, folks? Prepare to be blinded!’”
“’Aah! My eyes!’” Joe cried.
“I can just see her sitting on her suitcase in the middle of the desert, a tumbleweed rolling past,” Collette said.
“I’m bringing a tumbleweed home with me,” Rose replied smugly.
And more family videos and Philmont comedy.
Puck was woken to be baby-cradled in Carrie’s arms – almost entirely out of it – while the boys stood around watching him sleep in absolute quiet peacefulness. Then he sort of blitzed out of it, almost trembling with excitement to get to the airport.
After realizing for the first time ever that there were two terminals at the airport, while walking through a crowd of folks fresh from their native Caribbean…
There he was himself.
The old grizzled man of the mountains.
He brought gifts from the conference and toy store, including a prism and tops, and a homemade chocolate bar for Collette.
“Puck,” he said. “I went through a cloud.”
“Mmm hmmm…”
“I went up above the clouds.”
“Mmm hmmm…”
“I went up so high.”
“Mmm hmmm…” then he thought about it. “Was it a mistake?”
As they returned around midnight, OLeif dropped his three hundred dollar phone. The glass splintered out across the screen. Fortunately, it still worked.
Meanwhile, it was the worst drought in 25 years.