What.
My red bean bento box and a detailed three-ring binder checklist was all I needed to get me through Friday #1.
I was back in the office.
The illusive snail that sometimes reminds me it’s still there. 9,384 miles back, but it’s still there. Waiting to drown me in boxes of colored copier toner and grammatically incorrect chili cook-off blurbs. I don’t really care that much. Libraries and offices are supposed to be quiet, and sometimes, I actually get that quiet when I’m “administrating” in them, fortunately. Somewhere around waiting for the printer to cough up the usual 180, I had a few minutes to research the “Cave of the Patriarchs”. [So much for the teenage dream of discovering the tombs of Sarah, Abraham, etc. Apparently their bones were dug up 900 years ago by a monk and washed in wine. Then “neatly stacked”.] And The Bear tried to remotely hook me on Gospel music… again. It’s pretty happy stuff, I grant you. And I felt less ill will towards an incapable set of beastly metal and plastic and a few reims of dyed dead wood.
But I don’t complain, right?
My favorite part about the office is walking back from church with an empty bulletin box – day done – under one of the open skies across the old cow field. Autumn, daddy-long-legs, sugar maple flames, and light blue sky.
So Mom and Dad tuned in to the red and orange foothills of Branson this weekend on their annual getaway to show town shows and dinners. Sans Mr. Andy Williams this time, of course, God rest his old soul. Sniff.
Puck, meanwhile, had been busy. Barefoot under skinny jeans and hooded sweatshirt, mixing caramel apple cider on the stove with Carrie, and prepping a recipe for Jell-O playdough, with plans to produce a show to his own selected theme song – “Carry on My Wayward Son”.
I also noticed a box of “Super Blonde” hair dye on the counter for Linnea, who was lounging in her dimmed room watching my recent favorite – “Oh Ha Ni”. And about an eight-inch golden scalp lop-off nested forlornly on the piano. Wouldn’t Mom be surprised on Sunday. On both counts.
Joe walked upstairs and grabbed the sheared ponytail, attached it to the side of his head with a silly grin.
“Hi, guys.”
“Put that back, Joe,” Carrie commanded. “I’m using it.”
Guess I’m not the only around here who collects the remains of the shear.
Linnea, geared up for another sports meet, then shared her Hallowe’en volleyball friends plans…
“Yeah, so we’re all going to dress up like Blue’s Clues characters, visit a graveyard, and then ‘spork’ people’s front lawns. I’m going to be Steve. I was going to be the mailbox…”
Before a still-scruffy Francis returned from rock climbing and lunch with Gaston and Creole, Puck walked inside from the back lawn, a moped helmet wedged on his head, and grabbed a slice of four-hour-old pizza from the counter, still bare foot.
Then Joe tore a wart off his finger.
Always something new and thrilling going on over here.
Somehow before getting his teeth brushed tonight, Puck swallowed a small glass bead, which isn’t all that surprising, I guess…
The Bear napped at 7:30. Yes, napped. And I?…
The Game. The game, the game.
Chick-Fil-A was required. Much Chick-Fil-A.
The screams and fireworks around town around eleven explained everything.