What Does One do on a Day as Hot as Hades?

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

While the team in New Orleans went off for a grand demolition that morning, Collette found herself back in the heat and the fuzz and the haze. And Creole came over to spend the day with Frances and Linnea, while half of his family was in New Orleans and the other half working back in St. Louis.

That evening, Collette and Carrie-Bri had an appointment with Lucia for some nonsense or other. While waiting for her arrival, Carrie got out the old videotapes to peruse before recording over various bits. Almost the entirety of one tape included Annamaria and Rose recording one of their spend-the-night episodes where they recorded one of their infamous Playmobile animations including head-pounding castles-shackles-television drama. Later they filmed their finished products: several pies and pudding cups, a description of Annamaria’s elephant collection, and a night-vision performance of Rose singing I am Beautiful at 11:30 at night. There were also clips of Mom, Collette, Carrie-Bri, and Joe practicing Carrie’s Brazilian dance video and of Joe giving Susie Plum piggy-back rides around the basement while he and Rose babysat during an old Small Group evening.

Later, Carrie made plans to prepare for her Masters Degree in the Space Sciences, after another whirlwind trip to Chicago the following week, and wrapping up her Bachelors in the early fall.

And after hearing that Lucia could not make it that evening after all, there were dazzling cups of chocolate pudding for dessert after dinner, whereupon Mom took the kids to swim as the night came on and the heat subsided for the evening, somewhat. Although Collette had heard rumors that Thursday was to head to 101 degrees, despite the former idea that the same day would bring relief.

Meanwhile, Collette pondered a day when everyone called each other “honey”, even strangers.