When You Don't Expect It
Thunder cracked through domestic dreams of purchasing a different house, I think, and Mom telling me about her and Dad’s upcoming 41 days of travel to three countries in Europe and South America: Hungary, maybe Sweden, and who knows.
So, yes – thunder. 6:30 in the morning. Just what we ordered.
And, yes, I was a little excited, sure. By four o’clock, all eyes on Atlanta.
But first, I had to catch up with Kate Middleton at the church office, middle morning. She was leaving for her new position on Tuesday, so I had volunteered all of my Fridays for the next… hopefully not very long. Within reason. I hoped. I returned under another surprisingly green-like rain shower, despite the cold 46 degrees in early October. St. Louis boasts stunning weather swings.
I spread a pb&j for Puck, just returning from a brief shopping excursion, where he joined Francis for “Star Trek” before setting Sasquatch traps outside in the tapering rain with Carrie. And Joe whipped into his detailed experience in font-drawing to help The Bear in a last-minute youth T-shirt for the youth retreat. For some reason they print up t-shirts every October, hand-designed, for a bunch of below-eighteens slamming flour bombs in each other’s faces and downing buckets of nacho cheese mixed with hot sauce or whatever else they dare each other to game. This year’s freebies also included blue rubber bracelets, apparently.
But at four o’clock I checked out the big show on… the 2-D graphics of my laptop. Better than nothing, of course. Even the Symphony had donned Cardinals jerseys and red today, with the conductor sporting a #12 behind the baton. It’s a deeper community the longer you live in this city. I was having trouble peeling myself from the screen, I have to admit.
By the time Mom and Dad chucked off a stack of groceries and dry goods to visit Grandma Snicketts, and then a Friday night date, The Bear followed on the heels of more dark gray on busheling green. A frozen picture in windless silence; nothing moved.
When Braves fans began hurling garbage onto the field following an unappreciated call in the eighth – while Puck and I listened on the radio in the car – I guess my first thought was embarrassment. For Chipper’s final career game. Instead of creating a pleasant memory for their veteran, they trashed it. No pun intended. Poor chap. I was so upset, I ate six cookies without thinking. Well I would have done that anyway, but still…
A knock on the door at 8:30. Joe and Rose had ventured through cold, wet streets to laugh over a little comedy in the basement which included passing around the cat for some cuddles, if not entirely mutual.
Thought of the Day
Traveling briefly, and accidentally, through East St. Louis the other night – who says you still can’t take wrong turns after eleven downtown – I was reminded of all the horror stories across the big muddy. Granted, I still wonder why they insist on also labeling themselves as St. Louis, despite the significant gap of river and state from the original, true St. Louis. Unfortunately, people living outside our beautiful gemstone, tend to understand St. Louis as equaling East St. Louis, which is like comparing rubies to graphite. Sure, we have our own treacherous corners. There’s something a little chill-the-spine about those streets up north you just don’t drive down. I heard someone once jokingly describe our city as beautiful, as long as you “don’t make a wrong turn”. I guess the old Italian-gangster-mafia tradition never quite dissolved from the robust 1930’s or whatever. Our history is rich with all things.