Where's Our Mansion?
“Why is it so dark in the mornings, Mom?”
I briefly explained the concept of Daylight’s Saving.
“Let me get this straight. They went to NASA. Got inside a space shuttle. Went to turn the sun around. And came back.”
“No.”
“Okay, they changed the Earth around.”
Shakespeare Spirit Day at school. Puck didn’t have any official 16th century garb, but that didn’t stop him from sitting through a solid 50-minute production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” followed by twenty minutes of highly active Q&A where the fascinated audience, 1st – 6th graders, asked questions of the actors like, “What’s your favorite color?” and “Which Dewey’s Pizza do you work at?” So turns out, helping supervise about sixteen 2nd graders during a Shakespearean play equals merely sitting on a fold-up chair on the sidelines with the teachers. It’s a good group of kids.
“Mom? Why can’t we have a mansion?”
I expected it. Driving home from Puck’s four-hour playdate in Chesterfield at four o’clock in the misting rain, I wondered what his reaction would be to hanging out with a genuine “rich kid”.
When I parked my little Honda Fit in the semi-circle drive and walked up to the front door, Puck and his buddy were busy cutting up cardboard, strapping them into important inventions with patterned duct tape, eating raisin-studded Girl Scout cookies. It’s nice knowing un-snooty friendly down-to-earth Midwest rich people.
I explained the reasons we don’t own a mansion: 1. seminary, 2. private school, 3. international adoption. Amongst other things. Puck was satisfied with the answers.
When Rose, Francis, Joe, and Jaya walked through the door for movie night, I added Puck’s paper sack of Valentine’s candy to the snack table. All it took was the Fun Dips for Joe and Rose to start digging in.
“Are my teeth blue?” Rose asked after awhile.
“Yup.”
After a few television shows involving Canadian humor, Oxbear flipped on promotional cruise videos. Why these are made available on Roku at all, is pure mystery. Anyway, the elegance of the Queen Mary 2 passed in slideshow fashion across the screen.
“What a dump!” Rose exclaimed.
“Rose, your teeth are still blue.”