Write that Sermon, Boy

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Collette had found the snickerdoodles.
Taken two.
And put them away.
Unfortunately, OLeif had also found them. He opened the box, parading them in front of Collette.
“Fine,” Collette caved.
– As she reached for a cookie, she looked at him skeptically. –
“Do you have a second wife picked out or something?”
“No,” OLeif grinned. “I just like seeing this one happy.”

Sixty jumping jacks.

The sermon writing was pumping along on a Saturday morning.
2.46% completed of the big-big project for Collette.
Deviled eggs prepped for Sunday’s dinner.
Trinidadian-Dutch Eurodance.
Cards vs Nationals.

Collette was reminded of growing up in the Kirk of the Hills elite, which included several former Cardinals players. Rick Horton’s daughter had been one of Carrie-Bri’s Sunday School classmates. Dave Tobik, formerly of the Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, and Seattle Mariners, had a daughter in Collette’s class. Back in the shy days of junior high, when it was Collette’s turn to contribute snacks to the hundred or so junior/senior highers and had brought a bag of red apples – so stereotypical home-schooler of her, she had learned that Miss Tobik had aspirations to become a cleaning lady when she “grew up”.
“Don’t laugh!” she had prefaced the revelation.
“I think that would be an interesting job,” Collette had replied.
Or something dumb like that.

OLeif was deep into his second point at 1:30.
The day was cool, clocking in the high 60’s.
The Cards took another win, 6-2, over the Nationals at Space Coast Stadium.

It was time to pick up the Chub-Chub. Sometime around his fifth birthday, Collette figured she would have to stop calling him that. After all, he wasn’t the blue-eyed baby with three chins anymore. He was the hazel-eyed pre-K with one and a half.
He had found a pair of roller skates in the basement and had apparently been skating from seven in the morning until two in the afternoon. When they arrived, he was wearing them again, as Papa Murphy’s pizza cooked in the oven, followed by a pan of brownies for dessert.
Gloria had just returned with him from shopping around town, and handed Collette a piece of the newspaper featuring the Cardinals…
“When Puck saw this he said something like, ‘I’m afraid that newspaper has to be for Mama, ’cause it has the Cardinals’.”
He had also been allowed a purchase…
“A ‘rolly-hoop’ is what he called it,” Gloria explained, as Puck showed off his new blue hula-hoop. “He’s done really well with his skates,” she continued. “Once he was trying to skate holding a football in one arm and his chick in the other hand, and I told him to hand me the football, so he scoots over carefully and he says, ‘It’s hard for a man to skate’.”
Puck looked skeptically at Collette as she attempted to hand him a piece of sausage from her pizza…
“But, Mama! I don’t like meat balbs!”

On the ride home, the boys got chatting about the sun and matches and other things…
“What’s a bear in a chair, Dad?”
“A chocolate bear.”
“A chocolate bear?”
“Dipped in bacon.”
“Dipped in bacon.”
“That tastes like oranges.”
“Oranges.”
“And his name is…”
“Bye.”
“And his brother’s name is…”
“Brain.”
Laughter.

The evening concluded with Collette being hit in the face by a pair of her son’s underwear flying down the hallway. The giggling was profuse.

Meanwhile, on another side of town in the church barn, Mom and Dad were learning the Cha Cha, or something like that.