Ye Olde Corned Beefe

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Nursery.
The dreading.
Times when reading the church bulletin was never more an essential item to address. It might as well have been high literature. Anything to distract from the uproar of…
Four quiet two year-olds.
And three of them were girls dressed up in pink fairy princess costumes. So it was pretty docile. Everyone else must have slept in. And Collette came through the hour and a quarter rather unscathed, to say the worst.
Back out in the sanctuary, Linnea ringed around with her gaggle, including Cherry who had arrived at ten o’clock the previous night. They had stayed up talking till six-thirty in the morning. Slept half an hour. Woke at seven to get ready for church. They did seem a little glazed over when they walked through the door just before eight o’clock.

The rain had just begun.
A porcelain dish of black soil sat on the little kitchen table.
“I don’t get it,” said Puck.
“I don’t get it either, Puck,” said Cherry.
“They’re Grandma’s shamrocks from Ireland,” Carrie informed Puck. “They need to be watered.”
This turned into Linnea and Cherry spraying each other with the water bottle once the bowl had been overly misted.
“Stop that!”
[Giggle, giggle.]
“Stop that!”
[Giggle, giggle.]
“Let me clean your laptop,” Rose demanded, pulling out her cleaning supplies.
Collette’s came first, then Carrie’s.
“I have to clean the farmer’s laptop at work,” Rose said, shaking her head. “It always smells like chickens.”
Carrie, spinning up the cabbage salad, popped something in her neck in the process and groaned.
“Whew,” said Rose, scrubbing at Carrie’s Arabic keyboard. “This is worse than the farmer’s.
He brought his goat into the server room. And he started to eat the cables.”

Linnea-Irish and Cherry came in to snuggle next to Rose on the couch after helping themselves to slices of Carrie’s butter bread, their arms wrapped in beaded bracelets and wearing red, where OLeif and Rose were busy discussing Mac Books.
Rose was arguing with Collette and Carrie about pies. She had decided to whip one up before Bible study that evening. Collette and Carrie-Bri sided with the “pies are difficult to make” campaign. Rose voted for easy.
“It’ll only take about an hour,” she said.
Carrie shook her head…
“Rose, you’ve never even made a pie before.”
“Yes, I have! With Annamaria. We made pies for Mr. English’s birthday. And with that criss-cross stuff on the top. One of them bubbled over, but that was Annamaria’s fault. I think she put too much sugar in it.”

When Dad returned, bringing Grandma Snicketts, lunch was spread with corned beef, loaded baked potatoes topped in bacon, cheddar, and green onions, two loaves of Carrie’s homemade bread, and the cabbage-based salad. There were also sugar cookies – some in green and some in orange, and of course the rich Irish butter fudge. More than a few people were groaning from fullness by the end of the meal.
Grandma couldn’t stay long; her back was acting up again, unfortunately. So Dad drove her home and then dropped Rose off at her apartment to bake her blackberry pie, which… turned into a cobbler.
The girls had plans for the week. This began with another slumber party that night with Eleda and Gretyl, followed by an all-dayer at the Zoo (while Mom spent an enjoyable morning in Rose’s apartment), lunch with Rose in Turtle Park with a picnic lunch of Carrie’s made-from-scratch scones and tea, and then Chesterfield Mall in the afternoon. Choir on Tuesday. And certainly another plethora of activities downtown and around throughout the rest of the week through Saturday.
For some reason, following lunch, Linnea and Cherry found it necessary to walk to McDonald’s after departure, with no intention of purchasing anything at all. They returned some time later with Gretyl.
OLeif and Carrie – in continued stressed pain from her neck-popping, discussed new business ideas.
Francis fell asleep on the couch.
Mom brought out Puck’s box for “Puck and Grandma Time” which included a container of finger-powered hopping plastic bunnies.
“Sun! Sun!” Puck exclaimed excitedly. “This bun-bun… is the highest bun-bun… in the team!”
Snuggles was constantly meowing for food… Dad had found him looking for his breakfast the other morning…
“I have a fear that other kitty got into the food last night,” Dad explained to him.
So much for Pumpkin’s diet, Carrie had noted.

Carrie had been in the business of convincing Mom to come to Walgreen’s with her for nail polish.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “Don’t you want some green nail polish for St. Patrick’s Day?”
“And what would you say of your mother if she wore green nail polish?” Mom replied with a smirk.
“That she was the coolest mom ever.”
“Uh huh…”
“Collette, if you ask her for nail polish, then you know she’ll take us.”
But Mom had other thoughts on the mind. Like soup for dinner. Arrangements for the girls’ possible Bible study that evening. Groceries for the following day…
“Are we going to make the girls salsa tonight?” Mom was asking Carrie.
Carrie grinned…
“That depends. Are we taking a trip to Walgreen’s?”
Meanwhile, Puck had been waiting for assistance from the trio in Linnea’s room. He was intent on having them help build block towers and heaved the hefty box of colored domino-sized blocks into the living room…
“I need you three girls… to help me build a tower,” he declared.
“Ok, Puck,” they all called back. “Tell us when you’re ready.”
“Ok,” he replied seriously, holding his hands carefully up in the air in management style. “Come when I call your names.”
Once the girls had joined him, the level of noise increased as they all got busy making patterns of the shape blocks and erecting towers on the floor. There was much giggling, shouted instructed, and the occasional screaming giggle… and not all by Puck either, though he appeared to be the ring-leader.
“Puck, shhhh…” OLeif and Collette warned him intermittently.
“Ok,” he replied, still seriously. “I understand, parents.”
Mom changed the soup to sandwiches for the evening – due to a certain someone drinking all the milk for the tomato soup…
“Francis!” Carrie yelled from the top of the stairs. “Get up here! You’re in big trouble!”
Joe was leaving to hang out with Wally.
Francis was departing for his own Bible study.
And the Silverspoon’s were departing for the evening.

Puck anxiously awaited the return of OLeif from Aldi as the rain continued to fall heavily.
“My tummy is hurting for milk,” he groaned.
They returned in the blue light of an evening rain.

OLeif turned on some drilling Eastern European violin as he finished his last reading of the evening, before relaxing over some comedy and Reeses.
And once again, the Phenomenal OLeif was out snoring after 30 seconds of shut-eye.