You Just Never Know

Sometimes I lose track of the days. What seems like one, is actually three. Here we were on a Thursday, and I couldn’t remember most of what had happened since Sunday.

The wind was high. Way high. I could hear it tearing through the neighborhood even before we got up. Raging wind over a low band of orange sunrise tucked under dark gray sky. Like something right out of The Willows. As we sent The Bear off to work, Puck ran around in the front yard, arms in the air squealing…

“Yay! Yay! Yay!”

The Bear had one more thought before he backed down the cement…

“Did you know that St. Francis of Assisi sold cloth?”

“I did not.”

“Do you even care?” he scoffed.

Inside, I grilled Puck’s egg-in-a-nest while he polished off his breakfast glass…

“Finished my water!” he announced, thrusting a pointed finger at the timer on the stove. “You lose, clock!”

While I straightened the house, I noticed the accidental image of a double tornado descending from cloud top smeared on the glass via strawberry yogurt. Someone had been a little too eager to watch the windstorm that morning.

“Blow your nose, Puck,” I told him in the middle of lessons.

“Mama!” he pushed his face close up to mine. “Do you think I got the cold?! ‘Cause I don’t got the cold!”

When I returned to the living room later, Puck had switched the music to a Medieval “Voite Praetorius”. He met me in proper poise, struck up the ballroom hold, and led me in a dance, pausing only once to scratch his nose.

We unwrapped some oven-bake clay which I molded into little bricks, Puck helping. I kept at it, while he decided to groom Crackers on his break with The Bear’s hair brush. This, amazingly, she enjoyed, and continued to purr throughout the experiment.

10:41

“Puck, look!”

Bright eyes followed me to the kitchen windows.

“It’s snowing!” he jumped for joy. “Thank you, God.”

45 hot little bricks came out of the oven half an hour later. We were in the castle-building business. Tooth picks for roofs. Iron age versions.

By lunch, the snow was sticking. That tell-tale powdered sugar donut topping.

Puck was enjoying the circus outside, but he also found indoor distractions to remove his focus from the tuna and salad…

“Puck?”

“I’m just trying to look at my tongue, Mom.”

Sometime later…

“Do ghosts go to Heaven?”

“Well, that’s sort of a complicated question… If ghosts exist, which, well… There’s sort of a version of a ghost, a couple of ghosts, in the Bible. So, yes, their spirits did go to Heaven first, if we understand correctly… So I suppose at least in a few cases, ghosts did go to Heaven…”

“Will I be a ghost?”

“Well…”

The snow kept on swirling. Puck joined me for the last half of a BallyK balloon race episode during Quiet Hour. Eh, why not.

My son decided to be suave again this evening. He struck up another dance between rounds of dry-mopping the floors for half an hour.

“I went to Plan B,” he said as we swayed back and forth.

“What’s Plan B?”

“Getting you to dance.”

“What was Plan A?”

“Cleaning things.”

He had more thoughts for me later between readings…

“The Earth respects space. And space respects the Earth.”

“Well, I guess that’s very true…”

“And all the planets respect space. Until they run out of gasoline. And they just fall down into space… anywhere… How loud would that be?”

Sunrise had been invited over for dinner. Fantastic hostess that I am, The Bear picked up Moe’s on the way in. I would have made something, but… there is no way in the world I’m messing with peanut allergies. Legume allergies. Or any other allergy. Unless I’m practiced and proven. I’d never forgive myself. And so…

Sunrise arrived in a staples Popples French braid and bright pink sweatshirt, her version of a coat. Living in Texas for a couple of years will do that to you, as she mentioned to us. She reminds me a lot of Kitts, actually, facial expressions and everything. And she’s always had some spunk.

We sat around plates of quesadillas and fajitas, chips and queso sauce – which is better than what I could have done anyway – and caught up. Just a little bit. When you only have an hour, there’s a lot of hills left unturned.