Last year I picked up Andrea at school at noon and then Elizabeth at her school at 2:55 and on to piano at 3:30. This always involved a snack in my car so we could make it on time. By the end of the school year, juice boxes started to fossilize under the seats. Some things that may once have been pretzels became embedded in the floor mats. I've cleaned the car since then. Today in fact. All clean for the new school year.
It's been less than a year since their mother died. A bird song I don't recognize interrupts my thoughts. Kathleen would've known it immediately.
The bus arrives. I hear Elizabeth telling Andrea to wait until the approaching car slows down before she crosses to where I am. We're late. They squabble over lollipops for snack. Andrea wants to bring Elizabeth's calculator to Mrs. Reed's. Elizabeth doesn't want her to. I take the calculator. Andrea reminds me we need a storybook. I grab one near the door: Danny the Meadow Mouse. We finally get going.
By the time we get to Mrs. Reed's, Andrea has forgotten about the calculator and the lollipop. The old stray cat that hangs around Mrs. Reed's sprawls in the middle of the driveway. Not much room for my car. We let ourselves in without letting the cat in. Mrs. Reed is always reminding her students this cat is not hers. He looks dirtier and more matted than last year. I see a few scratches on his back. Andrea wants to know if I will take him home to be friends with Wilbur. "Wilbur might like him because he's almost the same color" she says.
Deep in Danny the Meadow Mouse, I don't realize the lesson has ended until Elizabeth comes to the doorway of the parlor and I hear Mrs. Reed warning the next student not to let the cat in. The cat's on the porch now. The kids want me to take him home. Just what I need, another homeless cat. If Mrs. Reed was willing to pay the surrender fee, I could try to get the shelter to take him. But Shirley is a long long way from Salisbury and our mission is the homeless cats of greater Newburyport/Salisbury. I can't conceive of a map on which Shirley is in greater Newburyport. Someone feeds this cat. He is not thin. Why he has attached himself to Mrs. Reed's driveway is a mystery.
We stop at the pheasant farm on the way back. The burnished brown color of the males' breasts deepens in the late afternoon sun. I can see why female pheasants would go for these guys! I have no idea what the Mass. Division of Fish & Wildlife does with these pheasants. Something tells me I don't want to know. The kids always want to stop to look at them. To watch them run, scratch, fluff their feathers, fly a little... stuff pheasants do. I open the moon roof so the kids can stick their heads out to enjoy the pheasants. Elizabeth turns upside down. Her bare feet stick out of the roof. A police car drives by. Whew! He doesn't stop to ticket me for not having the kids buckled in. I'm parked, so I guess you don't have to have the seatbelts securely fastened and the seatbacks and tray tables in the full upright and locked position and the feet inside the vehicle...
The stuffed animals go bungie jumping out Andrea's bedroom window until Kevin comes home from work.
Nancy and I have dinner at Siam Garden then listen to the Red Sox game on the radio. They beat the Yankees 4 to 2.