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March 20, 1998
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I kept waiting for the bad weather to start but the predictions kept pushing it later in the day so I had an uneventful drive to Groton, making it there in plenty of time to wait nonchalantly for the bus. Lizzy stayed at school for another play rehearsal so it was only Andrea on the bus. I dropped Andrea off at piano and headed for the middle school to pick up Lizzy and get her to Mrs. Reed's in time for her piano lesson. When I entered the middle school, the troll dancers were rehearsing in the hallway outside the auditorium singing:
Inside the auditorium the aisles were crowded with performers' younger siblings stretching out, rolling around, doing whatever bored little brothers and little sisters do while they wait for the big kids to be done with rehearsal. Just as I was about to try to navigate the aisle without stepping on somebody's baby sister, Lizzy turned around and noticed me. She agilely reached the back of the auditorium without stepping on anybody and we were off to Reed World. Mrs. Reed gave Andrea a pussy willow branch, which Andrea calls "poofy willow". She picked one of the small catkins and gave it to me. While Lizzy had her lesson, I read to Andrea from my Fairy Tale Omnibus - the very one I had as a child - you should see how yellowed the pages are. Andrea picked The Little Mermaid. Umm, this is way darker than the Disney version. The half hour of Lizzy's lesson just flew by. It was hard to put aside The Little Mermaid when it was time to go. Meanwhile the troll song has infected my brain - I'm often subjected to the viral song phenomenon - it took me years to get over one ride on the It's a Small World thing at Disneyland. So, my brain is going "We're big bad trolls..." and willow catkins are separating from the branch and becoming tiny furry pets. Back at the house, Lizzy and Andrea make little beds/housing for their catkins. You can make quite a fine palace with some aluminum foil, yellow twist ties, tape, paper, and the odd seashell. The poofy willow catkins all got names. One of Lizzy's was Poohfeelya. Andrea's were PoohKa, Poofy, and Cutie. I made up the spelling according to how the names sounded to me when Lizzy asked me to write them down. After the ritual pizza and the ritual watching of Full House and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince... all the usual suspects, nieces and poofy willows went to bed (around 10:00PM). Awhile later, Andrea came downstairs to request that I write down my Tetris scores (I was playing Tetris on her Gameboy) so she would know how I did. Later she came down again because Poofy fell under the bed and she couldn't find him. I went up to look for him. I even offered her my little poofy willow, which was still in my pocket, but she told me I had to take him home and feed him the foods, drinks, and medicines she provided. Finally we found Poofy. Later still, she came down to tell me she had nothing to read. I offered her the fairy tale book. She liked that idea but only if I came upstairs and read her the rest of The Little Mermaid. By the time I got to the part where the mermaid faces the terrible choice of killing the prince or dying herself, Andrea was sound asleep. | |
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