I thought for a minute when I started writing this that I might be. It's just the sort of thing she would write so well, having all of us in the Women's Writing Retreat at The Clearing in stitches laughing at the antics of her little boys pushed around by circumstances, but I'm afraid it's just not funny enough. Maybe if I work on it some more it'll measure up...
December 10--Lorenzo Costa, The Nativity. Gerry sat squashed between his grandma and Mrs. Bishop in the church pew. He was too hot in his brown corduroy coat, woolen muffler, and snow boots, but Grandma had frowned and shook her head when he started to take off his coat. He had opened his mouth to ask why but she had frowned again, shook her head again, and this time she put her finger over her pursed lips in the universal shushing motion understood by grandsons all over the world. He tried to slump over but he didn't have enough room; both Grandma and Mrs. Bishop were broad in the beam and took up quite a bit of room in the pew, his room to be exact. It would have been the perfect spot to be in if the church's furnace had gone out, all pillow-y and warm, but with his coat on and the furnace blasting it was downright hot. Mass was going on forever too. He liked the singing, he thought it sounded like angels, but the incense smoke made him sneeze six times in a row which earned him frowns from both Mrs. Bishop and Grandma, and not one gesundheit. Would this torture never end? At the rate this was going, the Baby Jesus would be an old man by the time the priest let them go, and Santa would have skipped his house and be somewhere over Africa.
All that from a picture of the Virgin Mary painted by some long-dead Italian. I love it when stuff like that happens. I'm feeling a bit bah-humbug-ish these days, but I'm hoping the pretty, white, DEEP snow will help. I could do without the single digit temps, though.
--Barbara
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