St. Augustine: A Few More Tidbits

Bunny and I sat around together trying to remind each other of old Christmas memories, things the other might have forgotten. I love doing this with Bunny because she has a mind like a steel trap; she remembers the tiniest details, whereas I’m kind of dumb and forget everything.

We remembered going to an FSU Physics Department Christmas party (Dad was a physics professor) at the planetarium on campus in 1982. I reminded Bunny that I wore a red plaid jumper that Mom made me, and that the party included a planetarium show. Bunny reminded me about how relaxing the show was; we sat in the dark in plush, reclining chairs, gazing up at the stars.

Bun and I were talking and talking and then we heard the familiar music of the ASPCA commercial and we heard Mom say,” Oh, I can’t watch this. It’s too sad.” And then the next thing we knew, Jake was sobbing and sobbing. “I can’t take it, Mommy,” he said. “It’s too sad!” He sobbed for at least half an hour and worried about the sad dogs in the commercial. “I just can’t take it!” he kept saying. And his little back was shaking, and his little face was all red and wet.

Kris said, “Something you can do is always be nice to your own pets. Be very nice to them. That’s something good you can do to help.”

But the wild sobbing continued for a long time.

I realize I just said our beach house was so jolly and then I ended up talking about how Jake sobbed for half an hour. Well, finally we were able to distract him and turn everything jolly again. (But I will be making a donation to the ASPCA in his name very soon.)

Cute dumb little Sophie went in the kitchen and made herself a little treat. She came out again with a big white ceramic cup with a big plume of whipped cream protruding above the rim; the whipped cream plume was studded all over with mini marshmallows–at least 20.

“Look at the hot chocolate I made,” Sophie said. “Doesn’t it look good?”

“Wow,” her mother said. “That’s a lot of whipped cream.”

“And a lot of marshmallows,” I added.

Sophie giggled. “It goes all the way down to the bottom. The whipped cream. See? There’s not actually any chocolate.”

“Soph!” Mom scolded.

“Wait a minute,” Kris said. “You mean you prepared yourself an entire mug of whipped cream?

A little later Sophie was telling us her tummy hurt and she couldn’t finish her cheeseburger.

“Well,” Bunny said, “do you think it might have anything to do with that whipped cream concoction you enjoyed earlier?”

“No,” Sophie said. She was quite serious.

We dug out Sophie and Jake’s new Play Doh Fun Factory and got that going. It had a battery-operated conveyor belt, and soon we were cranking out Play Doh pretzels and Play Doh candies. We also created workers out of Play Doh. Sophie’s character was the boss, and Bunny’s character was a slacker named Pinkie who spent most of his time relaxing in the parking lot.

Sophie played the boss as kind of a hard ass, but then Jake took over the factory and we workers were in for a treat. Pinkie was immediately given a raise, and after an accident on the assembly line (a worker fell onto the conveyor belt and was processed into a pretzel) we were all given promotions.

“Thank you, boss,” my character, Mr. Green, said, “for rewarding us for our carelessness!”

“You helped clean up!” our new boss said cheerfully. “You helped fix it!” Our new boss was so positive.

The boss began inventing new candies (including a tie-dyed jawbreaker) and selling each one for a million dollars. A polka-dotted pretzel sold for $2 million.

“And I will give you half the money!” Jake/the boss said to Mr. Green. “And $500 for a tip!”

“Why, thank you, boss!” Mr. Green said. “You’re the best boss ever!”

Sophie was listening in (she’d quit playing Play Doh to do some beading) and she was getting mad. “The factory is going to go out of business,” she predicted. “Because a new, stupider boss has taken over.”

The boss kept selling candies for millions of dollars and showering the workers with “tips.” We were also given promotions galore and year-long vacations. Our boss was so nice he was clearly insane.

“But boss,” Mr. Green protested when he was given his year-long vacation, “I’ll miss you!”

“I will miss you too,” the boss said. “So how ‘bout you come live with me?”

Oh, our new boss was so sweet.

Another thing I wanted to mention: On Tuesday evening, just before sunset, Jake and Sophie were riding their scooters around in the parking lot in front of the beach house. They were so cute, their cheeks pink from the wind. With their round faces and chubby cheeks, they really do remind me of the Campbell’s Soup Kids. They were going so fast on their scooters and saying, “Watch me! Hey Bunny, hey Leslie, watch this!”

Another tidbit: When we were at the antiques stores on Tuesday afternoon, Matt was teasing Sophie because she kept bumping into him. “Don’t be crowd-y, Sophie,” he said. (I was off in another part of the store while this was going on, looking at some wonderfully tacky rhinestones.)

So when I rejoined the group (Bun, Matt, and Sophie were peering into a case), the first thing Sophie said to me was, “Don’t be crowd-y, Leslie.” She was so cute, dressed in her owl hat and all sassy.

I wanted to say just a little bit more about playing Liv Dolls with Sophie. On Tuesday night Bun and I played with the two sister dolls, Hayden and Jaden. And Sophie played with the doll named Sophie. Once again, my doll, Jaden, was the foil. Right off, she stole Sophie’s wig. This was actually the human Sophie’s idea. “Let’s say she steals my wig,” Sophie whispered. Then she cried in her doll voice, “She stole my wig!”

“Jaden,” Hayden said, confronting the poor, pathetic thief (who could never ever catch a break in our game). “Just be yourself. You don’t need to steal Sophie’s look.”

“Yeah,” Sophie said.

I had Jaden say, “Y’all are just jealous because I have a date to the prom!”

Hayden giggled. “Oh yeah, with Stuey. He asked all of us, you know. But we turned him down.”

“He’s kind of a nerd,” Sophie said.

“We’re not worried about dates,” Hayden added. “We’re going to the prom, sure, but in a big group. You know, just as friends.”

“Well . . . well, maybe I’ll bail on Stuey and go with you!” Jaden said.

“Well,” Hayden sighed. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea. I don’t want him calling the house again, crying.”