Puzzles

"Ok, they close in 11 minutes." Craig's blue eyes track oncoming traffic, "Do you want me to just run in?" He makes a left, then lobs over two lanes.

"Sure," I crunch a roasted almond, "3.6 miles and then a right onto 99."

"A right?" he flips the blinker. "I still can't believe there were 12 at the last place." He grins and noses us into the right lane. 12. Puzzles.

"Now you want to look for Aurora." We wade through more dot-to-dot directions. Craig squeezes our big car through traffic and into a front row parking spot.

"Love ya, bye," he calls and sprints under big red letters into another thrift store. I grab my book, bent open still to page 88, and savor a few more paragraphs. It's a treasure hunt.

Now and then I spot him tall and giddy through the store windows. He scans shelves bulged with games and puzzles. Puzzles. Yes, there he is; he bobs back to the car plunder under arm, opens the back and calls, "Guess how many."

Between doctor visits and big city traffic snarls, we weave thrift store to thrift store. 93. We've collected 93 since last winter. Puzzles. Springbok, of course. We spill our inbetween-evenings in puzzles and chatter and the quiet pressing of pieces into place. The good life.






Gratitude:

65. Mint chocolate and coffee, roasted almonds.

66. Sweaty curls around Lulie's face after nap.

67. Expositional comentaries on line for free.

68. Family gathered around barbecued meat, beans, watermelon.

68. Black beans simmered in cumin.

69. Strawberries, leaves and all.

70. Lucy's hug for the surgeon who still checks her eye.

71. Boy hair bleached red in the summer sun.

72. Burnt hot dogs my children ate anyway.

73. Popsicles dripped down their chins.

74. Tomato plants stretched tall toward the sun.

75. Hands of love that sprouted them for me. All 29.

76. Marigolds and cosmos and trailing planter that came with them.

77. Cool night air.

78. Soft bed sheets.

79. Bare feet on wood floors.

80. Tired shoulders that sigh into bed.

81. Cherry ice cream Janie ate on our date.

82. Lulie's swimsuit on backwards. Three times.

83. Baby fat.

84. Baby smiles.

85. Stinky baby feet.