January 16th, 2025
CRASH!
Somewhere in the early hours of the morning after a nightmare panic of wooded 18th century pre-Colonial America hauntings and insanity and disease (nighttime is fun)... I have a half-awake memory of my Pier 1 jewelry box smashing to the floor, but I am not nearly awake enough to fix this... Oxbear later suggests it was the cats, as I collect the broken box and tangles of mostly beads...
After Puck walks upstairs from the treadmill that morning, he brings out a recent order from the mail – German Navy issued leather belt (potentially pre-Berlin Wall)... wants to polish the buckle of its rainbow-esque tarnish... I recommend toothpaste... he's amazed by the resulting shine... after he marvels over that for a little while, he downs a plate of eggs and bacon before a work-out in the basement
While the kids take a break from the books, I wash up a load of dishes while Puck walks in to engage in arguments on apologetics, miracles, Christological visions/dreams, exorcisms, the problem of evil, etc. ... some fire in there... Patience throws out a few pennies too... this family enjoys a debate
Chinese culture before lunch... the kids enjoy hearing about how Chinese nationals stopped me several times (and once, Oxbear) in the Forbidden City and other places in Beijing to take a photo with them (blonde-ish hair, brown eyes so rare over there)... “It's like you were a celebrity!” Yali laughs
Lunch break for Mama : travel documentary on Western Turkey and some light research on varying Islamic belief systems
Just before two o'clock, Puck leaves for another four hours in Produce... before he goes, I try to save the kitchen bananas he's about to pitch, and he only says, “I think I know more about produce than you do now” (have to agree)
Yali and Patience are busy in the snow again... Patience briefly returns to chop up carrots and collect frozen peas... “We're making snowmans with them!” (still working on that delayed English grammar structure...)
Hit the treadmill – walking only – and learn a little off the internets... home-chopped red cedarwood ice cream... moon snail egg sand-collars... Sheku Kanneh-Mason playing “Scarborough Fair” with classical guitar...
A little SpongeBob in the afternoon before Patience and I are shuttling back to the studio for a ninety minute class...
On the drive, Patience tells me all about how she wants lots of Nike items for her next birthday and about her grown-up plans one day... “I want to get married and have two kids, biological and adopted, and I want to be a person who does peoples' nails and a vet, and I want to have three dogs and a rabbit, and I'm going to have a house way bigger than ours with all the things...” “And what is your husband going to do?”... “Work”... we spend some time talking about helping and caring for people as much as we can...