27 SEP 25

Yali's crooning Bruno Mars probably louder than necessary on an early Saturday morning down the hall... cracking into the high notes that aren't as silky anymore since his voice changed in the summer... makes him laugh...

Oxbear is already gone to an early business meeting with one of his best friends...

Patience is discussing birthday plans in detail with me... Sweet and Sassy ear piercing being her primary request for the big 1-0 coming up next Thursday... “And you know Mom... when you take me to Sweet and Sassy and I get out of the car at the mall... that will be the last time the cars see me with not my ears pierced”... she's run through all people options now and is moving on to inanimate objects...

Oxbear returns before ten to drive Yali out to the nuclear clean-up mound in Weldon Spring to meet some of the cousins for Pollinator Palooza... hoping some time walking around all those butterflies and bumblebees will help Yali through his fear of things with stingers... so while they're hanging with bugs and a taco truck for lunch including a “tiger's blood” shaved ice for after...

...Patience gets in her two hours at the studio... later returning to wash a stack of dishes for me while I prepare plates of BLTs and silver dollar pancakes for the remaining crew... “Dishes are so lucky”... she sighs to herself spreading my dish gloves through hot suds... “they get to swim all the time”...

After Oxbear and Yali leave the Palooza to hang with Theodore and Gloria for a couple hours in St. Peters they also stop at Spirit Halloween to check out the costumes before returning with a young man pumped with ideas and a good time... “How did you feel being around all those bees?” I check with him... // **grins and crosses his arms over his chest like a cool cat** “One of the bees asked me if I like jazz”...

Evening is for “Stranger Things” for the boys while Patience beads bracelets in her room and for identifying birdcalls on Oxbear's phone... I can only pull “morning dove” and “crow” with accuracy...