Meanwhile back at the creek...

It's Hayao Miyazaki at the creek that morning... big clouds in blue sky... heavy green wood... train trundle...

“MOM! A FISH! LOOK HOW BIG THIS FISH IS!”... Yali is examining a slick creature the size of a baguette sitting motionless in the water under the old fallen tree... he hurries off to find a stick... “Careful Yali... don't scare it or anything...” // “I won't...” he picks up a large piece of driftwood and runs back down the creek bank towards the fish... driftwood raised in the air like a battle axe... “AAAAAAAAH!”... the terrified fish – what we identify as a Longnose Gar with needle teeth – rapidly swims away as Yali splashes into the cold water...

Meanwhile Patience finds a bank of natural clay and begins molding “strawberry” and “banana” truffles bringing them to me for sampling as she drips water over me and my notebooks... before she joins Yali in attempt to catch roils of minnows in the drink with an old McDonald's "boo bucket"...

An hour and a half later I escort my loud children back to the gravel lot – Yali wearing the boo bucket on his head – and place a short order through McD's for our traditional post-creek snack... this time the three of us are splitting a double quarter pounder with cheese slopped with ketchup and mayo into a cardboard box... Yali gasps in some kind of SpongeBob-esque wonder at the burger awaiting consumption... “Can I... hold it?”