18 MAY 26

It’s a sinister sketch of vampire-dark storm somewhere in the west that morning...

Before it breaks the dog is busy barking at squirrels... Yali is probably busier crafting fake cuts and scabs onto his face for mock battle wounds and occasionally throwing a cushion at Alexa for being wrong about things... like the weather apparently... and Oxbear is practicing making soft pretzel bites from scratch in between meetings...

But by then the storm has arrived and the rain barely stops washing the lands throughout the whole morning and afternoon and into the evening...

While driving Patience back from babysitting young master “R” who escorts her like a gentleman to our car carefully holding her hand before another patch of rain... she is busy anticipating all the fun she’s going to have when Puck returns from having his wisdom teeth pulled in a few weeks... “He’s going to be so goofy...” she says with satisfaction... “I want to see what he does while he’s anesthesed”…

And then I explain to her that she’ll be at summer camp that whole day and won’t have opportunity to witness him “anesthesed”... as I planned it...

“What! NO!”... arms folded across her chest in protest as she thinks about this for a minute... “It’s NOT FAIR!” she grumps... more thunder rattles above us...

By this time the yard is a full soup... and Yali is waiting for us inside where he’s getting a little irritated at his diorama of Machu Picchu that somehow survived his younger childhood because it keeps appearing in unwanted places... “GET OUT OF HERE MACHU PICCHU!” he bellows…

An then it’s evening and there’s a sprawl of work and ideas... cheeseburgers being made in the kitchen and Scout patches being ironed onto uniform shirt for a Court of Honor that night and leaving for the gym and a documentary on the Mennonite community of Belize sent over from Sally... as the rain simpers off into the night...