01 JUL 26

The whir of Oxbear blending onion and sweet potato and orange bell pepper in the kitchen that morning must have woken Goose the kitten sleeping on the floor underneath Puck’s bed... wanting to be as close to his boy as possible apparently... and Puck had already determined that he could not yet sleep on the bed because it was “too high for him to jump off of”...

Meanwhile Cheese is sulking in the storage room ceiling... having been sealed away from the newbie for a short time... and he snubs all of us for the entire day...

But if Goose was expecting to join a quiet family... all expectations must have quickly receded in his eight-weeks-old mind as his scraggly head and huge ears curiously examine the other side of the tiny windows in the cat door of Puck’s room... listening to the kids yelling at each other and the dog scattering across the kitchen tiles throughout the morning...

After lunch I tote them off to the pool for only one hour... the heat index is already pushing past 105 before one o’clock... reading about Protestantism in 16th century France while “Play That Funky Music” blasts from the waterpark speakers...

Back home again... Yali practices tossing sour cherry balls into the air and catching them in his mouth... most of them end up on the floor and then eventually some many tries later in his mouth...

Pots begin clattering in the kitchen as I prepare taco meat and cheesy rice for Tex Mex...

The boys start tousling with each other until I shut that down after Oxbear takes a serious call halfway through another Doctor Who episode as a chair gets knocked over to the ground and the boys begin silently barking and laughing at each other with hand gestures...

But eventually... as Puck leaves for J’s with strong instructions for his kitten to be checked on every hour while he’s out... and Patience gears up for a small class at the studio... the noise levels drop a little... so does the heat... and all creatures great and small settle into a summer evening...