04 OCT 25

Nine AM out in Byrnes Mill dropping off Yali with a friend and his grandpa for exploring Meramec Caverns... leave him watching “Floor is Lava” playing with their one-eyed dog after chatting with the grandpa about the cave on his property that needs exploring once the debris gets cleaned out... and about how his grandpa once met Jesse James' brother in STL...

Then zoom Patience back north for babysitting young R... opening gifts and sharing donut holes...

Back home Puck not exactly super happily joins me for a call with the oral surgeon... yes all four wisdoms need extraction... when he hears the cost he silently throws up one disgusted hand in the air like an old man hearing unwelcome political election results... but fortunately for him... he's not paying...

Grab Patience from the Big House before her private lesson at the studio... lessening density to the heat... while Puck texts for the car to take it to O'Fallon...

Then zip back to return Patience and swap vehicles for the one with the burnt-out headlight and grab a couple bags of Fritos before hitting the highway south to Pevely and movie night...

...where the little lady nieces are changing into Burt's Bees pajama sets and saying goodnight to everything multiple times over including the chickens and “outside” in general to avoid the walk upstairs to bedtime...

...while chili mac is prepared and... despite Elmer's recommendation of a documentary on wheat threshing... another episode of – what else? – “Engineering Disasters” which eventually devolves? into more rounds of Scattergories and extensive in-fighting over the definition of a mythical creature and IQ-stimulating arguments such as the “edibility” of a dead whale on the beach... “What if we just poured butter all over it?”...

Home before midnight... Yali talking loudly in his sleep about chocolate...