04 SEP 25
It's fifty-seven degrees at the alarm that morning...
Yali is already pounding around the house – tortured artist – looking for scotch tape... the old VBS t-shirt he spray-painted over for his next costume needs another coating in the basement...
Some learning explosion of clocks and nouns and Russian para-athletes and wizards and 15th century Native American crops later... a delivery of roofing supplies arrives a day early for the house... THUD... THUD... THUD... the ceiling shakes as they're dropped in stacks on the ridge board... Yali and Patience a little fascinated as more packages are sent up the small conveyer belt from the truck to the rooftop...
This is about the time Yali thinks it would be “hilarious” to pull Patience's chair out from under her when she sits back down at the table... tailbone cracks into the wood floor... many tears... Yali looking significantly guilty...
Once that's all “sorted” and Patience is maybe dialing up the “OW!”s a little too much for Yali's benefit...
...Puck returns from J's for a somewhat weak BLT... low on bacon... just in time to help me move both cars out of the driveway for the delivery of the trailer-dumpster for tomorrow's big project...
Mid-afternoon Yali and Patience are fighting hard... separate them between “Little House on the Prairie” and violent air battles on the trampoline so soaked in fake blood that I have to ask the young man to turn the opposite direction of the road as the school buses start dropping kids off...
While Patience and I scoot to the studio for another class...
...Oxbear returns from Nashville about forty-five minutes later to hang out with the boys... celebratory Chick-fil-A included...
And by the time the Egyptian red disc of the sun is sinking slashed in smoky cloud... Patience and I are driving back to join them as she details her birthday hopes and wishes for October including her ears pierced at Sweet & Sassy... not Claire's... and a breakfast of “chocolate pancakes with whipped cream from a can... not Cool Whip... and orange juice”...