11 OCT 25

Thick mist over the world early that morning... Oxbear gone to a business meeting... returns with a paper sack of breakfast sandwiches to share...

Yali's already busy at the bathroom mirror... applying fake blood cuts and scabs to his face with an old toothbrush... hopefully an old toothbrush... before he throws a load of red-stained costume pieces in the wash... gotta clean up from all those battles...

It's early afternoon... Patience back from the studio as Oxbear and Yali leave to watch a strongman competition in Winfield... Puck slides back over from the Renaissance fair as I begin a pot of mac 'n cheese in the pressure cooker for a bonfire out in O'Fallon...

“Look at what I got” Puck announces opening a flat box filled with crossed Norse cleavers stamped in runes... “That's Greek” he announces when I point to them... “Uh... probably Viking...” // “Same thing” he replies with a smug grin... then asks for extensive assistance to determine where he should hang the blades on his bedroom wall...

Late afternoon Patience and I roll up to the W's bonfire where shoals of kids roll back and forth across the yard between the chickens and the frogs in the pond... intense Nerf wars over adults in conversation...

Sitting with a bowl of mac 'n cheese on the hay wagon while young T jumps up and down on the boards beside us enthusiastically dancing to music in his head... hands out super powers to nearby aunts and uncles... gifting Sally the power of lightning and myself the power of tornado... Francis' is thunder and for Aunt S... “THE POWER OF BEAUTY!”...

Patience is on her second s'more and second hayride as we leave under a bloom of cotton candy cloud for home...