16 APR 26

Patience is cracking open a box of queso dip to accompany tortilla chips that morning... they would have been loaded but “someone” left the guacamole and sour cream out all night... “That’s not breakfast...” I tell her... // “Oh PLEASE!”... pause... can’t be much odder than the Colombians drinking hot chocolate melted over cheese to start their day so... “Fine fine”...

Yali meanwhile is whirling in careful poses around the living room... battle staff in one hand... metal garbage can lid studded with nails in the other... every movement is chosen carefully...

Add some reflective oboe concertos on Spotify before the school-groans begin over Ranges and Modes and Supply-and-Demand...

A few hours later after slinging together the usual luncheon smorgasbord of chicken-noodle-soup-ramen-tacos-mandarin-orange-chicken and sugar snap peas...

Patience is quietly painting with her cousin down south in a sunny corner of her aunt’s living room... there are addicting homemade scones prepared by Linnea-Irish... and there’s water play waiting in the front yard...

So while I sit inside with readings on Postmortem Opportunity and some boom-and-rattle from the local quarry while Little G naps upstairs... Patience and Little A chat with the neighbor kids across the street who introduce them to a recently adopted house spider named Coconut...

And by four o’clock I’m slipping into a post-scone stupor driving Patience back home for the studio while the boys split ways for fencing and the gym and another elders meeting at church... Patience watching “Peter Rabbit” from the seat behind me... too-soon summer thatch-and-glow of late sun and tree colors... greens and corn-yellow and mottled sepia...

It’s after nine o’clock... scold Yali away from puff-painting one of his many Spiderman suits and into bed... as Puck comes crashing through the door with a free table scavenged off the end of some driveway... ever and always dumpster-diving...