20 AUG 25
Back to the old school over freshly paved road now finally free of those horrible angry potholes from winter...
The air is new too... cooling... as if from another planet...
Patience spends an hour with tiny tots new and old back in Spanish for another year... she awards each a shiny sticker in exchange for a “gracias” as they line up at the door for lunch...
Back home to the boys with a family-sized box of Cheez-its for Puck who has finished his running program for the day...
Kids immerse in projects throughout the afternoon... Patience in a rainbow of paints and markers preparing a “get well” card for "Miss M" recovering in the ICU over in Virginia...
...and Yali in continued costume production before hauling an armful of dinos to the front yard and the butterfly garden jungle for a bloody soup of prehistoric carnage... after I meet him at the door with the gallon jug of fake blood and 3D-printed funnel to refill the spray bottle for about the seventh time... he leads me to the jungle for yet one more reenactment... poising a dino action figure above another unsuspecting victim in the garden hose rain spray... pauses to look up at me through a mess of black hair dripping in cold water against the afternoon heat... says to me almost eagerly... “I think we all know what the Spinosaurus is going to do”...
Living room filled with 3D prints and art boxes and scraps of shredded clothing for superhero costuming... Patience's clip-on fan overworking to dry an acrylic painting resting on the couch... “Guys I need you to start cleaning up th... why is there a snakeskin on the floor?”... **crickets**...
Later afternoon Patience and I leave for the studio... traffic is so terrible and long on all routes that we spin around through Clayton and drive back home to prepare spaghetti and meatballs for hungry goons...
...and Yali is very busy spray-painting more superhero costume accessories in the basement...
Reading to the kids in their bunks at bedtime... Yali in vigilance from the bedroom window watching for the black rat snake that lives in the backyard...