20 SEP 25

Puck is up in the six o'clock hour asking for breakfast... Mr. Prepared doesn't have to report to his first Army drill in Festus until nine o'clock but he's ready well-early...

Throw out plates of scrambled eggs and toast to the tribe as Yali and Patience begin morning projects before Puck zooms south to new adventures...

Patience at the studio for two hours... sun is almost tropical but there are shades of rain-blue in the west...

While Oxbear is flying north to Seoul...

..a witch-wind suddenly strikes the neighborhood rolling through dying trees rattling crunchy grasses... Yali and Patience come crashing back through the kitchen door with a “MOM! MOM! THE WIND PICKED UP THE TABLE OUTSIDE AND IT ALL BLEW OVER AND BROKE!”...

Indeed... the large canvas table-umbrella had been opened and lifted by the wind slamming the whole patio table into the ground... breaking the umbrella and shattering three of the table tiles... everything breaks sometime...

As I re-piece what remains... Yali and Patience are busy tumbling around on... were those my couch cushions spread out in the grass?... yes... yes they were... thunder growling low in the east in a cooling wind... happy (I imagine) birdsong anticipating rainfall... dog snacking on the natural flora as she will do...

Surprise pick-up by Nana mid-afternoon... Yali and Patience leave for what later becomes burgers and homemade lemon squares...

...just before the west fills with a rattle of blue thunder... and finally... finally... that old forgotten rain patter on parched earth...

Puck coasts back at the dinner hour after PT tests and M.R.E.'s and too much instruction for an E-1 recruit to remember so they printed it all out in a fat doll-sized handbook instead... “How many push-ups did you do?” Patience eagerly asks him later... “Ten thousand?” **suppressed grin from big brother** “Somewhere around that”...