21 AUG 25

With the cooling air and bunched cover of gray cloud... comes something else too... a little insanity in the house...

Begins simply with Patience reading off endless jokes from her joke book to me while I wash the dishes... she's not stopping either... “What do ghosts use to wash their hair?” // “What?” // “Sham-BOO!”...

...but then Yali discovers a dusting of moss-green mold on some of this week's clementines and something unlocks the crazy in Patience as she crashes towards the bucket of fruit... “CPR!! CPR!!”...

After that it's all yelling (due partly to their mutual hearing loss) and running around the house and evil villain laughter and shoving each other around and imitating sirens and asking me to play “The Final Countdown” in one unhinged display of clown town...

Maybe it's not the air though... maybe it's just the knowledge that Oxbear is about to return from another business trip and that can sometimes inspire temporary madness in children aged twelve and under...

Attempt to inspire some calm before leaving for the airport... “Now guys... Dad is going to be landing in about... Yali... is that a dragonfly wing in your mouth?” // **guilty grin** “Cicada”...

Around one o'clock Oxbear hustles down Terminal 1 to greet us... kids are suddenly strangely peaceful... stop at QT for a fuel-up and each kid gets to pick out a bag of chips... quietest they've been all week munching in the back all the way home...