25 JUL 25
Patience and I are at Target early that morning... Patience has shopping to do for her “first feis buddy” which includes things like Jolly Ranchers and Tootsie Pops and poster-making supplies...
At home Puck is attempting to replace the brake light in “Presley” but the connection has rusted out...
Inside... Oxbear pauses from meetings to give “rides” to Yali and Patience in the jumbo Amazon tote bag that was left on our front doorstep and never picked up again... hear them laughing from down the hall until Oxbear says loudly... “Well I messed that one up!”... Patience returns several minutes later holding a wad of her own shiny black hair in her hand... “I caught her hair in the zipper” Oxbear explains... “And he scissored it out!” Patience adds triumphantly...
Meanwhile Yali and I are leaving for the YMCA in Fenton to meet one of Yali's best friends and his grandpa at the big swimming complex for a few hours... the boys get busy joking around with each other and discussing VR experiences while the adults fill out paperwork and Yali's friend's grandpa chats more about the 170+ year-old graves he's still trying to find on his property...
Back home Puck is out in the heat beating more dried yard waste onto a bonfire high in flame... sucking on a caramel apple pop grumbling about yard waste and heat like a geezer... “Wanna come out and see the fire?” he urges from the door and grins... “It's pretty!”
Back to Fenton to grab Yali... baked in sun and splashed in water and wanting to go back again soon... as Yali's friend's grandpa comments on how low Yali's voice has dropped this summer...
Home once again where Puck is gone to Produce and Yali is dropped at the door and Patience takes his place back up to the studio for a private lesson and a poster-making session and helping out with a “mock feis” to prepare the first-feisers for Saturday...
Oxbear then drives Yali out to St. Peters for an overnight at Nana's and Papa's...
...while Mama takes “a few” to knock back some thin crust pizza and an episode of “Frasier” before grabbing more kids from more things in a heat index that still can't sink lower than 104 by eight o'clock...