71 : Throw Away More

There it was. The first brown recluse sighting of our continued gutting-the-house-of-junk week. Bound to be a few more of those over the next few days. It’s not a good time until a brown recluse joins the party.

So while the boys enjoyed another day out at the Big House, Oxbear and I went back to work, chucking more and more trash into the garage for a future waiting dumpster.

I usually prefer to work in quiet myself, but Oxbear decided to spend a few hours listening to an audiobook exploring all the advantages of not wearing shoes. Yuck.

We paused about mid-day to load up the car with more donations for Goodwill.

“I’ll go get you a treat,” Oxbear suggested before he left. “Cake pop? Fish?”

“Fish?”

“Sure.”

I actually did take him up on that fish offer, which came back in the form of a sandwich, just in time to finish before the boys returned for Yali’s next speech therapy appointment in our living room.

A little while later, I asked Puck if he was looking forward to Shakespeare in the Park on Friday night.

“Yes, I like Shakespeare. It’s pretty boring. So then I can fall asleep in style in a blanket all to myself.”

I knew there had to be something enticing him down there every year. Sure, it could also partially be the hoards of Trader Joe’s snacks we cart over to enjoy before the performance. But it certainly wasn’t any “To be, or not to be”s, and it definitely wasn’t any “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”s.

Meanwhile, I had brushed down Yali’s hair before his appointment. The black locks get a little crazy sometimes. So I slicked them over to the side with a brush and a little water. Afterwards, Puck was beside himself with the results.

“YOUR HAIR LOOKS SO CUTE, YALI! You look like a rich kid who goes to school!”

The dinner hour had arrived. While all the boys went to town on sandwiches, apples, and cucumbers, there was also a heavy side of wolf howls, mooing, raucous giggling, and sandwich eating competitions.

“I win!” Puck declared, holding up two “V”s for victory.