74 : A Walking Summer

Mom took the boys on another walk at the Big House that morning while Carrie-Bri and I got back to podcasting. I have a feeling these boys are going to thrive on a steady diet of walks all summer long. Until the heat reaches 100, that is, which is sure to come sometime before the school year resumes. Yali relaxed in his stroller for the whole ride with a tiny dinosaur and rubber pickle slices for company.

Back in the kitchen under gray skies, a loaf of fresh Filipino puto bread sat in the pantry. That was a taste of early childhood. Grandma introduced us to the soft, sweet bread when I was probably no more than eight. Instant favorite.

Early that afternoon on the drive home, Puck put a self-written riddle to me.

“Hey, Mom. How do you start a fire with two sticks and fourteen trillion twigs?”

“I don’t know. How do you start a fire with two sticks and fourteen trillion twigs?”

“You rub the two sticks together until they start a fire; then you toss them on the fourteen trillion twigs.”

Another two-walk day sent us around the neighborhood in a very quiet, gray afternoon. Puck splashed through puddles on his bike, “Like a boat!” he told me, leaving a wake of garden hose water behind him. And eventually he shaved down his original request from “Four walks!” to only one.

At dinner, I read Ecclesiastes Chapter One to the boys. Yali just talked to himself and worked on a large baby carrot, puffing it like a cigar. But Puck had his own thoughts to contribute.

“So life is like a circle,” he concluded.

Movie Night coincided with National Donut Day. This meant a dozen fat ones waited on the coffee table for Francis’ perusal.

“Yis,” was his one comment when he learned of the bounty.

It was a small group: just Carrie-Bri, Francis, and Bing English. Elmer and Jaya were busy gutting the kitchen in their “new” house, Rose was taking a mini vacation in Portland, Maine, and Irish was working another shift at Dillard’s.

So we ended up laughing through the oddity British humor of David Tennant as an awkward Anglican driving instructor in “Learners”.