18 NOV 25

Justin the snake is playing with his breakfast again that morning... sometimes he lets the worms crawl off and dig themselves into his soil-filled food bowl and then they're wasted after drying out in the heat of the tank... but I don't have time to sit there and watch him mess around with his food before pulling them back out to refrigerate for later... “Justin! I'm going to take back the worms if you don't...” Justin immediately snaps his head towards me... turns... lunges for one of the worms... “Okay... good boy...”

Back to preparing for the day... Patience and I have a date in Pevely to hang out with Linnea's baby girls for a few hours...

...while Yali is on a mildly tempered rampage about his package of missing Reese's Pieces... he assumes his sister... “I demand a RECALL for PATIENCE!” he thunders... “Yali... you left them on the floor by the TV”... “Oh”... all is well again...

Driving south through silk-washed sun and cloud arrangements in the sky... burnt colors of the hills in oranges and reds and gold growing deeper as the season increases towards winter...

Two tots in wispy blonde hair dressed in earth tones eagerly throw on shoes to walk the neighborhood with us...

Later Puck calls about Chick-fil-A as little G waves energetically to him through the speakerphone...

...while the girls roll themselves into paint and mulch digging and chicken noodle soup by the end of the lunch hour... fresh clothes and cuddly blankets and story books for nap time...

Kick back north as Puck sends a reminder text about the Chick-fil-A... “I implore you”...

The rest of the afternoon quickly plunges into flashcards and hornpipes and 3D-printed cape buttons invented by Oxbear... and nuggets with sauce... as dark falls quickly...