30 JAN 26

Day ten as a new recruit for Puck opens with a case of wanton murder in the living room... King Cheese has found... and destroyed... and it isn't pleasant... Puck has always suspected that his cat is a small part psychopath... or maybe he's just offering sacrifices to the powers that be to bring his boy home...

Also someone has cracked another window shade with no one admitting... of course that might have been the cat too...

Meanwhile the dog has joined this party by sniffing out apparently an entire fossilized croissant under the couch finishing off this unexpected breakfast by licking cream cheese off also somehow Patience's tablet...

“Guys let's get some flashcards started...” // “NOOOOOO!” both kids wail as Yali begins repeatedly whacking Patience over the head with a hefty roll of unopened Christmas green wrapping paper in protest...

But things start rolling anyway and the rest of the morning into the afternoon is the usual piñata of reading Harry Potter with all the voices and washing dishes and pouting over division flashcards and cacti inspections and repairing ruffles on Patience's fancy Irish dance dress for resale and realizing the backside of the front door looks a little like the surface of the moon from certain angles after all of Yali's recent lunge practice with his fencing saber...

Skipping over to Patience's private lesson at the studio for an hour while the boys are busy repairing the tiny sewing machine from Aldi for more projects...

And Patience... bummed about missing her oldest bro's thirty second phone call the previous night... is feeling chatty about him on the drive home... “Do you think he'll look different when we see him again?” // “Probably some... apparently he might be even slimmer from all the PT and stuff...” // Patience contemplates this for a moment... “Imagine him coming back looking like a pretzel stick!”...

As Patience and I walk back in the door with my usual load of books and now crocheting supplies with a roll of garnet yarn... “Oh you're crocheting again?” Oxbear wants to know... “Can you make us toys?”...

Then while the three of them bounce over to Chesterfield to check in Yali's pinewood derby car for Saturday morning...

...I meet up with siblings in Pevely for Door Dash'd Steak 'n Shake and “The Middle” and Big A does a little research on pool tables and puts away the chickens as a short lacy snow begins to fall...