21 DEC 25

A cold morning waits...

...rolling out the door to church... cold slices of pizza for the short road... my sweater still smells of woodsmoke... Yali wrapping his knuckles in masking tape like a boxer for no very clear reason... Oxbear teases Patience about 3D-printing his face onto medallions for her to wear as earrings... her face wrinkles in weirdness... “Yuck!”... Oxbear laughs...

Home from the service... Yali is a wild flashing ball of energy and gulping drinks and pirate-pounding fists on the card table which he lifted up the stairs carrying it like a giant gladiator shield yelling over the earbuds in his ears...

...to join Oxbear and Patience for a game of Magical Kitties where Patience names her mystical cat character “Lady Pinto Beans”...

Then Oxbear and Patience leave for shopping... and while I address a stack of work from my laptop...

...Yali is a buzzing inspiration of duct tape and chains and screaming electric guitar and a red bandana wrapped around his head...

...which means I pause for rounds of free-handing one of these guitars onto cardboard with a Sharpie and cutting out several layers of them for Yali to glue together and paint and add elastic strings with Oxbear's artistic assistance several hours later...

“Mom! On a scale of one to ten how COOL do I look?!”...