11 JUL 25

Patience is already sitting next to me on my bed early that morning providing a detailed report on her ankle blisters...

...while Oxbear hobbles off to an all-day meeting with his boss in O'Fallon...

And there's an army of 186 miniature 3D-printed “pillow buddies” (tiny plastic pillows with arms and legs) in firetruck-red sitting on the dinner table... lined up like centurions preparing for battle...

Meanwhile... as Yali and Patience get back to all the fighting they missed while Yali's ear was throbbing...

Puck returns from J's house for plates of homemade grass-fed cheeseburgers and a side of cucumber stars while gaming online with friends...

Storm clouds packing the west but not doing much...

Yali and Patience are sitting in the scorcher of a bright heat at the patio table sucking down push-pops while discussing individual techniques on getting water out of their ears... most of these methods involve lots of stomping...

Before I drive Puck to work...

...Yali is requesting Youtube... “Mom... can you look up someone being eaten by a T-Rex?”

Meanwhile the dog's face is covered in dribbles of mud... she stares innocently up at me... Yali also claims ignorance...

After Oxbear returns from his long-long meeting for another long meeting online...

Patience to the studio in a stale heat for another private dance lesson... those big puffs of whites in the summer blue...

Movie night is in Pevely that evening... five adults sharing Domino's and gooey butter cookies with Alfred Hitchcock and Scattergories where pressing topics of discussion emerge such as... “Do tornadoes 'fly'?” or... “Does one technically 'grow' old cheese?”... while Sally sets up her phone to monitor the spy cam directed at her chicken coop... hoping to blind unsuspecting raccoons with some kind of turbo floodlight if they attempt entry...

Driving home... blue and gold lightning zapping the north riding over a haloed moon...