22 DEC 25
Morning breaks in a crack of light across the East... what looks very much like the fissure of space-time in Amy Pond's bedroom wall...
Half an hour later Puck is in the kitchen waiting for his cream cheese bagel sandwich discussing historical adaptive intelligence... “If you brought an ancient Roman boy into today's world... aside from culture shock...” Puck is theorizing...
...around the time Yali walks over to me with a stapled set of fencing terms on paper for his big test that evening... his face is a study in attempted solemnity... “Mom... Patience just stepped on a thumbtack and I tried to keep my laughing in”...
Morning is work-heavy with all those projects that don't get done during the semester... like finally digitizing Patience's orphanage photo album where we discover captions written in Mandarin on the backs of each photo... “Uh... Patience? You might be a couple of weeks older than we thought...”
Patience is sort of intrigued by the idea that she was born in a different month and gets busy cutting out goldfish from a painted strip of brilliant oranges for her art submission due next month... she's wearing a trash bag as an artist's apron after so much of her wardrobe has been irrevocably painted over in past art sessions...
“Yali?” I call him up from the basement where he's still studying... “I need you back here to clean up all your cardboard shreds from yesterday...”
“Okay Mom... but I just need to take a break cause that fencing stuff was a little bit painful... hey! I want a trash bag t-shirt too!”...
He pulls a couple of trash bags from the kitchen and wedges himself through them which ultimately results in him clawing his hands slowly through the layers of plastic like an Orc emerging from the bowels of Middle Earth... “AHHHHHHGH!... Look how cool this looks Mom!... AHHHHHHGH!”... a few minutes later he runs back through the living room with a tin foil cap smashed on his head as well... “NOW ALIENS CAN'T READ MY MIND!”...
“Why are you wearing a trash bag?” Puck stares at him with a face that clearly reads why-are-my-siblings-always-so-stupid?... “Let's throw you out"...
“HAHAHAHA!” Yali careens out of the room probably still wearing the tin foil cap...
It's after dark... Mama's tired from everyone complaining about everything from God to blood oranges... for some reason decides that watching a debate between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali would be more relaxing...
...while Yali is in St. Charles County testing for his Buccaneer's fencing certification... he returns a couple of hours later with a signed and wax-sealed certificate and a proud confidence in his blade skills...
“Sharks are real, right?”
– Patience X. Silverspoon