07 NOV 25

Kids are shuttled west and south by ten o'clock that morning...

...Patience as paid companion for young master R...

...then shoot down through the Ozarks with Yali to drop him off with a buddy celebrating his 11th birthday... Rip Van Winkle hills glowing in lanterns of all those rich fire colors...

...and the oldest goon not to be forgotten... Puck requests a bag of Hardee's and an orange juice from one of the few remaining establishments in the area on my drive back... all punks pleased...

At home in the afternoon the fallen tree from the spring is still being slowly sawed apart and moved from the yard...

...while Patience begins mixing a bowl of edible cookie dough from scratch... she's been thinking about that recipe for awhile... before I truck her over to the studio for a private lesson...

And Oxbear deals with camping equipment and Panda Express and grabbing Yali from Byrnes Mill...

Driving south again after six o'clock for homemade pizzas prepared by Big A where two nieces excited for company are gradually and somewhat reluctantly eased up the stairs by their parents von Trapp style towards bedtime...

And so-called movie night which has recently become Scattergories-night... instead morphs once more this time into old-person night as Sally cracks open the local paper to read aloud which eventually slides into discussion on the fundamental differences between the Protestants and Orthodox... or as Big A was quoted to have said three hours later... “As soon as you guys brought up theology I just knew we weren't going to play Scattergories”...