16 DEC 25

Yali and Patience both find themselves wearing capybara themed tees that morning as they join the table for mixed numbers and a brief study on “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”...

...interrupted “only” by a round of Cards Against Humanity (family edition) with parents after fights broke out over fractions... moods are lifted...

Puck walks past later on his way to the basement for a work-out... wrestles Patience's tablet from her hands to answer questions on her Spanish lesson... “NOOOO!” Patience wails dramatically... “You'll RUIN it!”...

It's already afternoon and classes are still going... but there's another pause for another round of cards at lunch as both kids scribble scribble across their spelling pages to finish as fast as they can before joining the game...

“Yali... slow down so your sister can catch up...”

“Do I need to get her a bottle of ketchup?” **slaps hand against his forehead** “Oh man... why am I so funny?”...

Puck isn't interested in joining for cards but he's interested in the opportunity of second lunch as he scratches his cat's nose with the handmade walnut-on-a-stick backscratcher we bought at a monastery gift shop in Indiana six years ago and has inexplicably remained intact all this time...

“He just sits there and lets you scrub his nose with that?”...

“He's changed...” Puck explains... “He's an old man now”...

After yet more cards and more food and more festive music...

Patience is back clacking it up at the studio again for two hours in a night a little less frosty nine days from Christmas...