April 24th
This time Yali joins me with the hot glue in the morning to see an old classmate... a spunky blonde boy with freckles : "L"... they hang out with me during his class period as L repeatedly asks me to loop hot glue on top of a rectangle of cardboard to let it cool and grow tacky and then drag his fingers through it... “Did you know I was adopted too?” he asks loudly for the second time that week... “I'M IRISH! I'M 100% IRISH! Where are you adopted from, Yali? Is Patience adopted too? Is she Irish?” // "She's Chinese actually" // "WHAT?!"... Yali remains fully entertained throughout the first class period...
Stop by Schnucks driving back for Yali to choose and claim a Lunchable... bravery badge for joining me that morning...
Before Yali cracks into the notebooks after lunch... the three kids join together around the table for discussion (and mostly argument) about things like blood types and fingernails and omniscience and free will and Airheads... Patience also trying to bribe her “rich brother” into buying her a pair of Nike shoes... “I'm not going to buy you hundred dollar shoes that you'll grow out of in a year” Puck admonishes her like some well-seasoned parent... then begins feeding cashews to the dog... as Yali attempts to type figures into his calculator while wearing his “Bugles fingers”... and I get hit with a dozen questions from the taxman about all the kids' annual convoluted medical expenses...
It's then Puck to work...
...Oxbear and Yali to a late afternoon appointment in South County...
...And Patience to the studio... steeples of cloud building in the east...
Patience throws open the glass door shortly after seven o'clock squawking out goodbyes to friends as she tosses herself into the car to begin one of her lasts-the-whole-drive-home conversations... starting with a full “tattle” on which of the girls was hogging snacks the most in class that evening and which of the girls' boyfriends don't “go together” right with each other (because apparently guys wearing white t-shirts with curly red hair doesn't “work”)... these Patience-opinions are occasionally interspersed with random comments/questions such as... “Why is there a McDonald's next to a Home Depot? That's a bit sus...” – about this time driving west towards a sky of melting cloud turn up “Clair de Lune” on the radio in attempt to inspire a calming pause for Patience's rapid cavalcade of thoughts popping up like daisies... but she continues – “It smells like baby tomatoes. When are we going to have BLTs next? When can we make cornbread? Cornbread is – like – my favorite. It is SO good...” this is followed by her sharing a detailed recipe involving fruit salad and then... “I feel like storing stuff in your garage is a bad idea, you know? I've been thinking that I want to get a pack of chips and then a pack of waters. And then when I see a homeless person I will give them one bag of chips and one bottle of water...”
That's when we pull into the driveway where Yali – dressed in full Spiderman suit – is yanking on two resistance bands he's anchored to both sides of the trampoline recreating a scene from one of the films where he stops a train with his spiderwebs...
Turn around about fifteen minutes later to grab Puck from work... a few minutes more and he's arguing with Oxbear in the kitchen about whether or not honey “goes bad”...
And finally by eight-thirty... a little quiet...