April 27th
Open the window shades that morning to two more trees planted in the neighbor's yard across the street... either he's progressively layering up his own little Eden over there or... those two trees are suspiciously positioned to eventually block the view of our very dead and limb-shorn oak peeling swathes of bark into our yard... the same Porsche-driving-lawyer-perpetually-shirtless neighbor who two days ago could be seen flat on his stomach in his lawn inspecting – what seemed to be – the height of the grass...
Out in a cold drip of rain to church... sparsely gathered... maybe from cold... maybe from colds...
Yali zips to Sunday School solo that morning to join the gang waiting for Mr. M's prepared lesson...
...while I – short of available Bible studies that morning – spend some time texting back-and-forth with Oxbear about a couple of TikToks discussing the theological layers of Jesus' love/forgiveness...
As Yali returns in a high mood from class... home for fat homemade breakfast burritos and wedges of juicy orange for the boys...
...while Patience prepares to compete a second day in Tahlequah with her dad, Aunt K, and Nana as audience... resulting in another pack of 2nd place finishes leaving her with a total of nine 2nd place medals and sashes from the weekend...
Early in the afternoon Yali and cousin Ju meet up at the Big House for some serious Nerf wars in the back yard... two kids in red hoodies chasing each other around with gatling guns...
While inside the house B monitors live online auctions where things like garden gates inexplicably sell for four hundred dollars and stoneware jugs for three hundred... and little R speed-runs around the house clutching a flaxseed muffin in one hand...
Back in St. Louis county while Puck is beginning a quick four-hour shift carting out pineapples from the cooler... Yali and I pick up some fun food for the evening which we enjoy with a few episodes of Richard Ayoade being very Richard Ayoade in episodes of “Travel Man”...
The whole family is back together again after eight o'clock... kids tucked late into bed...
…and Mama scooches aside piles of 3D prints, dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, Xbox controllers, scissors, tape, work gloves, cardboard scraps, and drawing pads off the couch to repaint some abused nails from all the hot-gluing that week... as Puck spills cat food all over the top of the stove... “Oops...”