Brake time

Yali and Patience in bright plaids and horse prints on orange fields coughing and snorting through the morning service like half the congregation in the season of Midwest allergies...

It's also Oxbear's first Sunday serving as church elder... Yali and Patience watch in captivation as he follows along behind Rev. K with the plate of wine... no spills, no misses... he is congratulated an amazing number of times afterwards for his service by various members of the congregation...

Then join the ESL Bible study down the hall for our first time... meeting with fellow members from our joint Chinese church and a guy from Mexico launching a local Spanish-speaking mission... discussing in detail Jesus' words against the Pharisees...

Back home with a box of Tony's Donuts... whole family finally hits the brakes in the afternoon after another busy week...

...Oxbear and the younglings watch “Karate Kid II”...

...as Yali cleans up another bloody nose and borrows my tweezers to feed grubs to his snake...

...Puck returns for another four-hour work shift from John's after bowling the previous night followed by another splurge for his buddies... “I uh... lost a bet... one of the guys got three strikes in a row so I bought Cane's for everyone”... then pulls up my laptop to order himself a set of Fallout pins because he is still a top Fallout collector...

...and Patience pulls out a box of cornbread mix... she's been planning to make it for awhile and figures it out for herself in the kitchen...

Pick Puck up from work later that night...haunting cello and harp from the radio... velvet ripples of cloud washing the sky in rose and lavender... closing drape of dark cloud in the west...

Quiet times are good times...