February 20th, 2025
Dreams... crafting extended mixed media art collage installation at a local grade school...
Temperature at zero... negative eleven windchill before nine o'clock...
After all the illness, a holiday, and the snow days... return to active studies... beginning with a reading of “Sarah Morton's Day : A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl” (one of my favorites as a kid) during breakfast...
Eight-thirty the water pressure stops completely... water company calls about fifteen minutes later... emergency water main break... repairs might take eight hours they say... a crew of vehicles and repairmen congregate at the four-way stop at the back of our hedge...
Yali sits with me for creative writing, opening his Mead notebook... “Mom, can you look up a picture of a perfect lasagna on your laptop first?” // “Okay... why do you need to see a perfect lasagna?” // “Because when I look up pictures of food, then I can start working”...
On break, Patience experiments in the kitchen with apple wedges and sugar and honey... of course there's no water to wash off the sticky...
Water coughs back unexpectedly at ten-thirty... surging erratically as watery explosions through the pipes... eventually calms...
Yali and Patience begin their afternoon by jumping out into the snow for all of twenty minutes before returning indoors...
Yali then pours himself a glass of milk for himself, and shortly later knocks it all over the living room floor... takes a suspiciously longer time than it should take anyone to clean it up...
After Patience's violin lesson... more snow play for both happy kids before returning inside for some kind of screaming dance party while I drive Puck to work (we're still at two vehicles lately)...
Driving back to the studio... sit on the parking lot for ninety minutes with a hot fish sandwich working on lists... always lists... usually for things the kids are asking about like upholstery needles and ingredients to make cornbread from scratch, ski equipment rentals, etc.
And back out once more in a snow crunch to pick up Puck from work later that night for another Taco Bell run (he's obsessed)... while he tucks into a Doritos Locos Taco, discuss various appetizing topics such as parasites, tapeworms, and dead armadillos