February 26th, 2025
Dreams... evolution of a clementine from seeds to trees spilling over with juicy fruit, clusters of orange hanging from trellises in the old school's carpool lane...
Patience has also been dreaming... as I tap her on the back to wake her she declares that I spoiled scuba diving in an iceberg cave...
A short time later Patience is crabbing her way through fractions before I cart both herself and Yali to volunteering sessions under mild gray skies...
Yali hasn't been back at the old school in about a year and suspiciously watches students walking back and forth while I sort papers and receive texts from Sally on the sibling group chat : snapshots of old wagon trail ruts as seen through lidar imaging from the Nebraska State Historical Society and old chunks of turquoise she found in her farmhouse... until an old pal from Yali's Jr. K class gives him a wave and a, “Hey, Yali!” as do former teachers around the building... he melts back into smiles and starts sharing an imaginative story with me about “saving the 8th dimension”... after awhile – perhaps aware that the unopened Ziploc of Harry Potter minifigs he brought with him might be just a little too nerdy for this environment – he instead decides to play Trap Adventure 2 on my phone, giggling as he is repeatedly crushed by a “giant chocolate ball” in a brick maze... he's feeling pretty good... “Mom, can we have grilled cheese for lunch?”
Patience then closes her teaching sessions at the end of the hour with hugs from tiny tots leaving for carpool...
Back home... Oxbear's plane has landed and he Ubers back to squishing hugs from the kids before returning to his desk to design a pack of picture frames for my ghosts prints...
Meanwhile I give Patience a violin lesson – while she chats on and on about her next goal : to become a contortionist (“impossible” Puck tells her) – and print stacks of tax forms before driving Puck to work and then back to the studio for another class...
While we drive... Patience wants to discuss the time I went horseback riding in a sleet storm in Iceland and how the only fruits she still likes are pineapples and strawberries...
While we're gone, Oxbear and Yali prepare to leave for the Blue and Gold Ceremony in Chesterfield after delivering a box of Chinese knickknacks to Mom for an upcoming trivia night...
Stop at Schnucks on the way home for lettuce and tomato... my son the greengrocer wheels out a cart of fresh tomato-on-the-vine and we consult for the best options...
Home in a brush of late orange-aqua-mauve lights balanced just under a hazy Venus to a potently sour smell emitting from the basement... text Oxbear to see what project they had been working on down there... “Had to melt some plastic... Sorry...”
After all the boys return later that night, I prepare that BLT for Puck while we discuss cream soda, the moon landing, and my first memory from when I was two : picking up pieces of pastel circle confetti off a wet street at my uncle's wedding after it rained (Puck doesn't believe me... “No one has memories from that young”)...
Kids in their bunks, switch on Jeopardy while stitching an upgraded buckle to Puck's travel pack per his request... he later approves of the needlework...