February 7th, 2025

Trying to scoot Patience out to math class that morning...“Okay...” she nods... “Just one thing I want to ask... when can I have my first kiss?” **giggle giggle** ...let Oxbear handle that one...

The rest of the morning and afternoon are mostly a loud blur of cleaning that couldn't be done earlier in the week and – of course – math... always too much math...

Yali finds time for the Great Outdoors – cold and gray as it is – with a pack of G.I. Joes in the mid-afternoon... they are soon soaking in a cold soup of mud and water in a hole in the yard that has never been refilled since the last time Yali decided to bathe his armada of dinosaurs...

Meanwhile Puck is preparing to leave for J's to hang out for the evening... modeling a new olive military-style jacket in the mail...

Shortly later Patience and I return to the studio for her private lesson... gives me time to work on some studies (e.g. learning for the first time that Hernando De Soto explored as far north as Tennessee in the 1540s)...

...she then stays another half hour or so to stand as a model for a wig tutorial for some of the newer students...

Return to 3D-printed Stormtrooper helmets drying on the patio table smelling potently of glue... faux moss sprinkled all over the kitchen island... black paint washed all over the dishes sitting in the sink... Yali has been busy...

Sally, Francis, and Irish congregate for Friday night movie night... bratwurst on the smoker... an hour or so discussing things like 3D printers and parenting philosophies... then with ice cream cones watch documentaries on Australian truck drivers and life in Tanzania (with all the usual goofy commentary) till about eleven o'clock...