Heat does stuff to people
It's hot...
Patience is at the studio for three hours that morning assistant-teaching a very full camp for first-time Irish dancers...
Meanwhile Puck is at home wondering if he should try to replace the door handle in Presley... but he hates the heat... he hates the heat a lot... sticks his head out the kitchen door... “Huh... it's not too bad”... shoots another rubberband at his brother then brings out a pack of tools to begin dismantling the car door...
Pick up Patience from the studio who lays out the full 411 on all the “naughty happenings” in the class... little girls running around screaming and doing all the things they were told not to do in the class rules before camp started... “And some of them starting KISSING the MIRROR! right after Miss E told them not to touch the mirror! And then when the... the... well... when one of the bad girls' dads came to pick her up and he asked her to say sorry... she said NO!”...
Back home after meatballs and carrots sticks and Oxbear and Patience leaving for a joint play therapy session...
Puck is back out yelling at his car... “NOOOO!... NO!”... heat index is climbing... way past 100...
Yali meanwhile is asking me for a chocolate bar which quickly transforms into an “I HATE EVERYTHING!” moment when I tell him “not now”...
The heat does things to people...
The majority of the next three hours are spent in the carport with Puck and an oscillating fan and a prolificity of rage-exclamations towards the inner workings of a fifty year-old car door until... he looks up at me with a grease-smeared face of revelation to declare...”Hey! I'm doing mechanic things!”...
At the end of it all... the door handle is installed only to discover that whatever latches it into the labyrinth of the interior is either not there or is broken... so he puts everything back... no screws leftover... and then concludes... “It wasn't for nothing I guess... I learned some stuff... and I did it in a 115 degree heat index!”... carry on...
Bowls of crispy beef and potatoes... “Malcolm in the Middle”... Puck leaves to hang out with buddy J... kids into bed... Yali still yelling out JAWS scenes from his bunk bed under star field ceiling... painted bands of raspberry and peach out west...