Hello and goodbye

In the post-deluge of a Wednesday... Yali can be seen in a 70-degree Thursday afternoon under steel skies wrapped in heavy Montana-style winter coat over hoodie and pants and shoes... holding the garden hose like a fountain over his head... soaked... and loving it...

There's still time before Patience leaves for dance... we've found a bumblebee stumbling confusedly through a thin mud puddle left in the dip of the old driveway... Patience fishes a small Amazon box out of the recycling bin and layers sweet clover and wild strawberries as bedding... “Her name is Lolli” she decides...

Meanwhile Yali has exchanged the sopping winter attire back indoors for a Santa suit... they chow on homemade cheeseburgers before we leave for the studio...

Back before eight o'clock... poor Lolli the bumble has sadly expired in her box of emerald turf... Yali woefully considers plans for a funeral in the morning barring severe weather... “I want to draw a picture of her” he adds...

He and Patience then take a bedtime phone call from Oxbear before I finish another Beverly Cleary book with them...

...as Puck walks in to argue with me about things like dog shampoo and the Problem of Evil...