It's a Process

Had heaping plates of colorful stir fry for dinner with Joe Kelly and Shelby Miller. Joe Kelly had made the stir fry, and I actually liked it.

My dreams are clearly starting to get a little out of hand.

Puck scrambled outside with his buddies as two o’clock came around, a group of them looking for trouble, wandering past three utility men all re-painting a single fire hydrant bumble bee yellow. No “Fresh Paint” sign. Fortunately I think the kids failed to notice.

Apparently they were hunting trouble though, because I got a handful of tattlers seeking justice about twenty minutes later when some kind of slap-hit-match broke out over a garage ping-pong session gone terribly wrong.

By the time I got down to the bottom of it – and my exposed legs provided healthy feasting for all front yard mosquitoes – all three boys, including a tearful and embarrassed Puck, had plead guilty. All three apologized, and resumed friendship.

Eddie put a thoughtful hand on Puck’s shoulder.

“We almost lost friendship,” Puck said, blinking back tears. “It’s like a chain that was almost broken.”

Eddie nodded, “It’s like a tree that was almost chopped down.”

Ten minutes later they – and about six girls – were all laughing together again, eating popsicles.

Puck tore back outside after dinner. An hour later I heard him bid final farewells to his compadres of the neighborhood. Public school was back in session tomorrow. Already. Whatever happened to going back to school in September?

Puck’s Monthly What-do-You-Want-to-be-When-You-Grow-Up Status:

“I don’t know … Scientist. Ah, no. LEGO MASTER!”