January 13th, 2025
6.9 earthquake off the coast of Miyazaki, Japan... Earth's been rockin' and rollin' lately...
Oxbear stuck in back-to-back video calls and workshops all day...
Sitting down to a little pre-algebra with the kids that morning – feeling like pushing abstract math on younger grade school students is next to a crime; Yali agrees – eventually we move back to the realm of more applied mathematics (because most 9 year-olds regularly deal in change)...
“Patience, do you remember what a half dollar is?”
“Uh... you rip a dollar in half?”
Yali is meanwhile distracted by his “Harry Potter” scar that never fully disappeared from the small gash on his forehead when we met him, which somehow leads to him and Patience challenging each other to see who can draw “the world's smallest '3'” in the margins of their work sheets, which somehow leads to more fights...
Then all remaining focus for the morning is quickly lost to the other side of the universe as big brother walks upstairs from the treadmill...
“I need to only be eating meats, eggs, rice, vegetables, and milk now,” he informs me...
While Patience is busy asking if cardboard can be used as a snow sled, if I can order her a bottle of strawberry perfume, and if I think her new half-ponytail is looking “cute”...
Puck is now actively searching for obscure vehicles on the recommended used car site from his Uncle Elmer, showing us random options, which lasts for awhile before he leaves the room...
“No, Puck! Stay in here so we don't have to do math!” Patience calls after him...
Puck returns... because he's hungry and wants an early lunch... Patience offers to make him a plate of scrambled eggs and leaves for the kitchen...
“Make sure to put some love in it!” Yali calls after her, laughing at his own joke...
“Eggs are in the pan!” Patience announces from the stove...
“I'm not eating that,” Puck assures her. “I'm not eating anything she cooks until she reaches double digits.”
“I know what one hundred plus one hundred is!” Patience protests, as if her math skills are what Puck is referring to...
“In the end”... Puck contracts an exchange, to read five pages of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone” to the kids while I craft him a plate of thinly sliced smoked pork loin, eggs with a little salt and pepper, and grilled red bell pepper... maybe when Patience turns ten in nine months, he'll consider the cuisine as up to standard...
Puck hits his home gym after lunch...
Kids get a thirty-minute snow break with the saucer sled...
Out to South County for Patience's appointment...
Kids fight all the way home...
Submit Yali's and Patience's artistic interpretations of Arturo Márquez's “Conga del Fuego” online to the St. Louis Symphony's annual “Picture the Music” contest...
Puck is anxious to check out Dad's old weight set in the basement at the Big House... convinces me to drive him and the kids in the minivan out there late afternoon... back on the road...
While we're at the Big House, “Grandma” is serving leftover sausage and chickpea stew... all the kids gobble bowlfuls with cheesy bread on the side while Puck hauls up 50 year-old bars and weights from when my dad was in high school... old family stories swapped in the kitchen until we leave just around dark in a low ombre glow of orange across the river in the west...