March 18th, 2025
Yali walks into the kitchen that morning where I'm assembly-lining plates of eggs and toast... “Can't we ever get something interesting?” he sighs... five minutes later he's shoveling down huevos y pan with a thumbs up and a... “I'm sorry I said that, Mom! This is delicious!”
A little Baroque music and a quick read on Mae Louise Miller whose family was still enslaved in Mississippi through 1963... as the kids prepare to leave for a spring break “shopping spree”...
But not before Yali hustles upstairs from his LEGO desk with big-time stories about his minifig characters “Snake” and “Yellowjacket” who have just finished engaging in some kind of old-fashioned saloon-style smackdown or as Yali calls it – “a root beer bar, you know, one of those places where you're really tough and there are people smashing root beers over each other's heads...”
Yali's had it in his mind for weeks – a very specific Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter wardrobe from “The Order of the Phoenix” – so we start at Ditto resale shop and he finds the red shirt, the gray jacket, and – somehow – even a seven-dollar pair of gray Converse in his size... all's left is the dark-wash straight leg jeans which we find later at Target... he is immensely pleased...
After that second stop both kids have their summer wardrobe completed... with some Joyride candies and peel-and-press Olive and June nails in “fairy velvet” for Patience who still has an unused gift card from Christmas...
As I drive the hooligans... the conversation is only mildly combative at intervals... “You smell like... emotional issues...” Yali tells his sister between stores before somewhat-gently putting her in a loving headlock...
Back home... after Patience finishes studying more tape of top Irish dance competitors across various national competitions via Youtube (seems to fascinate her – all that tight zip and snap)...
...both Yali and Patience are picked up by Nana, aunt, and cousins for an afternoon at the Zoo... with temps climbing to 83 before a chill later in the week...
Meanwhile Puck and I finish an extensive conversation regarding science and biblical history and various theological/philosophical concepts while he polishes out the bag of Patience's Joyride “sour blue raspberry strips”...
...before I keep chugging through dishes and laundry and stuff... but there's also a neighborhood walk in that grab bag... a little too warm but pleasantly breezy...
Kids are returned after five o'clock full of ice cream and stories about using walkie-talkies and a seal show...
And back to the studio for a two-hour class in a beautiful lavender balm of evening weather... wind blasting the car, preparing itself for an advisory tomorrow...