May 17th

Slowing things down a little...

After Patience spends two hours at the studio – half the stoplights still out on the drive there...

...and Puck has returned for a six-hour work shift...

It's a cool sunny afternoon and the rest of us drive east to the small towns of Illinois...

...find a little park in Smithton with its one token Chinese restaurant and one Mexican restaurant... kids scooting pumice gravel along the little path edged by St. John's Catholic cemetery and rolling farmland... fields and crops in yellows and greens...

Stop by Dairy Queen on the way back... splitting chicken strips baskets while Oxbear and I discuss a library of topics...

Pick Puck up from work at eight o'clock eating a Snickers bar... “This is all I've eaten today” he says between mouthfuls... then hurries inside to piece together his cat's newly arrived deluxe litter box before hopping online to game with friends... and a sack of his own Dairy Queen because he's got a good dad...

Young ones asleep... Oxbear and I return to season 2 of “Andor”... the artisanal edition of “Star Wars”...