Meanwhile... out west

Water randomly shuts off again in the morning... neighborhood street peppered with large trucks and machines... third water main break in two months?

Puck rolls back in before noon on five hours' sleep to change for work annoyed that the shower's out...

A couple hours later the pipes stutter back on as I leave for a library pick-up...

And news rolls in from Oklahoma... a full platter of 2nd places for Patience... but at this level nothing but 1st place counts anymore... good thing for Patience things like eating out at Mexican restaurants and swimming at the hotel help assuage any disappointments...

Meanwhile as I return with books on shorthand and fiction journaling... Yali is heavy into cardboard and scissors attempting to recreate a horror-bunny robot...

While Puck is at work for the next six hours...

...Yali and I drive west for cousins T's and A's joint birthday party with bonfires already smoking... Yali immediately engages in heavy swordplay with a gaggle of kids collectively representing at least four different nations... occasionally pausing to watch a pack of chickens scratch at melon rinds in the dirt... shortly past six o'clock – after I take a rogue plastic sword blade to the lip so hard I have to stop talking (those kids meant business today) – drive home for Yali to attack more cardboard... and a shower... a much-needed shower...