No Release

8:43 a.m.

-6 degrees.

No wind.

Slight improvement.

Although two days after impact, neighborhood traffic was still basically non-existent.

“Agh! More dog hair!” I picked another piece of curly black fuzz out of the egg yolk in the frying pan. “How is that possible? I just cracked it!”

Dog hair and I do not get along. My relationship with dog hair is even worse than my relationship with cat hair.

“We will never own a dog,” I explained to the boys watching me from the counter. “Sorry, Sebastian.”

“I will though!” Puck declared with a huge grin.

“As long as you don’t bring him over to my house.”

“But I WILLLLLL! And he will SHRED over EEEEVERYTHING! Everything! Everything! The WHOLE HOUSE will be in SHRED!”

He popped on a pair of lensless 3-D glasses while he ate breakfast. I don’t know why. And waved off El Oso and Joe (who was hitching a ride because of the still-sloppy roads; he got stuck two times on the way over).

Two appliance men arrived halfway through Puck’s writing lesson. The clothes dryer needed a repair. I fixed a box of macaroni and cheese while they tinkered in the basement.

“So much to do, so much to do …” Puck wandered out of the living room after lunch. He returned a minute later. “Ah! So much to do! So much to do!”

“What do you have to do, bud?”

“I have to give everyone a copy of something they like,” he explained. “Frogs for Onion, bombs for Francis … is it okay if he shares cats with Uncle Joe and Aunt Kaya?”

Then the live cat come up from the cold tundra of the basement, seeking warmth. She snuggled up next to Puck as if to butter him up into letting her stay, but because it’s against policy, Puck sadly returned her to the basement, and didn’t stay himself.

“It’s cold,” he explained. “Cold as a magpie.”