I respond affirmatively to a sweet request for hot chocolate and pancakes. These cool mornings, the door open for Charlie to come in and out and the cool air comes in too. Also, a dipping egg and toast. This is a very cheerful start to the day. Then, Charlie follows me on a walk through the meadow that is all lace. A nice sunshine too. I return home with my walking sticks and the boy sees my sticks and wants some too. So, we go searching for a pair his height before he has to leave with his mother. Then, I work. I work on the 2nd to last poem in the manuscript. By lunchtime, I have accomplished a first draft that I don’t hate. I am meeting with Vanessa today and have a lot to share about the manuscript and my predictable angst. I dash, with one hour to spare, on my bike to the pond, dismount on the beach, swim for twenty minutes and bike home in time to see her! My poems are about swimming so it’s fitting to swim to my session with her. I am so grateful for her consulting, for her validation, for her understanding and encouragement. I’m revived in body and spirit. It’s time for the show. The story we postponed from three weeks ago. It’s a cool day for my wolf costume! The lovely children arrive. We quickly rehearse the script my youngest daughter wrote (it’s Red Riding Hood) and I will have a quick change from big bad wolf to sick grandmother that I will manage in the woods. My older daughter is a fine narrator, and Frank and Will and the parents of Wave’s friends join us too. Franci has spent the morning making a cake from scratch that we will serve after the story. They circle on chairs at the edge of the woods near the garden. I am a big bad wolf. And they get to chase me off after I try to steal Red Ridinghood’s cake––but I am reformed at the end. I am sorry for trying to hog the cake. If I say please I can have a piece. And then we race to the house and the cake is cut and we’re all friends again and there is the garden to play in. Wave’s friend helps me pick tomatoes. I turn on the hose to water and, well, the kids all get wet playing in Wave’s mountain of dirt in the rivers the hose makes and they get quite muddy and giddy and it’s a messy, fun afternoon and we have to order pizza because none of has energy after this day to cook.